Some overclocking questions.

[DogfooD]

Questions on overclocking from a not quite n00b, but no means an expert on it.

When do you need to increase voltage? Is voltage directly related to CPU temperature? If temp is high, increase voltage to lower it?

If you increase your FSB too high, perhipherals go whack. how do you counteract this? I have a A7N8X, is there a way to lower PCI/AGP speeds to keep the machine stable?

It seems like there is a fine limit to overclocking and machine stability, and I'm missing a big chunk of information. Is there any place I can read up on what all the BIOS settings are actually doing, moreso then just what should be where? There's a lot I don't understand in there, and I would like to know what it does. I would much rather have a good understanding of what I'm doing, then just hitting the buttons and seeing what happens.

Thanks all!

[aznchaos]

Im not an expert but i know increasing voltage will make temps higher not lower. I think that increasing the fsb increases the agp/pci unless they are locked. Heres a website about bios settings http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=1.

[Gautam]

Increasing the voltage increases heat dissipation in a square factor. Increase you voltage when you encounter instability only. You will reach a point of diminishing returns at which the added voltage will only increase heat and not help the overclock. Your A7N8X has the PCI bus locked at 33mhz. No need for concern over keeping it in spec. Look at this (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=207088) thread for an excellent explanation of just about everything pertinent to overclocking.

[DogfooD]

I've read that thread, but it didn't offer an in depth explaination of what's going on.

[Gautam]

What kind of problems are you having? What memory and power supply do you have? Those are major factors towards the overclockability of your system.

[hitechjb1]

These two posts may explain some basic questions about CPU frequency, temperature and vcore. Pls take a look, further questions and comments are welcome.

Relationship of clock, die temperature and Vcore (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1748247#post1748247) (page 2)

How much voltage can be applied to a CPU (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1828521#post1828521) (page 5)

For other questions about CPU, FSB, memory, PSU, ..., there are links to some other posts that are related and can be found in the first post of that thread.

[DogfooD]

Well, with the barton, I haven't even finished the windows updates, it's going right now (Finally) so I haven't played with it yet. But with 1700+ (tbred) I could never go over 145 fsb without bluescreening windows.

I was just hoping for some literature to read up on, so I would have a greater understanding then I do now of bios settings. :)

Knowledge is the key!

[don256us]

The voltage thing has been answered but I'm going to chime in anyway.

When you OC your machine, it becomes unstable at some point. Lets say it's 145 MHz fsb (I saw that number in this post) with the default multiplier. If you increase the voltage, you may be able to get that to a higher number. Maybe 150 MHz. The same is true for the multiplier. If it is not stable at a given clock multiplier, increasing the voltage may help.

In creasing the voltage does two negative things. 1) it increases the heat of the CPU which also reduces its life. 2) it puts more voltage through :D than the CPU is designed for and reduces its life.

You can counteract this to a point by making sure that you cool the CPU very carefully. Good air cooling or water cooling which ever makes sense to you.

To summerize, a voltage increase is used to create greater stability.

The A7N8X should have a BIOS feature to lock the PCI/AGP bus. This will address your concern of pushing those buses too far. I don't own an Asus, yet, but I'm sure your manual details how this is done.

There certainly is a fine line between stability and non-stability when overclocking. It is something that you have to do 'trial and error'. Try something, test it. Try something else, test it. No two overclocks are the same. Even if you have two identicle machines, one will go higher than the other.