Overclocking your rig 1 (CPU)

[mojo]

This is the first of a series of overclocking realted posts which I will be making over the next couple of weeks.

IMPORTANT

Before you overclock your CPU you should know that most likely doing so will void your product warranty. Do so at your own risk, and do not attempt to blame GAMERS for any malfunction which may occur.

So lets get straight to it CPU OVERCLOCKING!!!

Q. What is meant by overclocking a CPU ?

A. CPU's are manufactured to operate under specific conditions. They may or may not be able to perform better based on altering these conditions. When the operating conditions are manipulated in order to increase the operating speed of a CPU it is called overclocking.

Q. Why overclock?

A. CPU speed is measured by the number of instructions* that can be processed by the CPU per second. 1 instruction per second =1Hz. 1kHZ=2^10Hz. 1MHz = 2^20 Hz. Basically put, the more MHz/GHz u got, the faster the performance of your CPU.

Q. Great what are we waiting for?

A. Well, it's not that simple... firstlly we need to know how a CPU works.
(I'll be brief and just say what u need for overclocking)

Your CPU has 3 major parameters to be considered when overclocking.

1) FSB
2) ratio/multiplier
3) operating voltage.

FSB

FSB or Front Side Bus is the speed at which the CPU interfaces with the rest of the system. The overall speed of the CPU is usually a multiple of this value as will be established later. FSB is another topic in itself, so we will think of it for now as a means of establishing a common speed for the CPU to transfer data to and from the system.

ratio/multiplier.

Your CPU ratio/multiplier is the value calculated by the division:

CPU speed/FSB

Hence, for a CPU with FSB 400MHz, with a ratio of 6.0, the CPU speed will be 6.0X400MHz = 2400MHz.

3) Operating Voltage.

CPU's are powered by e.m.f. (electromotive force).
The Manufacturer usually specifies a certain voltage of e.m.f to power the CPU.
However if the CPU is overclocked, it might need more juice than what the manufacturer originally prescribed.

Q. What are the results of overclocking?

A. There are usually two important results of overclocking your CPU.
1) HEAT...lots of it. The faster your CPU runs the more thermal cycles are experienced. Increasing the operating voltage also increases the temperature of components carrying these currents. Heat dissipation is extremely important when overclocking you CPU.

2)Increased perfromance duh...

Finally the good part. HOW!!!

OK, you have your CPU cooler that has you CPU operating at 30-35 degrees C under normal load. If your temp is over 40, come back when u get a better cooler.

There are now 2 things to consider, FSB overclocking and multiplier overclocking.

the latter is only possible on very few CPU chips and revisions. If this works with yours consider yourself lucky.

First you need to establish your parameters for FSB and multiplier. If you don't know, You can find out as follows, enter your BIOS settings when your system powers on. Look for CPU/FSB Frequency. Some AMD chips work like DDR RAM and double their FSB based on another clock speed. Be careful and be sure which one you are looking at. Your BIOS should also have your current CPU multiplier. If not, you can always use the formlua i gave above.

MULTIPLIER UNLOCKING.

By changing the multiplier/ratio, you can effectively increase the number of instructions that can fit into each clock cycle.

FSB overclocking

This depends on how good your Motherboard is. I personnally recommend MSI, ASUS, ABIT for overclocking CPU's. In your BIOS settings you may adjust your CPU frequency/bus speed (FSB) to increase the overall speed of your CPU.

ADJUSTING OPERATING VOLTAGE

Overclocking your CPU means it's doing more work than it was designed for. This might require more Power. P=IV. So increasing the operating voltage ensures that your CPU gets the power that it needs to be overclocked. This substantially increases the heat produced by the CPU and can lead to heat problems.

Finding the right combination of multiplier, FSB and operating voltage can lead to a vast increase in performance of your CPU.

have fun y'all. looking forward to replies

*instructions - some CPUs can execute instructions that others can't. This depends on the instruction set of the CPU amd can also affect performance.

[CRaZYMoFo]

lookin good i think
thats all the general info bout ocing there
just one thing
do u know any good system monitors to use to check temps?
cause i have the one that came with the mobo, but there are millions out there.
i jus want to know if you know a good one that should be accurate

[Paradoxxx]

Waw very nice general OC post iwmc :( I sounding like mark now... gosh... anyways.

Crazy I think the application has to have your board(maybe chipset or bios) supported in someway, you cant just run any and anyone so check your mobo for any advancements on your Hardware monitor.

Dont really trust those HW monitors though, they are just there to give you an idea of how hot your CPU/Ambient temp is, the sensor on the board has its limitations. Use it as a guide.

These days CPUs dont seem to be the bottleneck, its the videocard. Fortunately its possible to overclock these also, using software usually moding the driver.

Videocard OCing is one of the more dangerous tasks, where as your PC wouldnt boot if you OC, the videocard will run and if allowed to run to long @ unstable settings artifacts will start to occur.

Mojo next step videocard ocing (right?)

[mojo]

Originally posted by Paradoxxx@Mar 29 2005, 09:08 AM
Mojo next step videocard ocing (right?)
Quoted post


Para yuh rushin de brush... I wanted to touch on RAM before I went on to videocards since the videocards has 2 elements invloved the vpu and RAM.

[Paradoxxx]

I sorry mojo, brush away.

[CRaZYMoFo]

ram ocing next!
corsair hav sum lovely platinum heat spreaders :) must buy must buy
i heard that the system monitors are always wrong lol
but i figure there must b a few thats mc working right
its nut such a big deal
i go stick with the mobos monitor for the general idea

[PhoeniX]

nice explaination i tihnk i understanding this madness more now thnz man :lol:
you cud OC RAM? i never knew that well explain again ill be reading lol!!!

[mojo]

ok now that we have people overclocking, it would be nice to hear about your results. Post some screenshots showing what your CPU is clocked to. I understand that spoilt has a Barton 2500+ that was successfully unlocked. Maybe they (him and opium) might have something to add here.

And anyone else who thinks their overclocking is worth mention, feel free to post.

[opium]

Originally posted by mojo@Mar 29 2005, 09:03 PM
ok now that we have people overclocking, it would be nice to hear about your results. Post some screenshots showing what your CPU is clocked to. I understand that spoilt has a Barton 2500+ that was successfully unlocked. Maybe they (him and opium) might have something to add here.

And anyone else who thinks their overclocking is worth mention, feel free to post.
Quoted post


spoilt cpu was a boxed cpu and as i expected it would be a very nice contender for overclocking

before we using a kt3 msi mobo but the mobo had some ram problems and it was given the boot

got a new asus nf2 mobo, remembering that the mobos unlock your cpu multipliers
i decide to crank de bitch up to the max.

to my suprise it booted stable :blink:

to make sure everting runs well we increaed voltage, now its forever a 2800xp

next try will be clocking de the bastard at 400fsb, 3200xp :P

good cooling is ways important :coolthumb:

[rumbelly]

Originally posted by PhoeniX@Mar 29 2005, 08:39 PM
nice explaination i tihnk i understanding this madness more now thnz man :lol:
you cud OC RAM? i never knew that well explain again ill be reading lol!!!
Quoted post



dred when yuh really get into computers, yuh does realise that yuh could theoretically oc any component in yuh pc yes
down to yuh 3 1/2 floppy drive :)

ofcourse the performance gains to ocing a floppy or dvd drive are minimal if not non-existent

but basically anything running on a BUS in yuh pc can oc

[mojo]

It's true that you need a mobo capable of unlocking the CPU multiplier to achieve this, but you also need a CPU that is unlockable. From all the forums that I have visited, it seems that these are quite rare. I have heard that there is a method of manually unlocking the multiplier by writing on certain spots of your cpu wafer. Not too sure about this, i'll have to do more research.

hmmm.... the gf have a Barton 2500+... me wonders......

Next ting i blow out she PC too and i cyah visit Trinigamers no more :( :( :(

[CRaZYMoFo]

yea@writing on the cpu
pencil unlocking
its basically about joining 2 pts on the cpu(varies with cpu i think) with a pencil line allowing current to flow and hence unlocked
dangerous though
almost tried it last yr lol

[opium]

Originally posted by mojo+Apr 1 2005, 03:46 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mojo @ Apr 1 2005, 03:46 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>It's true that you need a mobo capable of unlocking the CPU multiplier to achieve this, but you also need a CPU that is unlockable. From all the forums that I have visited, it seems that these are quite rare. I have heard that there is a method of manually unlocking the multiplier by writing on certain spots of your cpu wafer. Not too sure about this, i'll have to do more research.

hmmm.... the gf have a Barton 2500+... me wonders......

Next ting i blow out she PC too and i cyah visit Trinigamers no more :( :( :(
Quoted post
[/b]

mojo look for the de unlocking strip, it will unlock the cpu if not unlockable on mobo

<!--QuoteBegin-CRaZYMoFo@Apr 1 2005, 08:29 AM
yea@writing on the cpu
pencil unlocking
its basically about joining 2 pts on the cpu(varies with cpu i think) with a pencil line allowing current to flow and hence unlocked
dangerous though
almost tried it last yr lol
Quoted post
[/quote]

they really want to stop that
before with ole thunderbirds and such the gap used to be a little gold link break which u could relink with a pencil
now they burn gaps on the waffer, only way is to fill the gap and use a silver based ink to relink. and again i think they removed all bridges on the waffer now so u dont see them.

[mojo]

ahh yes the CPU G-SPOT!!! good luck finding it fellas.....

On a lighter note, i forgot to mention that on most recent NVIDIA chipset motherboards, There are drivers which can be used to program your chipset dynamically without entering the bios. That's right, overclocking and changing everything from FSB to multiplier, to voltages.(and some memory settings which i will mwntion in another topic.

NVIDIA calls this D.O.T. - Dynamic Overclocking Technology. It's usually stamped on the mobo package box if your product supports this feature.

[opium]

we just found ah even better one today

rumors of ah 2500xp overclocked to a 3200xp is completely true

spoilt system is now a 3200xp

[mojo]

Guess what folks i done the big nasty also!!!

Barton 2500 overclocked to Barton 3200!!!

I decided to try out this on my gf's Barton 2500+ CPU. It is an old one and apparently it came from the first batch before they started locking multiplers. Here's what i got...

Voltage: 1.85V
Multiplier: 11.0X
CLOCK: 200MHz
FSB: 400MHz
SPEED: 2200Mhz

CPU temp: 45 degrees!!! An all time high for my Volcano 7!!!

[soldier]

Well.. I have my prescott [ normal temp is 45 idle ] running @ 33 idle.. I'm looking to oc it, but i don't know wtf to do.. So I went into the bios and saw the fsb thing [ after changing oc profile or sum shit from auto ].

It was initially @ 800.. So I said what the hell and put it at 900 o.O. CPU went up to 3.38. Temp was @ a stable 33 suprisingly.. But.. what do I do about voltage? I don't know what to do... I also heard you must overclock your ram to match as well? Sigh

I just set the fsb back to 800 before something happened that not supposed to.. help?

[mojo]

1.well, read the thread first of all.

2.then u might want to run some rounds of prime 95 on a blend test while monitoring temps. If temps are acceptable, continue. If not, lower clock.

3.If you get errors, increase voltage to the cpu core a little at a time and go back to step 2.

[soldier]

Voltage to cpu core and prime95. got it, thanks ;)

[Paradoxxx]

little as in 0.01V - 0.02V per increment.

[soldier]

Per how much increase of fsb ? Because like I mentioned above, I jumped from 800 to 900 and everything was good. Temps were stable. Made no voltage change though. Yes? No? How much voltage per how much fsb?

[cereal_killer]

the temps maybe stable but the oc may not be

u gotta prime it to make sure the system is stable, if its not stable(where u get an error in prime 95) you up the voltage and prime till u get it stable. when priming u have to watch temps on load, if it gets to much u will have to drop the fsb and voltage to suit.

with my old northwood i reached 2.6 ghz from 2.0 ghz 24 hour prime stable on stock cooling with 38 c idle and 60 c load

honestly from your posts i can infer that u don't understand all the aspects of overclocking. i suggest reading up on it before u damage your pc

[soldier]

Indeed. I don't know rats ass about overclocking. :) I will do some reading today seeing as I barely ever have work to do. /me fires up google;) WDA@ 24HRS!! i cyah go so long without meh pc :( isn't like once it reach 6hrs or sum so it stable?

[Paradoxxx]

6hrs is a good 'sample', from there if you want to say your are 100% stable 24hrs itmc

[ecktt]

I think if Soldier has to ask these basic questions, then he hasn't full grasped the fundamental concepts to over clocking and should not proced with out first hand assistance.

[Paradoxxx]

ent!
/me refers to the assembling the PC issue..

[soldier]

Is just I've never done it before. Muss ask questions :) STEUPS@ PARA. /me notes that the same thing happened to veg first pc. Allyuh getting on like I building pc's meh whole life. Is meh first one. Muss experiment. Doh talk like allyuh was born with the knowledge. And ecktt, hence d reason i am asking questions here and, as i noted in an above post, reading up on d net.. wtf man:mad:

[cereal_killer]

ecktt just said what i tried to say

[mojo]

i agree that overclocking is not for everyone, and this was stated clearly in the first post. Soldier seems to be getting into lots of stuff recently, and if he thinks he ready to risk losing his hefty price tag rig as a result of poor overclocking practices, it's up to him.....

[soldier]

Muss learn some how. I sure everyone fry a machine already :)

Burn to learn baby

[kaizen]

wts some toothepaste for ocing :D colgate brand

[soldier]

So here I am with my first official overclcock:). I increased the fsb to 1000 giving me 3.75Ghz out of this baby. Voltages were default. Prime 95 was run and it was going for about seven hours.

I wasn't sure how long to keep it running for again so i asked mojo. He recommended to keep increasing fsb and making sure Prime 95 could make it past 6hrs. That will be done shortly. During Prime 95, temps rocked 45 degrees [ I'm guessing this is normal seein that it is under a torture test? ].

Prime 95 was exited and temps were back to normal. I took some screenies.

http://soldier.trinigamers.com/PC/6hrs%20+.JPG

http://soldier.trinigamers.com/PC/After%20prime.JPG

[mojo]

i say push until you find your limit!!!

keep overclocking higher until u get an error in 6hr prime. then try to stabilize to find your maximum stable oc. When you do, do a 24hr prime test to make sure that you are prime stable.

Voltage increments are not necessary unless u are getting errors in your stability tests.if u not getting errors, buy all means keep the voltage default. If you do get errors in prime 95, check while running to se if your vcore drops lower than what it is supposed to be. If it does, increase voltage a little to stabilize.

Increasing CPU VCore is not recommended, as doing this dramatically increases your operating temperature, and the few extra MHz gained from upping voltage really doesnt make sense.

When you finalize your oc, be sure to post your specs in the oc hall of fame and make sure and follow the instructions.

[soldier]

Ecktt advised to let the 3.75Ghz settle in for about a week because it gives a little extra performance. So probably on Friday [ Day off from work ] i'll do a little something. The FSB is at 1000 now, any advice as to how much higher to push it? 1050? Will i have to adjust the multiplier?

[soldier]

I'm thinking of overclocking again. I never tried to since I got a new PSU as my old one was faulty.

I read posts about my CPU hitting speeds of 4.0 and up. Think I can hit 4.2 from 3.0? Machine would freeze up when I hit 3.9 last time but that was with a faulty PSU...

What you guys think?

[Doobs]

do eeeeeeeeeeettttt. burn out is a bi+ch tho.

[soldier]

I got my CPU to 3.75Ghz ( 250 x 15 ). I didn up the vcore, only the chipset voltage to 1.5

My memory is @ 800mhz @ 5-6-6-18 @ 1.9v

Will try for tighter timings later. Did not prime 95 yet. will do it over night and update.

[Hidden]

1.5v?
wtf

[soldier]

chipset voltage yes. its easier and from what I read, safer than upping the vcore. Vcore is when things get tight. Only two options in my bios for chipset voltage. 1.4 and 1.5. default is 1.4

[soldier]

At 3.75 prime 95 (64bit edition) lasted 6 hrs.. then i woke up.. so i stopped it. no errors.

Increased fsb and its now at 3.84GHZ.

The memory is still clocked @ 800mhz and i believe the timing are a little bit slacker. :(

When I left for work this morning I put prime 95 to run again. I won't be home until wednesday evening.. so we'll see what goes on. more than 24hrs prime 95 immc! :)

[ecktt]

Hope you fan does not fail and burn down ur house.

[soldier]

thanks ecktt.. thanks -_-"

[soldier]

I dropped the memory speed back to 667Mhz @ 3-3-3-10

Cpu speed is @ 3.75GHz

[exterminatus]

Why are you posting this in the oc'in guide and not your own thread ?

[soldier]

Well if you read back.. two years ago we were discussing overclocking my cpu. I just decided to continue it.

Looks like someone did not check the previous pages :rolleyes: