Duron, overclocking troubles!

[iostream]

OK, so I bought an A7V mobo and a Duron 750. I bought a pencil and connected the L1 parts on the chip.

But I still can't get the damn thing to budge above 750 no matter how high I raise the voltage! It will go as far as the Bios at 850mhz but that's it! I'm kind of mad because I see everybody with such fantastic overclocked speeds and I get dick squat. Also, I notice that my temp is 110 F and I haven't even sealed the case yet. It's stable, been running it all day just fine but I want to overclock it!

Is it possible that I didn't put enough carbon on the L1? I scribbled like 20 times and made sure not to cross over. Is it supposed to be MOUNDED OVER or just blackened? Am I supposed to change the cpu frequency as well (raise it from 100mhz) ? I don't want to do this because the Duron is 200, not 266, right? And my ram is 100mhz. I don't want to damage that.

I had hopes of getting this thing to at least a gigahertz or close to it and then waiting for the Kyro III (or the next all in wonder once ATI gives the Radeon some balls) to come along with TnL and that would be my last upgrade until AGP8.0 in a year.

So current specs

Duron 750 (I'm pleased with the performance, I just want more speed)
Asus A7V (heavily touted as an overclockers board. Yeah right)
320 Megs ram
Geforce 256 SDR (will go in about six or seven months - a lot of fight left in her)
Soundblaster JIVE (will be replaced by Sensaura. Only using SBlive! cause Aureal is dead)
DSL
17' .25
Microsoft optical mouse
20 gig ata 66
4.6 gig ata 33 (my mp3 disc)
generic 45x cd.

[Wega!]

Have u tried to remove the pencil tracks and do it all over again?
Also u should do some burn in. Burn in is when u let ur computer do a lot of work for a long time, that can make u able to run faster. Leave ur computer on the night over, running Folding@home or Seti.

[iostream]

Well, what steps did you take to get your proc up to it's speed? Did it take long? please be descriptive. You'll be doing a fellow new Duron owner a great service! ( Come on! only a six to ten percent loss in performance to the Thunderbird and outperforming some PIII's and classic Athlon? These Durons are amazing for the money!)

[SickBoy]

Yeah, sounds to me like you might want to clean your penciling on the L1's and try it again. erase all marks you made real clean and then clean then with rubbing alcohol. If you can, get a magnifying glass and lay down plenty o' graphite. If that doesn't work you might consider a conductive paint pen or a defogger repair kit for doing those L1's.


On a side note... Amen iostream!! Duron really is an awesome processor! My 700 does 950 and outperforms P3 1 GHz chips when set up similarly in 3DMark2K... Duron is the ultimate processor for those on a budget. Forget celeron (overpriced and underpowered).

[MiracleMan]

Hmm, it looks heat problens... wich cooling are u using? Termal paste? Add more cooling and try again!

[iostream]

Hey, I think I'm steadily getting it to burn in! I'm now at 824 mhz! Let's see if I can't keep this up. It NEVER would have even booted before! Time to loop some 3D Mark.

[iostream]

The way I'm doing it is by increasing the voltage first and then increasing the clock speed after I've run it a bit. Hey, how hot is too hot? At 824 mhz I'm at like 120 Degrees unloaded. I'm not goint to install a water pump for a Duron!

From what I've read these babies are supposed to overclock with standar heatsinks!

[iostream]

....850 mhz and climbing!

[iostream]

Went to 875 but it hated that idea. So I'm sitting here back at 750 mhz but running at 1.7 volts, the highest it's been. After an hour I bet I can get to 900.

Temps seem to be staying in the 120 range. How hot is too hot? Can I run at 140?

[Wega!]

STOP! don't go higher!!!! Go back, lower ur speeds and volt, ur temps are getting too high. U should not go to 140F, and it's best under 110F.
Don't toast ur CPU, get some better cooling before u go higher.

[iostream]

I think it'll be ok. hardware monitor is telling me 127F right now. Not too bad I think. I'm running 850 mhz at 1.75 volts and am going to let some intensive software run for two hours...

crossing fingers.

[iostream]

....interesting. I've started out with the easy stuff. Media player internet movie from movieflix.com.

When I first booted up the pc (750@850 mhz 1.75 volts) it was reading 127F. Now, about twenty five mintues later, the temp has dropped to 123F. Is this burn in?

On to 3D mark.

[-inox-]

compare this to your my cpu is duron 700@910
1.675vcore
runs at 28c unloaded (82F)
and 44c loaded
abit kt7a

get a better heat sink and fan mine is from overclockers.co.uk
cant remeber exacly what it is but it got a big heat sink and a tiasol fan i think

[Rob Cork]

Burn-in generally works on a longer timescale - ie days and weeks, not minutes and hours. However, if it's working for you, I wouldn't worry too much. I agree with what the others say about cooling - though 120f (50C) is nowhere near dangerous for a socket A cpu, and some even run as hot as 140f (60C), but with crap cooling admittedly. Try to lower your temps, and aim for low-mid 40's (100-110f) - this'll probably involve buying a better hsf like the PEP66 or FOP38, but it should improve stability.

On the L1 front, I think this is likely to be your main problem. Try different pencils, as different types of lead have different resistances. If you still don't have much success, try using rear window defroster paint or a conductive pen - there's plenty of articles around, so I won't go into the details of how to use these.

Oh yeah, it could be the power supply I guess if you're using 250W - a 300W or higher ought to do fine though.

[AZZKICKER]

man to me 110 F is really hot

mine gets there after about 4 hours of Q3 on overdrive.com but im at 2.11 volts on a t bird thats air cooled

i think you need some cooling fast

get a FOP32 or FOP38 (love both of my FOP38's) or thermoengine (with a delta fan)

also its wise to invest into some case cooling and get your case tem as close to room temp as possable

the more air moving through the case means less heat on your components

also to note: on my A7V it didnt like to run at any speed unless my I/O voltage was set to 3.5 volts.........and ALSO dont use a 1005 bios of any kind......had the very fastest performance using 1004D bios

hope this helped

[iostream]

Hmmm. My bios is 1000c. I'll update that now. Also, I just erased the auto pencil marks and used number 2 and it's not unlocked anymore. I need to do it again but I may go to the store tommorrow and get some of that paint instead so I know for sure that it's uinlocked. Now it simply won't even boot up registering anything faster than 750.

Also, I can never find these fancy fans and peltiers you guys are talking about! All my shops carry are heat sink fan combos. I have no idea what an orb is, etc. I asked for the best they had and it was a nine dollar fan with some thermal tape. So maybe I'll try some of that silver fox stuff from radio shack., I guess..

BTW I had a K6II 400 overclocked to 450 and that thing ran in the 140's all the time. It never gave me too much trouble and I was vicious with that thing. Seems that AMD chips are pretty rugged.

Anyway, I guess that ends my attempt to overclock for the day. I'll upfate my progress tomorrow. Anybody who can offer me a cooling solution that doesn't cost $150 I'd be grateful!

[WyrmMaster]

Head over to www.2cooltek.com and pick up a fop 32 or fop 38. Better performance with the 38, but loud as hell from what iv heard. And get some case cooling if you don't already. I have 2 90mm fans in front and one in back plus the power supply and an 80mm fan blowing from the bottom of my case into the top and onto my geforce. Never gets more than 1 degree above room temp.

[iostream]

eh...Yeah. I'm all about minimal fan noise. I don't like the fact that it sounds like a vacuum cleaner as is. But I will buy one of those nicer fans and some thermal compound. My room is faily cool and shielded from all but the morning sun.
For the next two days I'll be running at 816mhz 1.6 volts. Seems very stable right here. Then, I'll increment it a bit more and see what happens. 1 Gigehertz, here I come! I hope.

[rockape]

Wait with bated breath for the burn!!!!!!!!!!! Could try bridging with that fine copper wire in appliance cables if you got superman eyes and skinny fingers with no shake.
Will be into overclocking an 800 next week just waiting for my two boys to get home from boarding school. I was going to try the fine wire method seems a cleaner solution than the pencil, doesn't take much resistance to alter your voltages.
Good luck for the gighz