AQXEA Barton 2500+

[KDH]

Hi folks, I got this last september, overclocked it once to 3000+ speeds just for ****s and giggles, then put it back to stock until now.

I have a TT volcano 11 and 6 case fans, so heat SHOULDNT be a problem.

Can anyone give me some advice, or post a handy url on how exactly I should go about overclocking it(what vcore, what multiplier, what fsb etc)

TIA

-Kev

[turkster]

Well post your system specs.
Specifically motherboard and ram.

How did you get it to 3000+ speeds before? Did you increase the multiplier or the FSB?
By the way most of the those xp 2500+ dont need much if any vcore increase to get to 3200+ speeds

[kushtibari]

I've got an AQXEA week 27 and it won't get much past +3000. Voltage doesn't seem to be an issue. It'll boot comfortably and run at about 2100mhz and then hits a brick wall whatever voltage you put through it. I've just settled for 200x10 at stock voltage and a bit of piece and quiet.

[KDH]

msi KT6 delta FIS2R
ram is 1gb 433mhz geil(running at 400) at 2-3-6-6 ratings (I think).

[turkster]

Well both your chipset and memory support 400FSB so your best bet for overclocking is to keep the multiplier at stock (should be 11) and the Vcore at stock and start pushing up the FSB say in 10 Mhz increments. Each time you push it up keep an eye on the CPU temps and boot into windows. You should run some benchmarks to stress the system and make sure it is stable. If it is then push it up another bit. If it crashes or fails to boot restart and drop the FSB to the last stable point.
You can start pushing up the Vcore bit by bit if you are not happy with how fast it will go at stock voltage but this is where you start putting more pressure on your CPU, mobo and cooling. I personally would stick with stock Vcore (my xp2500 runs 2.2ghz at 1.65v no bother) but the decision is up to you.

Try it at stock vcore and multiplier first and see how far you get.

[GreenPiggy]

My 2p - first off, don't keep the multiplier at stock. An 11 multiplier will prevent you from getting the most out of that RAM(and it iis very nice RAM by the way, congrats)
Whack the multiplier down to about 9.5 or 10 and up the FSB as far as you can go - hopefully you should be able to reach your RAM speed of 216FSB. If you can get it past there then slacken the memory timings to something like 3-4-4-11 to see how far you RAM will overclock. TBH i don't think the CPU will go much above 220FSB so shouldn't be much of an issue. Once you hit a FSB ceiling, THEN start upping the multiplier.
That chip I would've thought would be capable of 3200+ speeds at least. do you know what week it is?

[GreenPiggy]

One other question - what cooling do you have on it?

[Korky]

I agree with Turk, keep it at 11 because the board may only do 200fsb and it may do that for 9.5,10,10.5,11 multis and in any case if he did get say a 5fsb increase by dropping the multi its not worth the fsb/mhz gain/loss.

[GreenPiggy]

why not? The whole point of overclocking is to hit the sweet spot of your system. If he can get to 220*10 then thats a whole lot better the 200*11.
I dont think an AQXEA stepping would crap out below 210FSB unless its a really early week.

[turkster]

No but your putting the mobo under pressure. The Ram will handle it and probably the CPU but you may well get stability problems with the motherboard. Personally I would not risk overclocking the motherboard too much unless you have a locked CPU and want to push at really hard. You never know how the mobo is going to react. You could have problems with the PCI bus or integrated chips EIDE etc. Considering that getting it to 3200+ speed is a nice increase anyway I dont think its worth the risk for a first attempt.

[GreenPiggy]

and overclocking is putting the chip under pressure - so what?
I'm not suggesting he overclocks whilly nilly ignoring all errors he gets until his system breaks. This is what stability tests are for. if 210 is too high for the board, the tests will fail, you then bring it back down.

[turkster]

Yeah but it is widely agreed that an AQXEA xp2500+ is capable of being overclocked. The mobo is a different matter. Some motherboard instabilities may not necessarily show up under normal stress tests such as PCI problesm etc. Is an extra 10 or so Mhz on the FSB worth the potential problems?
Your method is fine if you want to get as much as possible out of your system and are willing to take the risks but this semms to be KDH's first serious attempt at overclocking so I would think he would be best off trying to keep it relatively simple.

[GreenPiggy]

Some motherboard instabilities may not necessarily show up under normal stress tests such as PCI problesm etc.

Thats simply not true, any instability in the related bus speeds will easily show up in 3Dmark.
Its up to him really which method he wants to use but if he does up FSB first, its no more risky than upping the multiplier. The only way he'd break anything would be by doing smething stupid like not stress testing fully or taking to great a leap between overclocks.

[turkster]

My point is why take the risk. If he gets his FSB to 400 then thats good. By pushing it beyond that you are overclocking not just the CPU but the motherboard aswell. I notice that your sig shows that you are running only a 200/400mhz FSB on an NF7 s. Nforce mobos are generally considerably better for overclocking than KT 600s so why expect him to get much faster with a KT 600.

I can run my KT 600 mobo with FSB of up to 210. For just a little gain in memory bandwidth and CPU Mhz I was putting both the CPU and motherboard under pressure. I was getting little problems with my sound card which did not show up in benchmarking 3dmark etc. So i dropped back to 200FSB and at least had the peace of mind that my motherboard was not overclocked. IMO the performance difference was minimal anyway.

[GreenPiggy]

I'm just making sure he knows all his options, we should really stop debating this until he shows up and asks a question.
The system in the sig is currently on hold until i can RMA my crappy HyperX(rated 433 but craps out at 410 even with the loosest timings) i've had 2.6gig out of the bugger by just upping the multiplier but I need my FSB

[TooNice]

My 2500+ AQXEA seems prime stable @2.3Ghz. I dropped back a few mhz on my FSB just in case and left it there for a while.

I also managed to boot and complete 3DMark2003 @ 2.4Ghz (200x12 I think), but it'll totally crap out under Prime.. Not so surprising really, considering I am using a cheat Aero Lite+ as my cooler

Memory seems to be the limited factor for me though. I am using 2x512MB PC3200 Twinmos with Winbond (CH5) memory, but it simply won't pass without error some of the later tests in Memtest @ over 200Mhz. Was a bit disappointed there to be honest..