Athlon 2500+ XP-M, MSI KT6 Delta Series, wont overclock!

[jamiecockrill]

Hi guys, bit of a newbie overclocker that needs a little help.

I've put an Athlon XP-M 2500+ in my MSI KT6 Delta series motherboard (according to CPU-Z, the model is: MS-6590). It'll let me set the multiplier to whatever i like, but it wont let me move the FSB away from 133MHz. It survives booting with an FSB of 100MHz (which is what the motherboard guesses when CMOS is reset) but that's about it. It wont even post at 166x11.0 (factory settings for the standard XP 2500+). General theme seems to be, move the multiplier and everything works, change the FSB and it wont even post.

One oddity is that the CoreCenter utility detects the processor as running at 340MHz x 5.5 which it most definately is not. CPU-Z correctly gives the stock settings of 133x14.0

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've heard great things about these little beasties and it'd be a shame if mine wouldn't even clock past stock settings!

Thanks

Jamie

PS at the moment it's just running at stock frequencies, 133x14.0 @ 1.45v

[BUFF]

won't be a cpu problem but the board.
Sorry never ran an MSI KT6 so can't help there - have you tried the MSI forum?.

[schmunk]

The manufacturers website says it can only support 2 sticks of RAM at 200fsb - do you have 3 installed?

Here


p.s. BIOS will see the CPU at its lowest multiplier e.g. mine sees it as 100MHz * 6.0, and I have to change it to 200 *12 or whatever I'm using - it's a feature of the mobile CPUs. As long as the faster setting's stable, it'll start at the faster setting at subsequent boots.

[jamiecockrill]

ah, yes i do. 2x256, 1x512
edit: in that case, then, i wonder if the gain from the overclock will be offset by the lost memory?

[schmunk]

I'd try it just with the 1x512 for stability, then if successful, sell the 2x256 and buy another 1x512.

[jamiecockrill]

will do. let you know how it goes!

[scrandman]

It might require slightly more than the stock 1.45V to run at 166 of indeed 200. Try the standard 2500 & 3200 settings: 166x11 @ 1.65V and 200x11 @ 1.65V. See if that helps.

Again, not sure on the KT6 board, but there may be a jumper or a dip switch that needs set?

[jamiecockrill]

ah ok. well i think i've managed to lose most of my thermal compound in all the fiddling. it's running at some 48 degrees on it's stock 133x14.0 @ 1.45v!

i can't find any jumpers in the manual that might need setting. I have tried to clock a standard athlon 2500+ to 3200+ and it booted, got all the way to XP, but kept hard-resetting, so i guess it's just automatically detects it from the settings.

will try again tomorrow, when i get some more compound.

thanks everyone so far!

[dave87]

Bartons always did run reasonably toasty - with the stock cooling on my 3200+ it would hit 55 under load. Bought a Thermalright SI-97 & a 92mm fan and never looked back, barely goes above 41 under load (and thats in the summer) and is (iirc - i fold 24/7) around 36-7 idle

Dave

EDIT - Use Artic Silver or Ceramique - probably the best thermal compounds around

[jamiecockrill]

she's got a bloody great arctic cooling fan (and the remnants of some arctic silver compound) on her at the minute and considering it was running at 35 earlier, i think i've scraped most of the compound off

thanks for the advice though!

[dave87]

she's got a bloody great arctic cooling fan (and the remnants of some arctic silver compound) on her at the minute and considering it was running at 35 earlier, i think i've scraped most of the compound off

thanks for the advice though!

ahh but is it silent?

[jamiecockrill]

lol, it's certainly not silent, but neither is my PSU, bloody PC World rubbish.

My own fault really, I bought the case + PSU, didn't check the PSU to see if the voltage was correctly set to 230V (it wasn't, some crafty bugger had put it on 110V). One bang and a sizzle later and it was off to PC world, before I'd even finished putting the damn computer together.

[awm]

I think the XP-M 2500+ has a 266 (133*2) fsb, whereas the non-mobile has a 333 fsb. Thus you are trying to up the fsb by 25% which may be too much for the circuty that handles the link, even if the core can take the speed that that would generate. More voltage or an intermediate fsb setting might help, but that's just a guess.

[scrandman]

I think the XP-M 2500+ has a 266 (133*2) fsb, whereas the non-mobile has a 333 fsb. Thus you are trying to up the fsb by 25% which may be too much for the circuty that handles the link, even if the core can take the speed that that would generate. More voltage or an intermediate fsb setting might help, but that's just a guess.

The reason mobiles were so popular with the overclocking community was because:

1/ The unlocked multiplier (both up & down)

2/ They could do crazily high FSB numbers - 230 to 250 was not uncommon.

Basically, the mobiles were the cream of the Barton CPUs it would be very unfortunate to get one that can't run at 200.

To the original poster - Definately try running with a maximum of 2 sticks of RAM. Also, is your RAM PC3200, PC2700 or PC2100. Make sure that you aren't inadvertantly overclocking your RAM also.

[jamena]

Make sure that you aren't inadvertantly overclocking your RAM also.

same goes for the AGP and PCI buses...

[Dark Horse]

Yep, raising the FSB for an XP-M system is ram and motherboard limited.

I had a dfi lanparty ultra B that would hit 260x10 quite nicely with some tccd but the same tccd then went all the way to 300mhz in a s939 board.

Unlike athlon 64's where there is no performance loss for using a memory divider, on athlon xp you always want to be running your ram 1:1 so you really need some pc3200 ram if you are to do the chip some justice.

Most xp-m chips should hit 2.4ghz, and up to 2.7 if you're very lucky.