Anyone with nForce2 getting high FSB overclocks?

Just curious as to who's getting what and what kit they're using...

I've just changed from passive to active northbridge cooling and added a bigger passive heatsink to the southbridge (I was using an old greenie north bridge heatsink + thermal pad and I've swapped to something slightly bigger with thermal adhesive). Stable so far at 225MHz.

FWIW I've got a A7N8X deluxe, 2 x 512MB Samsung PC3200 and a poor XP1700+ being tortured at 1.9V / 9.5 x 225 (RAM @ 100% / 225MHz / 2.5-3-3-11 / 2.8V)

Anyone else bothering to go over 200MHz FSB?

hmm good effort, i dont seem to be able to go much above 200mhz fsb (ie 203+) without my computer not booting, i've got 1gb of twinmos pc3200, which i think is a bit incompatible with my board (cos i get random reboots sometimes)...

i can get to around 245mhz before it tops out :)

Agent:

What mobo / RAM are you using?

streetster:

I found I couldn't get above the low 200s until I did two things:

1) The 'L12' mod - there's info on this on xtremesystems.org's forums (though they talk about it helping the Abit board I thought it was worth a go). Basically I chose to wire wrap the pins (as I've done this in the past with P3 Tualatin based Celerons) to change the default FSB of my chip to 200MHz instead of 133. No idea what this does but it let me get up to 210. I suspect it either changes some latencies or the chip voltage (for the chipset that is - VDD).

2) Added some cooling to the southbridge (passive). The first heatsink was (as above) small and not well attached but I could get up to 220MHz with it. With the better heatsink and thermal adhesive on the southbridge and active cooling on the northbridge I can get it up to 225 now stable (well so far - I like to leave Prime 95 running for a few hours) and it will even post at 230 but doesn't do more than about 1 minute of Prime at 230. It will post at 233 but won't blue screens as windows starts up.

I've also found that my mobo doesn't like certain settings - for example if I don't set the CPU interface to aggressive then it won't post using 10x or 10.5x multipliers at any FSB / voltage. And it won't post with the ram set to async (with the ram slower than the FSB) even at speeds that it is stable at with the RAM running 1:1!

Ram : http://www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/n...emier-dual.asp
mobo : NF7-S

VDD + L12 mod's done.
You dont have to wrap the pins for the L12 mod, you can just loop the wire in the socket :)

The CPU interface thing is a bug Abit refuse to fix :( *sigh*

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Agent

Ram : http://www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/n...emier-dual.asp
mobo : NF7-S

VDD + L12 mod's done.
You dont have to wrap the pins for the L12 mod, you can just loop the wire in the socket :)

The CPU interface thing is a bug Abit refuse to fix :( *sigh*

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Well I've got the Asus board so maybe it's a chipset thing rather than the manufacturer? How hard is the VDD mod? Can't the abit board change it anyway?

Edit: Nice RAM!

Edit 2: Obviously I appreciate that the VDD mod for the Asus won't be the same. Just wondering how you found it as I've never done any mods that involve soldering before.

Ah, there lightly different problems then. Most of the time the Abit will refuse to boot with 10/10.5 irrelivent of the CPU interface. Its defo a bug as there are hacked BIOS's which fix it (but are unstable in other areas :()

You can do the VDD mod with a pencil :) - very handy if you dont like to solder :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Agent

You can do the VDD mod with a pencil :) - very handy if you dont like to solder :)

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Off googling I go!

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1078/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Agent

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1078/

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Cheers Agent,

Can't find anything for the A7N8X that doesn't involve soldering though. Guess I should just be happy with what I've got! (If I'm going to spend any extra money I ought to buy a mobile XP2500+ and not a new mobo... I think ;))

Ack, sorry, keep thinking everyone owns a NF7-S :p

Ill keep an eye out for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Agent

Ack, sorry, keep thinking everyone owns a NF7-S :p

Ill keep an eye out for you.

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Found it:

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/view...er=asc&start=0

260fsb on a DFI Infinity/XP-M2500+ (not particularly stable), 265 incredibly unstable :p, everyday use 237ish (DC, mem 1:1, CPU interface enabled etc. of course).
As to stability, on the DFI board there is a thread where quite a no. of people (incl. myself) can run way past 240fsb stable in 2D apps but not be stable in 3D apps - latest thinking seems to be that it is a chipset thing :(
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.p...7&page=1&pp=15

edit: please don't think that getting a DFI is instant overclocking heaven, it is more like Hell!

I have a very old nf7-s rev2 does 240 x 10 max fsb, thats on a dlt3c 1700 though.

I can't even get my 8RDA+ (V2.1) stable at 200FSB, it's really starting to cheese me off. I might have to try the L12 mod. I was also thinking of running my RAM in single channel, see if that makes any difference.

What does the 'CPU Interface' setting do, anyway? Is it worth messing with?

Rich :¬)

The L12 should only help boards that are stuck at the 225(+/- a few mhz) area.
If you cant get 200mhz already, you have problems somwhere else.

CPU interface is just to use some slightly overclocked settings for talking to the CPU with. Rarely causes problems unless your at an uber high FSB. Enable for more performace if you can, otherwise disable.