how to overclock (its my first attempt)?

[micovwar]

hi there

i just put together my backup comp sk41g,now i know they wont break any overclocking barriers but ive read that they do go a little way to providing a few more mhz,

this is the first time ive ever tried this so i have no clue realy on what to do or absolutely anythin about voltages,,whats more is that the xp1800 i have in there i dont think it is of any special calibre to give me very much in the way of overclocking,also im curious as to why its operating at 1.76v while my xp2400 operates at 1.60v,would i be wrong in assuming that 1.76v seems slighly high compared to my 1.60v xp2400,or are there xp1800,s that have to operate at this voltage?

they both run idle at around the same temperature of 44-46c and i read somewhere that the higher the voltage = more heat hence higher temps,is it possible to reduce the voltage on the 1800 to see how much it would actually knock off temps or is this its optimum operating voltage?

sorry i have no stepping code or anything for the processor so im realy not to confident ile be able to do much with it,but any info would help greatly on overclocking and voltage of 1800,s,the system is pretty much standard at the min :

athlon xp1800 (1.53ghz)
512mb pc2100 ddr
60gb hardrive
nec dvd/r
using onboard graffics at the min

will i need to update my bios to overclock or will it be fine as it is?

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

I don't claim to be an expert so I may be incorrect on a few of the finer details. Just my disclaimer

Overclocking -

To start with you have to realise that the overall speed of ur processor, the ghz / mhz it is operating at, is the product of the Front Side Bus and the Multiplyer. The FSB is the speed at which the RAM operates at and at stock your FSB will be 266 mhz.

Gets even more weird when I tell you that the FSB is actually 133 mhz x 2. So your system is running at 133mhz x 11.5

These settings can usually be changed in the bios fairly painlessly but depending on your motherboard these settings may not be available. Check the manufactuers website to see if there are any bios updates for your motherboard first.

To overclock you simply raise the FSB and/or multiplyer. For example my AMD Thunderbird at stock was 100mhz x 12 but now I have it running at 133 mhz x 10. In this way I raised the overall speed of the processor and increased the FSB which means my RAM operates faster. As a rough guideline you should try to increase the speed by 5 - 10 mhz each time (this includes factoring in the multiplyer) and then testing it to see if it remains stable. The goal is to reach the highest speed with 100% stability.

Temperature and voltage. What you said is true, as a rule of thumb more voltage = more degrees but there are other factors. Different manufacturing processes affect the temperature, each individual chip has differenet properties and of course the heak sink / fan combo has a massive impact on the temperatures. More volts make the processor more stable but the bad side is the extra heat. So your aims for overclocking are -

Reach the highest speed,
With the lowest voltage,
While maintaining 100% stability.

That's a rough as sandpaper guide so you may want to wait to hear from other people or read some articles on the subject but if you have any questions let me know.

[Austin]

Your XP1800+ is most likely a Pally, LOCKED (no mult adj so bad for FSB increases) and VERY hot. Sell it on (I'll buy it) and get a £40 TbredB XP1700+ (ensure TbredB) or £70 Barton XP2500+. Both of these can run around 2.0ghz (speed of XP2400+ & XP2700+ for Barton) with only 1.50-1.55v! They should happily run 400FSB if your mobo and RAM allow too, always unlocked so full mult adjustment. If you don't mind a little more heat then at 1.65v you should find 2.2ghz easily possible making the TbredB an unofficial XP3000+ and the Barton an official XP3200+. Seriously, sell your current CPU and buy one of the above. Your mobo supports voltage and multiplier adjustments right?

If you're o/c'ing to boost games forget it. Onboard gfx are GF4MX (enhanced GF2) at best and a comparable seperate AGP card is only £30. If you want a gaming boost look to a GF4TI4200-8X 128MB for £75 at www.dabs.com

[SilentDeath]

ill just point out that the cpu in no way limits the FSB - u can use any fsb with a cpu and it wont care, as long as the multi is low enuf (so its not clocked too far)
having a high fsb and a lower multi is best but not always possible, resons:

the fsb could be too high for the mobo
the fsb could be too high for the ram (u could change the ratio - good for p4 systems, but on amd equal ratios are best)

ram timings can make u unstable at too low fsb (affects mobo but mostly ram) 6-2-2-2 is considered good, but i find 7-3-3-2.5 is good enuf for me and it gives me a few extra mhz on ram

im suprised testing wasnt mentioned yet...
to test the mobo and ram can cope at the high fsb use memtest86 www.memtest86.com this runs from a bootable cdr and takes about 20 mins per pass, i find tests 3/5/6/7 the most usefull.
prime95 is good for testing cpu, it doesnt put the most stress possible on cpu but its close enuf, good thing about this is it tells u if theres any errors that could make u unstable, generally if u can run this for 3 hours then ur not going to be atall unstable in normal programs, and if ur clocked toooo far ull get errros instantly even if windows and 3dmark run fine.
*note* runing prime95 whilst oither stress test programs are running isnt a good idea imo, as it will half the amout of testing p95 does so ull need to run it atleast twice aslong

aslong as ur temp is below 50°c then increasing voltage, if u are unstable, for the cpu, northbridge, ram or gfx will help u be more stable. 50c is quite hot and u cant go much further without becoming unstable at any voltage (cpus are rated for 90c, but that doesnt mean theyll be stable at that temp, thats just how hot be4 they get permanantly damaged)
also without very good cooling, id not recommend any one use more than 0.2v more than the stock voltage, as u can kill a cpu like this. if u restart a lot, randomly, when u increase voltage with the same clock speed that means uve got it too high, or the mobo chipset is overheating, it could be other things ut these are what has happened to me.

nforce2 mobos should have a heatsink of some kind on the south bridge if u have the fsb or chipset voltage above stock (im not sure which, voltage would seem to make more sence if they run at the same), or ull probly get crackly sound from the onboard sound. some ppl also get this at stock speeds.

ur 1800+ sounds like a pally because of high voltage, these are locked and can be unlocked by painting the l1 bridges but this is difficult and i dont think its worth the effort imo, as u wont get much from it. a 1700+ is a good replacement - i sold my xp2000+ which would only give me +70mhz when clocked and got a 1700+ which gave me.. 774mhz extra when clocked (from stock) which is 476mhz more than the 2000+ could run at. also i made a profit from changing them, lol.

ive read that shuttles dont allow any overclocking from the bios, u can get round this using the wire trick, which uses wires in the cpu socket to fake the stock speeds/voltage of the cpu.

ur chipset is a VIA KM266, not nice! via, in general are horrible chipsets but many will disagree. sis chipsets seem to be the quickest to set up, least probs but they are budget, and will give less performance. via ones *were* the highest performing ones but now nvidia ones are the most feature packed and best ones. ur KM266 probably doesnt have the PCI bus locked at 33mhz, so ull have to chose the right divider for ur fsb and this wil limit how far u can clock by fsb, too far and ur pci stuff will get unstable - ide/hdds mainly, and if u dont want to be reinstalling dont go too far out of spec.

depending on make of ur ram, and the chips used u could overclock alot, my twinmoss/samsung both w. samsung chips can do ddr420 fine at 7-3-3-2.5, stock is ddr333. changing timings will help u get more mhz. winbond chips usualy let u get high mhz without worse timings, so get this ram if u can.

unless u have a very small budget i wouldnt get a gfx card lower than a r9600 (these can be clocked faaar) which cost about £100. if u want a gf4ti id recommend a second hand one cos they r cheap
dont bother with gfmx anymore, the fx5200 costs about the same and beats them.
i wouldnt buy a fx5600nu/u either, i think the 9600np/p is better value for money and can be clocked nicley
i do prefer ati cards, esp now as there drivers are more aless perfected with omegas drivers u also get possibly the best overclocking app ever made for gfx, and artifact tester 5.
also dont buy a 256mb card unless u want to waste money - this could be given to me instead and would probly have the same impact on ur pcs performance - almost none unless uber high resuolutions are used. also the 9800p 256mb uses ddr2, which afaik is not nearly as clockable memory because it is sooo new. my 9700np will run nicely at 350/626 on air, i only started clocking it a few days ago and the core is far from its limit, and im also geting water cooling sooon so i can push it further

this is possibly the longest post i have ever done, so i copyed it to notepad so if any one asked me how to overclock ill just paste this in, with any corrections the i migh tneed to make. also far from finnished but my dinners getting cold so ill do more later

[Austin]

QUOTE: "u could change the ratio - good for p4 systems, but on amd equal ratios are best"

Unusual FSB speeds can cause problems too as most mobos still use a divider of FSB to dictate PCI/AGP/RAM and even IDE speeds. Synced ratios are best except for KT333-600 where there is a 5%ish gain in running your RAM faster than the FSB.

QUOTE: "aslong as ur temp is below 50°c then increasing voltage, if u are unstable, for the cpu, northbridge, ram or gfx will help u be more stable."

What temps are safe or stable varies obviously by CPU brand (eg Intel, AMD), type (eg Pally vs TbredB) and by mobo as the onboard sensors are usually an indication only and not very accurate. Only increase voltage if you are 100% certain that cooling is not the limiting factor. Added voltage adds LOADS more heat and if set too high can easily permanently damage your CPU and certainly shorten its life.

QUOTE: "id not recommend any one use more than 0.2v more than the stock voltage"

Again depends a lot on the CPU. TbredB lower than XP2000+ often use 1.50v and it's still std voltage to use 1.65v, 1.75v is as high (or higher) than I'd advise to go. Barton tend to all use 1.65v but if you have a Barton (or TbredB) running <= 2.0ghz you should find 1.55v VERY stable and VERY cool! Again 1.70-1.75 is tops IMHO.

QUOTE: "ive read that shuttles dont allow any overclocking from the bios, u can get round this using the wire trick, which uses wires in the cpu socket to fake the stock speeds/voltage of the cpu."

I think that depends on the particular Shuttle. An XP-TMC Skt adapter is probably best allowing use of TbredB & Bartons on unsupported mobos and full range of multiplier and voltage (IIRC) options.

QUOTE: "via, in general are horrible chipsets but many will disagree. sis chipsets seem to be the quickest to set up, least probs but they are budget, and will give less performance. via ones *were* the highest performing ones but now nvidia ones are the most feature packed and best ones. ur KM266 probably doesnt have the PCI bus locked at 33mhz, so ull have to chose the right divider for ur fsb"

Yes VIA often release their mobo chips before they are truly stable or compat tested, they used to be very popular because they gave the best perf AND tweaking options. SiS are more sturdy than VIA but when you get probs they rarely get addressed and tweaking is a huge no no. nVidia nForce2 are great mobos full of speed (even single channel DDR), stability, tweaking etc etc. No VIA mobos impliment a PCI/AGP lock so you will be divider based. Almost always automatic and designed to kick in when the PCI is > 36mhz or so. KM266 is only 133/266FSB max IIRC so has a 1/4 divider to keep you in safely spec up to 145/290FSB, that's very near the limits though. Leaving the FSB at 266mhz and upping the multiplier is MUCH better.

Please do NOT think I'm attacking you or disagreeing with your fine post |SilentDeath|, I simply stuck quotes in to show what I was addressing in order to give my opinion or additional info. Just to add that GF4TI4200 are as fast as Rad9600PRO & GF-FX5600ultra but obviously lack DX9 and top notch AA+AF, still they can be found with 128MB for £75 new at www.dabs.com. Anyway great info |SilentDeath| !

[micovwar]

thnx for the replies fellas i find them both very interesting,im not realy any hardcore clocker and dare say i dont think ile ever be,
im realy just curious and wanna try it,as far as im aware this sk41g will allow me to change the cpu clock in the bios,when ive checked it out its set at 133 but allows me to goto 165(u have to type in a decimal number) there are no changeable voltage options,it shows me them but there greyed out !

ive left everything as it is for the time being as i don wanna take any silly risks on my knowledge of the subject but if u could give me feedback on this post ide sure like to give it a go,like i said i know the fx41 motherboard in this sk41g wont gimme anything close to an nforce 2 overclockability but it lets me mess around with the cpu clock (which i dare not try yet till i have more knowledge) but thats about it oh and the ram is also configurable in the bios,but all i can say about it is the cas latency is 2.5 and theres couple of other 1s underneath that which give readings of 3t,,6t,,3t whatever that means

btw austin, my chip is 1 o those pally locked things,i can find any multiplier options in the bios so i guess i cant do much at the min (bummer) i have been constanly thinking about buying 1 o those jiuhb xp1700,s for awhile now what do u think ile get outov it from the sk41g (do they realy run @ 1.55v at 2ghz and how cool are they at that temp?) ore alternatively if u think ide get better performance in clocking from my sn41g2 can u gimme any info on that?
the only problem is tho that the sn41g2 is running on its stock bios and i know if i try to clock it itle lock down and ile have to rma it after owning it for 4 months or so which i realy dont wanna have to do,,also i havent updated the bios becouse i donno what to do,have never updated any bios in 4 years of building pc,s lol never seen the need to update bios on any machine ive built but i know soon ile have to do the sn41g2 as it constantly worries me about that whole locking down feature that is present if clocked until u update bios!

i also have an xp2400 in the sn41g2 but i donno what stepping code it has or whether it can be clocked,i heard good things about them being able to reach 2.3ghz etc but this will probably be a different chip to mine,all i can say is it runs on 1.60v and without my intake fan activated its temps are around 44-46 idle depending on the time of day (they usually get warmer at night)

any info whatsoever would be greatly aprreciated as i still have alot to learn when it comes to overclocking/bios updates etc

thnx in advance

[micovwar]

oops (,i can find any multiplier options in the bios ) i meant i cant find any multiplier options!

[Austin]

Pally's are multiplier locked, very hot and struggle even at 1.7ghz (XP2100+). So if you want to o/c do upgrade the CPU. If you can adjust the CPU (core) voltage then TbredB (A___B or J___B) XP1700+ is the best value, XP2100+ if you lack multiplier adjustment (nForce2 certainly shouldn't). You should also consider the XP2500+ which always use the Barton core. Barton is 5% faster when clock speeds are the same and it shares the same o/c'ability and cool ruhnning as TbredB. Since all nForce2 don't have to worry about dividers and should do 400FSB with ease the XP2500+ is the best choice, plus it comes with an 11x multiplier and 1.65v as std so you can do a lot without having to adjust either of these!

PS. XP2400+ are always TbredB so 2.1ghz should be doable on stock 1.60v! Rem there are NO guarantees when o/c'ing, you may get loads or nothing but you will invalidate your warranty (so no RMA unless you're sure it is unrelated). Check around the forums for info on flashing mobo BIOS.

[Knoxville]

erm am I reading this wrong...........or did he say he had an SK41?

Because if i'm right then its not nForce 2, and doesn't have an onboard GF4MX and doesn't have multiplier adjustment.......

[smilincanuck]

Also isnt the FSB the speed at which your MOtherboard is running at and NOT your RAM?????.......the speed of the RAM is ruled by how fast the chips are on it itself.....as you overclock the FSB you increase its bandwidth to make that faster RAM on it run faster in tandem with your cpu over/under clocking.

[Austin]

Well it's shuttle sn41g2 (nForce2) in his sig but yes in his post it's sk41g (VIA KM266A). nForce2 should give you full multiplier and voltage control as well as support up to 400FSB and no use of dividers, your PCI/AGP etc can always run 100% spec. KM266A is IIRC essentially KT266A and as such only supports 266FSB (144/288FSB o/c'ed). You do tend to get multiplier and voltage adjustment with VIA mobos, that's the main thing which made them popular however even an o/c'ed FSB of 288mhz is going to prove limiting when you want to maximise TbredB or Barton's full potential. Obviously onbaord gfx of the nForce2 are the best (unreleased laptops aside) but are still pretty dire ... a mobo built by VIA, Intel or SiS is going to WAY WAY slower. IIRC with KM266A you probably have an onboard Savage gfx, even the fastest AGP version (Savage2000) is buggy and runs far slower than a GF2MX. Seriously look to adding a gfx card, even a £30 GF4MX440 is a huge improvement although I'd aim higher.

Anyway regarding RAM speed, for reference PC2100 is intended for 266mhz, PC2700 333mhz and PC3200 400mhz. Typically it's best to run the RAM at the same speed as the FSB, the KT333/400/600 are the only real exceptions where you can gain an extra 5% perf by running the RAM faster than the FSB. Modern RAM like SktA FSB is in DDR so 266FSB is 133x2 just as PC2100 RAM is DDR266 or 133x2.

So for o/c'ing in a KM266A based mobo you will find 12.5x144=1.8ghz is the best you'll get even with multiplier adjustment. That's XP2200+ speed. You could get an XP2400+ (always TbredB) which comes with a 15x multiplier so you won't need to change it. The voltage is also 1.60-1.65v so again not limiting. All you should then need to do is step up the FSB speed from 133mhz to a maximum of 144mhz but again take small steps at a time and test for any instability. 15x144=2.16ghz or XP2650+ which is as fast as your mobo can do and avoids many uneccessary complications. Of course for gaming you will find NO gains until you upgrade from that awful onboard gfx.

[micovwar]

thnx 4 the reply austin,,ive actually got a spare graffics card which is a sparkle gf4 ti4200 128mb lying on my shelf which ile be throwing into the sk41g as soon as ive sorted out wat processor to replace the present xp1800 with
i was thinking of putting in my xp2400 from my sn41g2 and replacing that with an xp2600 with a new stick of 512 pc2700 ram so i can run the sn41g2 at a 333fsb and that would leave me with 2x512mb pc2100 and an xp2400 to go into the sk41g,(aswell as my spare ti4200 ovcourse) what kind ov overclock would i get from these new components on both shuttles?

[Austin]

Well the 4200 in your sk41g even with XP1800+ would be huge ... a great gaming machine. Putting an XP2400+ in there should enable you to get XP2600+ - XP2700+ type speeds out of it and that combined with a GF4TI4200 (even not o/c'ed) is fantastic!

You should find the sn41g2 can run the XP2400+ (or any other TbredB or Barton based XP) at 400FSB (drop the multiplier first)and around 2.2ghz (XP3200+) with voltage no higher than 1.70v. I would suggest keeping the voltage 1.65v maximum as this is a totally normal voltage for TbredB and Barton so hence no real stress or ageing ... also it will run pretty cool (compared to higher voltages) and should be fine with your std cooling.

So basicly forget the XP2600+ for your sn41g2, get an XP1700+ (ensure it's TbredB) or XP2500+ (always Barton) and you should easily hit 2.0ghz 400FSB if not closer to 2.2ghz+! You don't even need to shift the multiplier and XP2500+ makes buying and o/c'ing easy as you get a good multiplier (11x), std voltage (1.65v), 333FSB as std and needn't worry about core as it will always be Barton. A salways when o/c'ing go up in small steps and test thoroughly it is 100% stable before going higher. When you find the maximum speed drop back a little to ensure a good long term o/c.

Gfx cards are also easily o/c'ed and both the Rad9500PRO and GF4TI4200 get VERY close to the top end of their ranges (9700 & TI4600) so it's well worth trying. So long as you're careful and take normal precautions o/c'ing is VERY safe BUT will obviously void any warranty.

IMHO yes definitely do put that 4200 in your sk41g, maybe game or bench it then see if you notice the perf diff (LOL). If you want more then sell that XP1800+ Pally, put your XP2400+ in sk41g and then buy the XP2500+ for your sn41g2 (with some PC3200 RAM to allow 400FSB). Yummy!