I have an ASUS A7N8X Delux, AMD XP 2100 + T-Bred, and 2 x 512mb PC2700 DDR, Aero 7 + Fan.
I am trying to overclock my system and found the walkthrough below in a thread somewhere. Now I get to the point where you need to adjust the multiplier. At this stage my settings are FSB 184, multiplier 7.5, Memory 6-3-2-2. 3D Mark 2001 and Sandra work fine but when I try Prime 95 I get keep getting errors. So I keep lowering my FSB. I am now at FSB 170 and I am still getting errors within and hour of Prime 95 running. This is before I have even begun putting the multiplier up or CPU Voltage up! Am I doing something wrong as I am running out of patience???
I am following the method below.
Help would be much appreciated.
thanks Fabio
In the bios, set everything to manual, so you can adjust the FSB by step of 1 MHz, the mulitplier
(not AUTO), the memory at 100% SYNC with FSB, the memory timing (that 4 magic numbers that look like 6-3-3-2, ...).
After you can manually adjust these settings. Try to lower and change the mulitplier and reboot,
if the screen or the bios show that the multipler has indeed been changed, most likely you have a TRBED.
Since old Palomino are most likely locked by default.
Set USER DEFINE for the bios memory setting, set it to 6-3-3-2 as a starting point. Set the FSB in SYNC
mode with the memory. Lower the CPU multiplier so that CPU would not go out of its stable working range
during the FSB overclocking. For a 2100+, running under 2 GHz (or even lower if you are not sure) is pretty
safe during the FSB adjustment period.
Increase the FSB few steps at a time (or 1 MHz when close to top) until the OS begins not to boot, then
you will know roughly what is the top speed of your system. Then you can backoff 1 MHz at a time, so that
the OS and applications are stable. 3D mark 2001 is a good and quick test for stability. This is the top
stable FSB speed of your system.
A7N8X FSB top speed can range between 180-220 MHz (w/o Vdd mod for NorthBridge).
Then try to tighten the memory timing to 6-2-2-2 as a goal. You may not be able to achieve that without
dropping the FSB a lot. There is an optimal point and balance between the bus frequency and memory timing.
Between 6-3-3-2 and 6-2-2-2 is about 5 MHz of memory/FSB frequency (roughly speaking), pick the best
tradeoff when you get there. Memory bandwidth can be measured by SiSoft 2003.
After you get the max FSB for system, then you can play with the CPU multiplier by increasing it 0.5 at a
time. May have to make delta change (+-) on FSB to finalize between TWO adjacent multiplier settings such
that the CPU frequency is as close to its top stable frequency as possible in order to fully optimize the system.
Set AGP freq to 66 (locked)
For RAM, increase the bios default RAM voltage to 2.7 - 2.8 V may help in case you are close to or
beyond the stock speed of the memory module.
When uping the CPU freq, when you feel the system becomes unstable, increase the Vcore one step at
a time to gain stability. Increase gradually, no big jump to be safe.
You don't have to be very aggressive on Vcore and Vram to do a good, decent overclocking. When you
have done once or twice, you will find your way to be more aggressive.
I am trying to overclock my system and found the walkthrough below in a thread somewhere. Now I get to the point where you need to adjust the multiplier. At this stage my settings are FSB 184, multiplier 7.5, Memory 6-3-2-2. 3D Mark 2001 and Sandra work fine but when I try Prime 95 I get keep getting errors. So I keep lowering my FSB. I am now at FSB 170 and I am still getting errors within and hour of Prime 95 running. This is before I have even begun putting the multiplier up or CPU Voltage up! Am I doing something wrong as I am running out of patience???
I am following the method below.
Help would be much appreciated.
thanks Fabio
In the bios, set everything to manual, so you can adjust the FSB by step of 1 MHz, the mulitplier
(not AUTO), the memory at 100% SYNC with FSB, the memory timing (that 4 magic numbers that look like 6-3-3-2, ...).
After you can manually adjust these settings. Try to lower and change the mulitplier and reboot,
if the screen or the bios show that the multipler has indeed been changed, most likely you have a TRBED.
Since old Palomino are most likely locked by default.
Set USER DEFINE for the bios memory setting, set it to 6-3-3-2 as a starting point. Set the FSB in SYNC
mode with the memory. Lower the CPU multiplier so that CPU would not go out of its stable working range
during the FSB overclocking. For a 2100+, running under 2 GHz (or even lower if you are not sure) is pretty
safe during the FSB adjustment period.
Increase the FSB few steps at a time (or 1 MHz when close to top) until the OS begins not to boot, then
you will know roughly what is the top speed of your system. Then you can backoff 1 MHz at a time, so that
the OS and applications are stable. 3D mark 2001 is a good and quick test for stability. This is the top
stable FSB speed of your system.
A7N8X FSB top speed can range between 180-220 MHz (w/o Vdd mod for NorthBridge).
Then try to tighten the memory timing to 6-2-2-2 as a goal. You may not be able to achieve that without
dropping the FSB a lot. There is an optimal point and balance between the bus frequency and memory timing.
Between 6-3-3-2 and 6-2-2-2 is about 5 MHz of memory/FSB frequency (roughly speaking), pick the best
tradeoff when you get there. Memory bandwidth can be measured by SiSoft 2003.
After you get the max FSB for system, then you can play with the CPU multiplier by increasing it 0.5 at a
time. May have to make delta change (+-) on FSB to finalize between TWO adjacent multiplier settings such
that the CPU frequency is as close to its top stable frequency as possible in order to fully optimize the system.
Set AGP freq to 66 (locked)
For RAM, increase the bios default RAM voltage to 2.7 - 2.8 V may help in case you are close to or
beyond the stock speed of the memory module.
When uping the CPU freq, when you feel the system becomes unstable, increase the Vcore one step at
a time to gain stability. Increase gradually, no big jump to be safe.
You don't have to be very aggressive on Vcore and Vram to do a good, decent overclocking. When you
have done once or twice, you will find your way to be more aggressive.
