REsults of my fist Overclocking experience.

REsults of my first Overclocking experience. (Barton 2500)

See my sig for specs.

I have stopped at 2133mhz for the time being, as my CPU now, under load is hitting 50c degrees.
When I hit 2133mhz, I had to up the Vcore to 1.7volts or it was unstable.

Since then, I ran prim95 for a few hours and it was fine, no errors reported.

So, thanks to all the people here who explained things very clearly to me and helped me out about how to go about this.

I'm planning on mounting a side fan over the CPU to drop the temps some more and try to get to my goal of 2.2 ghz.
But I think I'll let it run at this speed for a while and see how it goes.

nice job =d you can also OC further with a better heatsink ;d SLK-800 or sk7 wiht smart fan2 should get 2.2 wihtout a sweat =d

my 2500 does 2.3 wiht slk-800 sf2 at default

Thanks.

Well, I did all this on a budget, so I bought the Aero 7+ because I knew it was pretty good, but cheap as well.
I can't really afford to buy another HSF.

I have a spare fan or two around the office somewhere, so I'll just try the "cut a hole in my case" trick and see how it goes.

Acutally, I'm thinking of lowering my FSB and upping my Multiplier, do you think it'll cool down the processor a bit or will it be the same?


That's quite impressive speeds you have there using Aircooling only.

Upping multipliers and lowering FSB will not help your CPU to reach higher speeds. It may in fact reduce your performance in games and benchmarks considerably as the memory is running at a slower speed. High FSB>High multipler overclocks for the same CPU speed.

EDIT If you really want to, try for 200FSB and 10.5x . Also try getting some of those RAM timings down a bit, since your RAM will be running at stock speeds.

L337 M33P said:

Upping multipliers and lowering FSB will not help your CPU to reach higher speeds. It may in fact reduce your performance in games and benchmarks considerably as the memory is running at a slower speed. High FSB>High multipler overclocks for the same CPU speed.

Click to expand...

OK, noted.

EDIT If you really want to, try for 200FSB and 10.5x . Also try getting some of those RAM timings down a bit, since your RAM will be running at stock speeds.

Click to expand...

Down to what do you suggest?

Tightening RAM timings improves latency and can increase bandwidth. This means reducing the number of clock cycles taken to access data stored in the RAM.

Start by setting control of your timings to manual so you can fiddle with these individually. Try and get them as low as possible without generating errors in Memtest 86. Run it each time you change a setting, but there is no need to run it for about 20 minutes - 5 minutes is usually sufficient. If you get errors try upping the Vdimm voltage to 2.6 or 2.7V. Test again and if all is well then tighten another number.

I managed to get my craptastic PC2100 DDR RAM down to 5-2-2-2 so expect something similar with that stick.

L337 M33P said:

Tightening RAM timings improves latency and can increase bandwidth. This means reducing the number of clock cycles taken to access data stored in the RAM.

Start by setting control of your timings to manual so you can fiddle with these individually. Try and get them as low as possible without generating errors in Memtest 86. Run it each time you change a setting, but there is no need to run it for about 20 minutes - 5 minutes is usually sufficient. If you get errors try upping the Vdimm voltage to 2.6 or 2.7V. Test again and if all is well then tighten another number.

I managed to get my craptastic PC2100 DDR RAM down to 5-2-2-2 so expect something similar with that stick.

Click to expand...

But if I have a CAS rating of 2.5, then I ought to enter 5-2-2-2.5?
Someone recommended 6-3-3-2.5 in an earlier thread, what's that like?

Don't do it all in one go. I had the wierd experience of setting the timings to 5-2-2-2 all in one go, and my motherboard wouldn't let me boot. Then I did it in steps and got to 5-2-2-2 and it now boots every time. CAS rating is just the default rating, so if your RAM can handle 2.0 then there's no reason to not set it to that.

L337 M33P said:

Don't do it all in one go. I had the wierd experience of setting the timings to 5-2-2-2 all in one go, and my motherboard wouldn't let me boot. Then I did it in steps and got to 5-2-2-2 and it now boots every time. CAS rating is just the default rating, so if your RAM can handle 2.0 then there's no reason to not set it to that.

Click to expand...

Well, my ram is the Corsair Value RAM, which is 2.5, but you're saying it will probably handle CAS 2 anyway?

What are some examples of memory timing settings you used to get to 5-2-2-2?

heilel said:

Well, my ram is the Corsair Value RAM, which is 2.5, but you're saying it will probably handle CAS 2 anyway?

Click to expand...

Yep

Just a second, I may need to dig arount to find out what the various numbers are. I partly understand it but not off the top of my head.

Look at the link in this sticky ~~~http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62006~~~

In case you haven't come across them, these posts may help.


Summary for overclocking CPU and FSB

RAS, CAS Timing and BIOS Memory Setting

Single Channel vs Dual Channel DDR Memory

Links to various posts on memory, FSB and CPU overclocking


If it is Corsair PC3200/3500 CAS2 (not sure about Corsair value ram in your sig), it should do 6-3-3-2 or even 6-2-2-2 (especially for the 3200LL version of memory) at 200 MHz FSB. At higher FSB (say 5-10% above 200 MHz), you may have to use CAS 2.5 (x-3-3-2.5) and higher Vmem (to 2.8-2.9 V).

Whether it is CAS 2 or CAS 2.5 (6-2-2-2 or 6-3-3-2 or x-3-3-2.5), main thing at this stage is to get FSB highest and stable first (both Prime95 and 3Dmark), the difference in performance between CAS 2 and CAS 2.5 at this stage of overclocking is minor. After the system is stable at highest FSB and CPU speed, then you may look at the memory timing and tradeoff with a few MHz of FSB.