Athlon 64/XP overclocking guide

[jjcom]

lol yeah I know how you feel...the first time the computer didn't post... but whats great about these newer motherboards is if you overclock too far, you don't always have to reset your Cmos...just restart the computer and in my case your fine.

What kind of cooler do you have on that processor? stock?

jjcom

[shadowing]

Nope. It's not stock. It's a plain air cooled MCX6400-V with a Vantec Stealth 80mm Fan. It's not that bad. I just need to upgrade th fan. But i'm too lazy and i don't want it to loud.

The K8N-E Deluxe mobo I bought seems to have no RAM dividers....

[jjcom]

they've got to be somewhere. Just keep looking around. Some BIOSes can be hard to go through...Abit sticks memory timings in the Advanced Chipset section I believe...which doesn't make sence to me

jjcom

[shadowing]

I found the RAM controls at the BIOS in the Chipset section. These are the options I found...

memclock mode (auto/manual)
memclock value (appears when mode is set to manual)
CAS latency
DRAM RAS to CAS delay
DRAM RAS Prechange time
DRAM Active time
1T/2T timing

Other than that, I can't find anything else related to RAM. No wonder people call this mobo bad for ocing.

[jjcom]

that ain't too bad I guess. On my Abit board, the RAM dividers are under the "Softmenu" under my ASUS board I believe they were under the Advanced section. But these are both Athlon XP boards so things change...

And I started on this "cheat sheet" about 10 mintines ago...ran spell check and thought I'd post it. Sugestions are welcome, but try to keep them so I can keep this one 1page, no more than that.

jjcom

[shadowing]

Thx for the cheat sheet. I still can't find the RAM divider. Maybe this is the reason why everyone hates this K8N-E Deluxe board...

[jjcom]

could very well be it. Maybe try out another BIOS...TicTac is a master when it comes to BIOSes and info on them so maybe shoot him a PM? Glad you like the cheat sheet, hope it came out good.

jjcom

EDIT: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...7&page=1&pp=25
link for a thread in the "Best of AMD" section. This should be able to help you out.

[shadowing]

Well... I finally found it. Thx for all your help jjcom. If i can, I'll look at your guide and attempt to port it to html, or edit it.

[mad mikee]

When hunting for dividers, look for something that has values including 200/auto, 166, 133, 100, etc
That will be the divider settings.

Probably in at least one guide but never actually seen a good way to track em down....

[jjcom]

yeah, agreed its can be hard to find on boards...I think its the memclock mode on this one, set it to manual and it gives more options (6/6, 5/6,4/6 etc.)

jjcom

[shadowing]

Yeah.. True. You should also add in your guide that some mobos put it as 400 and etc. That's what mine is like.

[jjcom]

yeah, good idea , so does mine...I'll add that sometimes...Algebra really stinks...brain is currently dead and hurting...

jjcom

[shadowing]

How much should the AGP and PCI be? If its 66/33, then somethings odd. I saw my AGP as 70. Can someone help?

EDIT: What are PCI latency timers? I can't even find a way to set the PCI...

[jjcom]

Leave the PCI Latency timers thing alone, yeah AGP/PCI should be 66/33, but if the bus isn't locking then it will go up. up to 75mhz on the AGP shouldn't cause any problems tho. Its just best left at stock. Sometimes you have to select 67mhz in the BIOS to lock the AGP bus

jjcom

[shadowing]

Thx. I was worried when my AGP went 70. I set it to 66, but I start to get rounding errors in Prime at only 205FSB at 12X multiplier. Should I lower the RAM timings?

[jjcom]

you mean lossen from something like 2-3-2 to 2-3-3 then yes, but first try and increase voltage to 2.8v. then loosen the timings. If that doesn't help, try a divider to rule out RAM. Then increase the Vcore if the divider doesn't work.

jjcom

[shadowing]

Is it a better idea to run the multiplier at a lower multiplier at the same speed with the timings loosened?

[jjcom]

so you mean something like:
220mhz 11x 2.4ghz vs

240mhz 10x 2.4ghz

well it depends...if your RAM can do 220mhz with 2-3-3-x timings and at 240mhz it does 3-4-4. Well then I'd probly pick the 220mhz. Since...3-4-4 is bad unless your doing something much higher. But it also depends on benchmarks...maybe you'll get a better score even tho the timings are really loose.

jjcom

[shadowing]

Thx. My ram and my CPU is really odd... I'll see how far it can go.

EDIT: How much volts does the CPU usually take? Mine's taking 1.550...

[jjcom]

Stock for Winchester is 1.4v and stock for CH/NC is 1.5v...1.55v ain't bad. Taking them to 1.65v shouldn't cause issues either as long as your temps aren't bad

jjcom

[pontifikas]

I 've read you guide jjcom.
Neat and clear!

Though somewhere you are reffering to a Ram suggestion table on this forum.
I wasn't able to trace it. Could you give me a link?
I'm having a really hard time with my Ram and I want to see what brands are being suggested for my Mobo.

Thank you.

[jjcom]

Ahh. you mean the TCCD RAM table?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=43659
a nice big thread.
Some Gskill or OCZ RAM would be best, I like OCZ so I would say the DDR400 EL PE rev.2.
In that case, rev.2 signifies TCCD chips, while no rev.2 signifies some other RAM chip. I'm not really sure, never bothered to take the HS off my EL PE RAM.

As for me reccomending OCZ, Gskill's just as good, but i like OCZ RAM for no real reason.

jjcom

[pontifikas]

Thanks again.

The OCZ are very expensive mate
For the moment I'm stuck with the Kingston 2x512 I've ordered.
My previus pair (Kingston again) with 3,3,3,8 was crashing my PC.
I now wait for CL2.5 hoping for stability. If these too go awry then I'll sell them
and buy a pair of OCZ.

You'll be seing me again I'm afraid (on a seperate post of course) .

[jjcom]

If your willing to volt mod or get a Booster the, TwinMOS Speed Premeium sticks are doing very well. Their basicly CH-5.

jjcom

[sevenka]

EDITED:

Link Removed. No Spamming Allowed.