Poor Overclocking Results, Please Help

[Spritzup]

Here is my system spec:

AMD Athlon XP 1700+
Abit NF7-S Rev 2.0
Thermalright SLK-900A
Antec True Blue 480 Watt Powersupply
Kingston Hyper X PC 3500 Ram (1GB)
Radeon AIW 9800 Pro
Maxtor 120 Gig SATA Hard Drive
SB Audigy 2
Lite-On DVD Rom (16X)
Plextor CD-Burner (52X32X52)
Xaser 3 Case w/ 7 case fans

I just started it up today and it boots fine. However on the first boot it only detects my RAM as 400 Mhz. After I reboot, it detects it as 333 Mhz. This is regardless of the timings I choose. Is there a way to change the actual speed of the ram, or can you only change the timings? The other thing is I seem to be able to only hit 11.5 multiplier w/ 166 FSB before the system becomes unstable. Now I know people have easily been hitting 2.2 - 2.3 ghz with these chips, so what gives? As a side note I ran 3Dmark 2001 and only got 13402 pts, which seems awfully low for my setup. Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

[BUFF]

Is there a way to change the actual speed of the ram, or can you only change the timings?
Yes, you can but with nforce2 for best performance you want memory & CPU buses to run at the same speed (synchronous).
So if you are running 166FSB then with Double Data Rate memory you want it at 333 , for 200 @ 400 etc. .

You've got a decent PSU (same one I have ) so it's unlikely to be that.
Check your vcore & try upping it slightly.
Remeber that you are better off running a higher FSB & lower multiplier so you might want to use e.g your 11 multiplier.

As for your 3Dmark score it does seem low - which drivers, your core/mem speeds are correct & did you check that you were not running any FSAA etc. when you ran the test?

[Ady168uk]

Lo Spritzup

I sorta got a similar setup...well I got one of those 1700 JUIHB's in my Shuttle SN45G (NForce2). If you change the FSB to 200 in the BIOS your ram will run at DDR400. For your cpu I think 2.1-2.2 is a achievable speed, so up the Vcore to 1.65-1.70 which are safe settings with your cooling. Set the multiplier to 10.5 or 11 and let your system rip. Your 3Dmark does actually seem very low atm, make sure you got the latest drivers and to change the settings to max performance if you trying for the highest possible score.

With normal stock speeds on your card you should be getting over 16k since my 9700 gets 16k on my system. Oh yeah there is one extremely important factor you didn't mention, what core is your 1700XP cos thats sorta predicts the potential overclocks.

I nevered tired to push mine to the max limit but 2.4Ghz is more than enough until I upgrade to Athlon64.



Ady

[Korky]

Im guessing its JHUIB cause he has the nf7-s which is the usual bundle.

[SilentDeath]

use omega drivers for ur 9800, might be later ones out now, but i use the 3.7's
www.omegacorner.com

use memtest86 and prime95 to test its stable.
up the volts to help get the speed u want. dont go over 0.25v more than stock with that cooling...
ur ra should be fine at 215mhz, so should ur ombo as its a rev2 but u might need to up the chipset volts (and ram if u go higher than 215, or use very low timings, 6-2-2-2 is suppost to be faster than 5-2-2-2 becuase of the mobo, but try both if u want to go that low)

13.5k is VERY low for ur system, my brother beats u with his ti4400 (almost same setup otherwise)
check u got vsync and aa/af off (af wont go below 2x without reg edits, set aa to app pref and turn it off from 3d mark2k1)and also the drivers ^.

cpu speed is luck and depends on which stepping u get. u should get 2ghz easy but more than 2.2 is not too common. mine i get 2204mhz is max, cos my mobo dont give more than 1.83v but with 1.9 i get 2.3ghz.

[Austin]

RAM timings and speed are set to AUTO/SPD by default and it's certainly best to override the speed to always run sync to the FSB eg 1:1, 3:3 etc (unless you run KT333/400 where running faster can gain you speed).

Timings make very little diff, certainly best to set them to high values (slower) in order to eliminate RAM from stability tests. 400FSB is already more than SktA archy needs, gains above this are minimal so you may want to stay at 400FSB than push to 440FSB (again can complicate stability tests). PC3500 should run at PC3200 speed with pretty fast (low) timings. Do consider perf diffs between the fastest to slowest timings are very minimal, certainly best to sort out your CPU and FSB first and then see what timings you can do stably.

XP1700+ generally use 1.50v stock, should be okay up to around 2.0ghz which seems to be your problem. The actual CPU is designed with 1.65v in mind so using this value is not technically over-volting and should certainly get you more speed. 1.70 - 1.75v is as much as I'd go up to but see what you can do with more normal voltage first. When you experience instability (definitely Prime test it) you need to consider what is limiting you; cooling, RAM, mobo, CPU etc. If you're sure it isn't cooling then up the voltage by 0.05v and see if you can go significantly higher ... even small added voltage significantly increases both heat output and component stress so keep tabs on the exact perf boost it can net you. That's TbredB, if you have TbredA then be thankfull for 2.0ghz as that's a lot for that core, just rem every CPU is diff.

13000 seems a bit low, as said AA+AF etc are most likely factors ... 16000+ would be more normal but TBH 3Dmark2001 simply doesn't push these modern cards and you should bench in higher res with AA+AF in order to stress things ... or try something more stressful as std like 3Dmark2003.

[amoeba]

Originally posted by Austin
13000 seems a bit low, as said AA+AF etc are most likely factors ... 16000+ would be more normal but TBH 3Dmark2001 simply doesn't push these modern cards and you should bench in higher res with AA+AF in order to stress things ... or try something more stressful as std like 3Dmark2003. [/B]

What he said. 3dmark2001 does not turn these off itself (3dmark2003 in my experience does), so you have to turn EVERYTHING off before doing a 3dmark.

Also close down every other application before running 3dmark2001, including explorer, for a few 00's extra.

[P4boy]

Should be able to hit a lot more with that setup

Must have had AA&AF on in the control panel

will that motherboard not take one of the newer Baton chips?