Who can help me successfully overclock this rig?

[swambast]

Don't know what it is, but for some reason I can't O/C this rig for anything. I'm looking for someone very experienced in MSI motherboards and with significant experience in overclocking Intel based systems.

If you're successful at helping me reach a stable O/C system, I'll pay you - is that a fair deal? Ideally, I'd like to just hit 3.4 Ghz. I have exceptional fan cooling, and idle with CPU at 31C and case at 34C - under load it may go up to 42C+CPU.

Well, let me know if you're interested in helping: s w a m b a s t @ y a h o o . c o m

Thanks...

Steve

 

[Dav0s]

haha no need to pay mate, we will all help you for free.

do you have any experience of overclocking or any idea how to do it? thats the first question, bare with us and you will have a nicely oced system.

 

[Joe]

hey man advice here is free ;

CPu speed is determined buy cmbination of ur fsb speed and a multipler built into your cpu (FSB speed * CPU multi = CPU speed)

your FSB ,Voltage and RAM timings can be changed in your BIOS setup

to get your system to a speed of 3.4 GHz you will need to turn ur FSB speed up to 242 MHZ as ur cpu has a 14 times multiples and ur FSB is <normally>> @ 200MHZ (increase this in increments of 1 MHZ);

inorder to run @ such a high FSb you will need ram that will be able to take 242 MHz the kingmax ram u have may be up to it, but while incrementally upping your FSB you will also have to either(or a combination of both) Up your Ram Voltage or loosen your memory timings -- this loosening is actually changin memory timings tho a higher numberical value than they are @ currently) it is best to keep you ram timimgs as tight as possible (numerically low) ;

your CPu will also need more power to handle the overlcock so you will have to add more voltage to it;

ok slowly raise ur fsb until you system wont boot into windwos , when it reaches this point you will have to either up voltage to your RAM or CPU or Chipset (or all 3) increment FSB speeds and voltages until you system reaches the desired speed (3.4 GHZ/242FSB) and then test the system using P95 for @ least 2 hours

then if Prime 95 shows no errors you can then try to lower voltages on ur chipset /CPU/RAM until you find the lowest possible voltages that are stable in Prime 95

.. it is important to jkeep voltage as low as possible as higher voltages creat more heat and can damage your components

 

[FragTek]

Joe's advice might be free, but my services are $50/min.

Hang with it and try some of the suggested ideas!

Just for reference I checked ur system specs... Are you sure your PSU and RAM aren't holding you back? Having all 4 ram slots populated is pretty much a :nono: when it comes to overclocking. 400w PSU may be holding you back as well.

Do you know what kind of IC's your ram uses?

 

[Joe]

Joe's advice might be free, but my services are $50/min.

Hang with it and try some of the suggested ideas!

Just for reference I checked ur system specs... Are you sure your PSU and RAM aren't holding you back? Having all 4 ram slots populated is pretty much a :nono: when it comes to overclocking. 400w PSU may be holding you back as well.

Do you know what kind of IC's your ram uses?

king max have been known to go to @ least 250 .. but @ CAS3 that psu llks like it can hadle it judgin by the 70% efficiency

 

[JN]

My first questions to you would be..

A) Have you managed any overclock at all out of your processor.

B) Did you try increasing the vcore (CPU voltage) at all when overclocking

 

[swambast]

Wow - Thanks for the Welcoming!

Guys, thanks a lot for all the beginning support, I really appreciate it. I'm going to lay it all out and give you as much information as I possibly can so I can get the best advice from all of you without trying to take up too much of your time.

Listed below are the specs for what my system is currently running at, and it is rock-solid stable. I believe in the past when I tried to overclock I would get a BIOS error "DRAM timing is too tight" errors. Then when I was up around 3.2 Ghz, Prime testing would fail within 8 minutes. Again, sorry, but I'm not sure how to go about getting those memory specs for CAS# Latency, RAS# Precharge, RAS# to CAS# Delay, Precharge Delay, and Burst Length. I did find using SiSoftware Sandra more info on the memory though:

4 DIMMS (256MBx4)=1GB KingMax PC3200 DDR400

Model # MPXB62D-38KT3R-PEA Speed PC3200U 2.5-4-4-8@200Mhz

Anyway, it's been soooo long since I've attempted any overclocking, that I can't really recall all of my trials and frustrations. So, to start with, here is my baseline system and settings. Temps at idle read 32C on the CPU, 35 in the Case using Motherboard monitor.

ADVANCED CHIPSET FEATURES

DRAM Timing Setting…

Configure SDRAM Timing by SPD Enabled

CAS# Latency 2.5 Clocks

RAS# Precharge 2 Clocks

RAS# to CAS# Delay 3 Clocks

Precharge Delay 5 Clocks

Burst Length 8

AGP Aperture Size 128

FREQUENCY/VOLTAGE

Performance Mode

(slow, fast, turbo, Ultra Turbo)TURBO

CPU Ratio Selection Locked

DRAM Frequency 400 Mhz

Spread Spectrum Disabled

Adjust CPU Bus Clock (Mhz) 200

DDR Clock (Mhz) 400

Adjust AGP/PCI Clock (Mhz) 66.66/33.33

CPU Vcore Adjust No

CPU Vcore 1.5250V

DDR Power Voltage 2.65V

AGP Power Voltage 1.50V

SiSoftware Sandra Prof. 2005 System Info

Front Side Bus Speed ( 4 x ) 203

Front Side Bus Data Rate (203x4) 812

Memory Bus Speed (2 x) 203

Memory Bus Speed (203x2) 406

CPU SPEED (GHz with 14x multiplier) 2.84

Thanks for any help. I'm now at square 1 - what would you suggest be my first move....????

 

[enVias]

Well if you were getting DRAM is too tight errors try this:

CAS# Latency 3 Clocks

RAS# Precharge 3 Clocks

RAS# to CAS# Delay 3 Clocks

Precharge Delay 8 Clocks

Now correct me if i'm wrong (and i probably am) but i think performance mode auto overclocks the processor. I don't know how this would affect manual overclocking.

 

[FarFarAway]

Well if you were getting DRAM is too tight errors try this:

CAS# Latency 3 Clocks

RAS# Precharge 3 Clocks

RAS# to CAS# Delay 3 Clocks

Precharge Delay 8 Clocks

Now correct me if i'm wrong (and i probably am) but i think performance mode auto overclocks the processor. I don't know how this would affect manual overclocking.

I do believe that tools like that will limit any available overclocks. Not good.

 

[PV5150]

performance mode auto overclocks the processor.

Yep it surely does, disable that and definitely overclock manually.

 

[FragTek]

Yep it surely does, disable that and definitely overclock manually.

Oh yes, auto overclocking is the shittles.

 

[swambast]

So far...

Results so far...didn't have as much time as I wanted to test Prime 95, might try that overnight/lot longer. System seems stable so far - ONLY problem is that underload my CPU is jumping to 44C, and 50 in the case. Notice that I did bump up the voltages, though...maybe I should turn em down a bit???? Also, for some reason, on the CAS# Latency setting, I can only select from 2 and 2.5, so I chose 2.5. Manually entering the memory settings seems to have really made a big difference, so far. Any other advice you can give me right now?

Also, I keep reading a lot on MSI about how most people are setting their DDR down to 333. Not sure why...

What do you think my next step should be?

NEW SETTINGS 2.8 -> 3.0 Ghz

Configure SDRAM Timing by SPD Enabled

CAS# Latency 2.5

RAS# Precharge 2

RAS# to CAS# Delay 3

Precharge Delay 5

Burst Length 8

AGP Aperture Size 128

FREQUENCY/VOLTAGE

Performance Mode (slow, fast, turbo, Ultra Turbo) SLOW

CPU Ratio Selection Locked

DRAM Frequency 428

Spread Spectrum Disabled

Adjust CPU Bus Clock (Mhz) 214

DDR Clock (Mhz) 428

Adjust AGP/PCI Clock (Mhz) 66.66/33.33

CPU Vcore Adjust Yes

CPU Vcore 1.525

DDR Power Voltage 2.75

AGP Power Voltage 1.6

SiSoftware Sandra Prof. 2005 System Info

Front Side Bus Speed (4x)/Memory Bus Speed (2x) 214

Front Side Bus Data Rate (FSB Speed x4) 856

Memory Bus Speed (FSB Speed x2) 428

CPU SPEED (GHz with 14x multiplier) 3.00

PRIME 95 Results (PASS/FAIL) PASS

Time Run 1 hr 16 mins

 

[Dav0s]

can you somehow turn performance mode off alltogether? the next step now is to raise your fsb in 2MHz increments until you cannot boot. also how much did u raise your vcore by?? i cant remember stock northy vcore but i thought it was 1.525 which is what you have. are you sure you have raised it?

also you should get at least a 300MHz overclock out of it without having to adjust vcore at all.

 

[swambast]

Few things...

Dave, I believe I have performance mode now off - as I set it to SLOW (originally from TURBO) and this disables the default extra O/C (I think).

You are right, I did not raise the VCore, kept it at 1.525 default. But, I did raise the DDR Power Voltage from 2.65->2.75 and also the AGP Power Voltage from 1.5->1.6

Here is something I really don't understand: I was upping the FSB to try to get to 3.2. I set the FSB to 229 in the BIOS (I think that's 457 Memory Bus Speed), and here's what happened:

The System BIOS sees the CPU as 3.2 GHz

But under Windows XP Pro, and running SiSoft Sandra, it is reporting the CPU as only a 1.6 Ghz? WHY is this? The FSB is listed as 4x115=460 Mhz FSB, and the Memory Bus Speed is listed as 2x115=230Mhz? I don't really get it, can someone help me to better understand this?

 

[Dav0s]

hmm that is strange. download CPU-Z (http://www.sysxtreme.com/showthread.php?t=398&highlight=cpu-z)

and see what that reports.

 

[FarFarAway]

Dave, I believe I have performance mode now off - as I set it to SLOW (originally from TURBO) and this disables the default extra O/C (I think).

You are right, I did not raise the VCore, kept it at 1.525 default. But, I did raise the DDR Power Voltage from 2.65->2.75 and also the AGP Power Voltage from 1.5->1.6

Here is something I really don't understand: I was upping the FSB to try to get to 3.2. I set the FSB to 229 in the BIOS (I think that's 457 Memory Bus Speed), and here's what happened:

The System BIOS sees the CPU as 3.2 GHz

But under Windows XP Pro, and running SiSoft Sandra, it is reporting the CPU as only a 1.6 Ghz? WHY is this? The FSB is listed as 4x115=460 Mhz FSB, and the Memory Bus Speed is listed as 2x115=230Mhz? I don't really get it, can someone help me to better understand this?

Don't bother with the AGP voltage...the vid cards not worth sticking the extra power into...concentrate on the other stuff.....

 

[swambast]

More...

OK, I dropped the AGP Voltage back down to 1.5 instead of 1.6

I upped the FSB to 226/Memory 457 giving me a 3.09Ghz. I will run Prime now to test for an hour or so.

I have NO IDEA why pushing up to 3.2Ghz gives me the strange and undesired results I've listed above... I think I'll go a little slower here...

I'm starting my Prime testing now, I'll report back later...

Thanks again for everyone's support and help, greatly appreciated!!!!

 

[Dav0s]

not much point priming that mate. ill bet money that it is stable. wait til you get cant get into windows and have to up vcore before priming. did u try cpu-z??

 

[FragTek]

Good luck with it m8, sounds like you're getting somewhere!

 

[JN]

Don't bother with the AGP voltage...the vid cards not worth sticking the extra power into...concentrate on the other stuff.....

Just to let u know, on Intel rigs the AGP voltage also controls the voltage going to the NorthBridge. On most systems ur correct in saying that it will not make much difference, however on systems running a high FSB extra voltage to the NB is crucial.