Overclocking (Main Thread)

You won't find anything until you figure out who the real troublemaker is...!!!

It’s easy enough—boot from a CD with those memory and CPU testing tools... run them through once using the basic default settings.

After a bit, you start poking around and checking everything one by one... seeing how close each component is to its "limit"... because right now, at default, something might just be running right on the edge.

By the way, if you’ve got a modem, those things are notorious for causing random restarts...

Try pulling it out—test the system without it and see what happens.

Good grief! That means it’s basically just a glorified modem! Every single time it restarts, I lose my connection... what am I even supposed to do with this thing?

If you’re absolutely positive it isn't some kind of virus... try swapping out the drivers first.

What kind of modem and chipset are we talking about here?

Windows might have just slapped its generic driver on there—those things can be total disasters. I've seen them tank things like Conexant hardware without breaking a sweat.

So, let me know which modem you're running.

tekComm ISDN card
The drivers are on his CD, and I always struggle just to get them installed...

How much of a struggle is it?

Maybe the error is actually on his end?

So they aren't even that expensive anymore... just buy a different one if it's giving you such a hard time.
You sure you're grabbing the right driver? There are a few different versions out there—they look pretty much identical, aren't they?

Or just try swapping it out with something else until you figure it out... if that's even the issue... though it probably is.

So, here I am... trying to overclock this Athlon 64 3000+, and the whole system just falls apart whenever I push the FSB between 200 and 250.

I’ve basically gone completely off the deep end at this point, pushing things way past their reasonable limits...

And after all that effort, I finally realize the bottleneck isn't even the RAM, the CPU, or the motherboard—nope, turns out it's actually the graphics card.😠

Back when I was running that old 8RDA+ setup, I had my 6800 GT clocked at 410-1110 without a single hiccup. Everything was rock solid....

But on this DF UT LP? It won't stay stable if I go anything above 390-1000.😲

It's not like it's a massive performance gap, but man, it's incredibly frustrating....

I'm going to try bumping up the AGP voltage today, so I'll let you guys know how it goes.😠

So, when things start failing... first the voltages spike, then the clock speeds drop, right?

At least it makes "sense" to me—as long as you watch your temps, you're fine...

Nothing's gonna fry in like, half an hour or an hour...

I mean, my 6800LE ran at 154 degrees while I was gaming... so those cores must be pretty damn tough.

uh ...I remember

my temps at 300/700 are actually ten degrees higher than when I run 1.7V at 350/850 !!!

how? don't ask me... this thing has been weird since day one—but now it's crushing 3D Mark like it's nothing... and honestly, it's performing way better than it should for a 2.3GHz mobile chip !!!

just go ahead and overclock yours....

If this rig had been mine... man, I know how to overclock 😁

I’ve been at this since the legendary days of pushing a Celeron 300A to 450

But here's the thing... my little GPU beast started acting incredibly unstable right after I swapped out the motherboard.

I wasn't entirely sure if I should undervolt the board, so instead, I bumped the vagp up by 0.1. Honestly? It didn't do a damn thing.

My Artic Cooling NV5 mod arrives today—you basically strip off the bottom plastic housing and slap in a 92mm fan. We'll see if that actually makes a difference or if it's just wishful thinking. 😁

The CPU is sitting steady at 2400, memory is running 1:1, CAS 2,5-3-3-11. Once I try to hit 2500, Prime 95 just falls apart.

Memory setup is Corsair 2 x512 3200 C2 rev. 1.2 Platinum.

Motherboard: DFI UT LP - BIOS BETA 10/15

Everything seems fine on paper, except for the fact that the second I crank up the GPU... the whole system just dies. 👎

It crossed my mind to go grab that Ultra BIOS. It would bump the voltages slightly, but the catch is the latencies drop too, and I have a feeling the GT wouldn't play nice with such low timings. 🙄

We'll see how it goes... the OC saga continues. 😁

Here’s a bit of an insane test, but I’ve run it a few times now... and the results are always pretty much the same.
The only real downside is that Seagate 80GB SATA drive... total junk. It's slower than an old 5400 RPM Maxtor, let alone those old ATA 133 80GB Max drives.

Temperatures are identical—for anyone sweating over a couple of degrees... plus there's a 20% difference in transfer speeds.😎

PC Mark 2002... CPU hit 7067... not bad, right?
Mem test... 6612
HDD 1057

Running on an Epox board with a mobile chip at 2.3GHz—11.5x200 (using 2x256 MB Corsair 2 x512 3200 C2 rev)

I honestly can't wrap my head around this CPU score...

It's even weirder that bumping it up to 2.4 GHz actually drops the score by a few hundred points!?...
Someone please try to convince me otherwise... I wouldn't trust anyone else to explain it, but apparently... it's not all about the megaherc.

Dammit! Wish I’d caught this before I finished building the rig. For some reason, the best overclocking tips always fly right over my head. So far, I can report that Prime 95 passes (after 10 hours) at 2.6GHz (13x200) -> basically a standard mobile chip at 2500. Vcore sits around 1.90~1.93. Temps are hitting 38 C -> under full load (running prime) it's about 44 C. All of this is just on air cooling. I tried pushing it to 2.7G with 2.03 volts and it actually works, but there's a catch—I had to use a Delta 80x80x38 double ball bearing fan with over 60 CFM, and UNFORTUNATELY, it hits 53 dB. I had to suck it up and go back to the 92mm Papst and 2.6 GHz.

@ frozenotter6
Huh, weird how your Corsair memory runs fine with such high latencies. Unless you've got some specific value -> Winbond CH5 situation going on. Right now I'm running 2x512 Supertalent (think Xerox RAM -> you wouldn't believe it, but they actually make memory) at 2-3-3-6 @2.6V. When I'm feeling ambitious, I'll try 2-2-2-11 @2.9V to see if performance jumps (honestly, probably just a few percent in the real world).

And yeah, the GPU is the bottleneck. I've got an old 9500pro (BIOS modded to a 9700pro) and I managed to bump it from 276/270 up to 360/310 (thanks to crappy infineon 3.3 memory) using an AC VGA Silencer 3.0, but it won't budge any further. In theory, that's like jumping from a 3650 on Mark03 to 4600. I can run Doom3 on ultrahigh details (1024*768*32 with everything ON except AA). It's a weird "ultrahigh" setting -> it probably detects the card and caps it. Anyone got ideas on how to squeeze more out of this thing? I already tried Zalmanov BGA heat sinks and a fan blowing vertically over them, but that just tanked my performance -> that stupid zalmanov adhesive messes with the heat conduction and the RAM ends up running hotter.

The SATA RAID 0 setup was also a letdown (Sisoft Sandra 2004 sp1 says 77mb/s average s vs 47mb/s)).

I've already mentioned this whole dual HDD thing a few times now

It just doesn't make sense to pair up two slow drives... you're better off with one fast one!!! (That's my take, end of story)

And obviously, grab a 200GB or larger drive just for backups...

Easy for you to say, General.
The drives aren't actually slow (it's just a WD 80JB 8mb SATA). The real headache is the Sillimage 3112 RAID performance. The RAID cluster is 16K, and since I formatted the partition at that exact same size (using magic 8), there’s barely any difference compared to a single SATA drive—at least according to my HD Taco 2.7 tests. Meanwhile, Sandra {the lying bitch} claims there's an 80% difference.

Does anyone know of a solid overclocking utility? I’m using the software that came with my motherboard, and I managed to bump my P3 from 866 megaherc up to 1ghz. So far, the only noticeable difference is in DivX compression speeds. Does anyone have suggestions on what else I could tweak to squeeze out every last bit of performance from this old rig?

Overclocking software inside Windows???? Give me a break. I’ve heard some motherboards support it, but I wouldn't want anything like that even breathing within five miles of my hard drive, regardless of the media. It’s much better to just jump into the BIOS, tinker around until you hit the sweet spot—or fry everything and deal with the headache of a warranty claim, waiting forever for service (especially if you bought it from some bottom-tier discount retailer)—and then try again. Eventually, you get it dialed in and you're good to go. Honestly though, if you really want to skip the drama, just buy a more powerful rig and call it a day.

The delta 350W is basically just built for small desktop builds
vulcano 12
AMD mobile 2500+ @ 2300 (11.5 * 200) -- I guess you could try the 12.5 multiplier too, though it probably wouldn't make much sense, and the vulcano might get way too loud for me, which isn't really what I'm looking for right now
Seagate 7200.7 200GB
2x512 MB RAM pc400

Everything else is pretty old school: a radeon9600pro, an Epox 8rda3i, Live 5.1, and an AL621

🙂

So, Elada is playing favorites now, huh?
Welcome to the club. First things first: every single AMD-XP-M can hit 2.4GHz, so there’s zero reason yours shouldn't. How much did you drop on that Thermaltake cooler? (And don't tell me it was basically two bucks and a half-liter of cheap coffee). Like I mentioned before, I’ve got the top-tier 92 running at 1980RPM => 21dB—basically silent—and that’s after I pushed it up to 2.6GHz myself.
What kind of RAM are we looking at here? (Let me guess, some Kingmax gold-plated BGA garbage?)
I gotta hand it to you, you got lucky with the power supply. Your rig could've easily fried the moment you hit the power button.

Do me a favor and run 3DMark03 (default) so I can see that score.

score :

3dmark2001se: 12400
3dmark2003 : 3400
3dmark2005 : 1400

the GPU is kinda weak (not even an overclocked 😁 )

but I guess that doesn't really matter much..

honestly, I'm still not even totally sure why I picked up the phone 😳 ..it's probably just because they're getting so hard to find lately 😎

PS
I actually ended up with an extra one lying around right now (haven't tested it yet) ..maybe someone might be looking to buy one, do you know anyone? 🙂

Just checking to see if anyone’s interested. (I know a guy who would definitely grab it, but he totaled his car the day before yesterday). Which mobile chip are we talking about here???
In my humble opinion, your CPU cooler just isn't cutting it. I can hit 13x200 with a Pope cooler, but with an 80x80x38 Delta, I can even squeeze out 13.5x200 ;-))) <- air cooling is basically useless. Unfortunately, once I push to 14x200, Windows starts throwing these weird blue screens I've never seen before.

3dmark03=4600 (9500pro)

Regarding coffee, I'm slammed right now since I'm on the afternoon shift, but maybe next week when my schedule flips (if you're free)