Overclocking (how to?)

[Guest]

Right,

I've been reading how everyone and their dog has been overclocking their CPUs, so I thought I'd give it a go.

This is my kit (in case it's important):
Abit BE6-II
PIII 600E (100mhz)
2x 128mb SDRam (Hyundai I think)
GeForce DDR
Auscom ISDN card
10/100 Network card
SBLive
4x Hard disks (2 on the ATA66 widget)
1x DVD
1x CD Writer
A bloody big Juno P6 case (nice and cool in there).

Now, whenever I increase the FSB by more than 5, Windows takes an age to load. It seems ok once it's loaded, but I mean a *really* long time to load.

I've played around with the AGP/PCI dividers (?) setting them to 2/3 or 1/2 etc, but it makes no difference.

It seems to me that it's not a heat problem, but maybe a component that's not up to scratch (memory?).

Ok Tug...get yer lips around this and give me your opinion!

 

[old.TUG]

Right... cooling, get some good stuff before you start overclocking. www.clockspeed.co.uk - buy shit from there

Slow booting, ditch the network card - I have a feeling thats the prob.

Now, a 600E - that'll do 800MHz with the right CPU/Case cooling.

PC133 ram is useful... PC100 may cause probs when you start going over 110MHz FSB if it's a bit naff stuff, however hyundai is usually not too bad.

AGP/PCI speeds: Heres what you need to know (taken from my old article @ http://www.pcinfo.freeserve.co.uk/ppga366.htm )

Now, you need to understand how certain FSB speeds affect AGP and PCI bus speeds. The standard PCI bus speed is 33MHz. The standard AGP bus speed is 66MHz. These speeds are calculated from FSB speeds. This is how they are calculated in general on most Intel BX chipset motherboards:

For 66MHz-83MHz FSB,
PCI speed = FSB/2 (e.g. 66/2 = 33MHz but 83/2 = 41.5MHz)

For 100MHz-133MHz (but not including 133MHz) FSB's,
PCI speed = FSB/3 (eg 100/3 = 33, 112/3 = 37.333)

For 133MHz+ FSB's, PCI speed = FSB/4

PCI dependant devices like EIDE hard drives and any PCI cards don't always respond well to an increased PCI bus speed - a high PCI speed may cause lock-up's and even damage components due to the extra stress and extra heat being created from the increased speed. All in all, a PCI speed of 37.333 from a 75MHz FSB or 112MHz FSB should be OK. A 41.5MHz PCI speed from 83MHz FSB or 124MHz FSB *may* cause serious problems (could damage both hard drives and PCI cards, cause data loss etc). Some components are OK at this PCI speed but I dont recommend using an FSB which creates a 41MHz+ PCI speed.

In the concern of the AGP bus:

For under 100MHz FSB speeds, the AGP bus can be set to 1/1 of FSB or 2/3rds of the FSB - e.g. 1/1*66MHz FSB = 66MHz AGP speed (the standard speed) but 1/1*83MHz FSB = 83MHz AGP speed - often too high for most AGP cards. So, it may be that you have to set 2/3*83MHz FSB to give a stable AGP speed (that will be lower than the standard 66MHz) equal to 55 1/3MHz.

For over 100MHz FSB's, the AGP speed needs to be set to 2/3rds of the FSB.

I'm sure you can all do the maths to work out AGP speeds when using various FSB speeds. (e.g. 2/3*112 FSB = 75MHz AGP speed which *may* cause problems with older AGP cards but most modern cards are fine at that region of AGP speed).

Your DDR GeForce will be fine @ 133MHz FSB and hence 89MHz AGP bus speed.

OI, that case - you been buying from overclockers.co.uk? Grr... I used to work there tho.

 

[Guest]

Bum, I need the networkd card. I'll try it without though, to see if it does make a difference.

Ta for the info, and I'll be loooking at the fans and stuff ASAP

>>OI, that case - you been buying from overclockers.co.uk? Grr... I used to work there tho.

Nah, was from Scan

[This message has been edited by SoWat (edited 14 July 2000).]

 

[Embattle]

If yu have a Netgear FA310TX then you'll find that any increase in bus Mhz will cause the card to slow badly.

 

[old.QorbeQ]

PCI bus speed can be /REALLY/ important depending on the setup of your machine. I'll tell you a tale...

When I did some overclocking (Celery 300a at the time) the mobo I had didn't have a 100MHz FSB option - it maxed out at 83MHz.

"Oh well", thinks I, "I'll try that".

Eep - it b0rked the data on my hard drive.

One repair later "hmmm, mebbe it was heat or something... lets try again..."

Eep - hd b0rked again, worse than before. Full format and reinstall.

Most annoyed. Of course /now/ I know that I was feeding the PCI bus (which also clocks the hard-drives) with 41.5MHz instead of 33MHz. And I have Fujitsu hard-drives (which hate running at anything other than 33). Doh doh doh. (Apparently IBM's are good to 41.5).

So the moral is MAKE SURE YOUR PCI DIVIDER IS RIGHT else you risk losing all the data on your hard-drive

1/2 for <=66MHz, 1/3 for <=100MHz (if you can - otherwise only try 100MHz) and 1/4 for <=133MHz (again, only if it does it).

I moved to a different motherboard that supported 100MHz FSB and all was well again (300->450 no probs).

If you're prepared to risk it (and you've got a backup of important stuff) then try it out with the "wrong" divider - it might just work anyway.

I'm now running a PIII-700e on a rev1 BH6 mobo (only supports 1/3 PCI divider) so I'm not even going to /try/ overclocking this bugger until I get a motherboard that has a 1/4 PCI divider

 

[old.TUG]

I already posted that shit m8 ^^^^^^^



But yeah, tis vital... and yes, IBM HD's are the best for OC... fuji, samsung, maxtor - not for OC.

 

[old.QorbeQ]

Yeah, but I figgered a little anecdotal evidence wouldn't go amiss (tho mebbe I was repeating things with the speed/divider bit)