View Full Version : newbie question...KT7 Pro2-A DURON 700
Hi all, this is a whole new world for me and just looking to get a few pointers....some of my specs
motherboard k7t pro2-a
duron 700 processor
128mb@133sdram
voodoo5 5500
300watt psu
I've been reading many of the posts and see that some of you guys can really rock your pc's....very sweet.
Here's what i have done, it's not much but it's all i know...right now
Hope this makes sense. My "clock by slight adjustment" is default at 100. I raise it to 108 and my 700mhz is now at 756mhz...I had it higher but my system had trouble booting up (would sometimes freeze during process) so that's why i lowered it back to 108 (stable)
My cpu temp is steadily 48 to 50c. Everything is stock from factory, no bigger fans, no bigger heatsinks or anything of the sort. And that temp is not even under load... I have taken the fan from my old 250watt psu and set that on the bottom of my case blowing towards the back...that's it.
I'm not gready, all i want is to bump it up to 800mhz. I will get a bigger fan for the processor though. Can someone please tell me as to what other little tinkering i can do to reach my goal? Do i need to supply more voltage to the board or what? I dont know where to go from here....Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Ok, heres what you do. First thing to do is unlock that proc by connecting the L1 bridges on it. Be very careful, they are little. You can use a pencil, defogger repair kit, or conductive pen. I would recommend either one of the latter. Your mobo uses the KT133 chipset so you won't really be able to reach the high fsb speeds, but, if you unlock the multiplier, you can easily hit 800, heck, with a Duron 700 you could probably hit 900 with some snazzy cooling. As far as that temp goes: 48 to 50 is way to high for an idle temp, it's ok for a temp under load. Make sure the hsf is sitting correctly and if its using a thermal pad take it off and sacrifice it to the OCing gods. :) Get some Arctic Silver 2, its the best thermal paste and works amazingly well. Also make sure taht your case can breathe, you have to get that heat out of there. Hope this helps. :)
ok, now you really lost me... the L1 bridge, is that the JOWL1 that i see on the board layout? You'll have to excuse me i'm a real newbie at these sort of terms. What exactly do i have to do to it?
Unlocking the multiplier? I've seen the multiplier thing in by bios, is that what you mean and what do i set it at?
Thermal pad on my cooling fan? What does it look like? i'll trash it if i can locate it...
Artic Silver 2, where do i apply it and how?
Sorry if i seem to be a real dope here but you have to understand when i say i'm newbie. I'M A FIRST TIME OVERCLOCKER, and this is all new wording for me. Thanks a lot guys, any help tips a really appreciated.
signed.
BIG TIME NEWBIE
Tachyon
04-05-01, 08:00 PM
The L1 bridges are on your Duron CPU. So far you have increased the Front Side Bus only. To adjust the multiplier you need to connect the four L1 bridges with pencil or conductive ink. Take a look at the beginners guide that you can access from the main page.
Terry
Don't worry man, you don't sound like a dope, that's what these forums are for. :) The thermal pad is located on the underside of your proc's heatsink, if you have one it will look like a big square thing. They suck at conducting heat and will screw up OCing attempts. The thermal paste goes right onto the core, use a thin layer and use a razor to spread it around, don't touch it with your fingers, the oils from your skin mess up the conductivity. The L1 bridges are on the proc itself, you will se 4 little lines with L1 written next to them, these allow multiplier changes but AMD cuts them with a laser so you have to reconnect them. Be very careful, There is a good article on how to do this at WWW.TOMSHARDWARE.COM. Once it is unlocked, go into bios and change the multiplier you saw there, the way it works is : fsb times X, your default is this(100X7) fsb=100 times mult=7, see? The most important thing in OCing is COOLING, make sure your cooling is snazzy, if not you will run into alot of lockups. If you raise the speed and notice it getting unstable, raise the Vcore and VIO, that will help, but it also adds heat. There are programs you can download to see if the comp is stable, one of the most popular is PRIME95, you can get one right on the homepage here called SETI, that one works real well also. What they do is stress the CPU, if you can run them for a long period of time and the temps don't go all nuts and it doesn't lock up you can consider it a stable OC. One more thing, when you unlock the cpu's L1 bridges, use a rear window defogger kit or a conductive pen, you will read alot about using a pencil but they wear out to much and you have to keep redoing it. You can find a rear window defogger repair kit at most auto part stores, it's a kit used to fix the little wires on the back window defogger, it comes wih conductive paint. When you do this, use a magnifying glass, these bridges are SMALL, I mean SMALL. Dip a pin into the paint and carefully close the gaps in the bridges. You'll understand when you see them. Feel free to E-mail me I will gladly help you out the best I can. Good Luck :)
Hey Fiz, thanks alot for your time and patience,this is starting to make sense to me now. I'm getting a better understanding of it all. I'll definitly have a look at that and get back to you with an update. TKS again.
No problem at all, I am glad I could help. :) If you need any help drop a line. Good luck.
Hey FIZ. here is my latest development in my O/C quest.
I had a look at my proc. and found the L1....and have a few more questions before my true attemp. 1. Is that big square box that my fan is screwed into the heatsink ? 2. There was some green pasty type substance on the bottom of it, is that the thermal paste you where talking about ? Also, on the proc. itself there is a little flat square thing in the middle of it(about the size of my baby finger) with some of that green stuff on it...(obviously coming from the bottom of the heat sink being pressed onto it) right? Now my question for that is, if that green stuff is the "thermal paste" should i scrape it off the heatsink as well as off that little square thing in the middle of the proc, and put something better or just leave it ? (quite a long question eh?) lol . I guess i'm gonna use some of that defogger stuff to unlock the L1 bridge. Here's my question. 3. Do i just have to make tose 4 lines come in contact with each other or fill in the gaps in between, or do i just paste it right on top of it all ? Well that about covers it for now... Tks for your help so far....
Anyone else want to throw some thing at me ? Don't hesitate...
Yepper, the heatsink is teh thing the fan is screwed to. The green stuff is a thermal pad. What you want to do is peel that off and sacrifice it to the OC gods :) also get it off the core of the proc. The core is that little raised thing in the middle of the proc. You can use rubbing alcohol to clean it off. But whatever you do, DO NOT RUN THE PROC WITHOUT A HEATSINK!!!!!!! It only takes 10 seconds to kill it. Also make sure that you have thermal paste on, these two things are the MOST important things you can know about Athlons. Next get some good thermal paste(Arctic Siver 2) and place a thin layer on the core. Use a razor to spread it around, don't touch it with your fingers, the oils in your fingers will lessen the heat conductivity. As far as unlocking the L1's goes: You just want to close the gaps in each one of the lines, Don't let them touch eachother. When the L1's are cut they look kinda like this : : : : when you close them they should be like this I I I I, you see what I mean? Don't fill the gaps in. You can find the defogger repair kit at any autoparts store, I can tell you that this stuff is messy, so be careful with it. Don't get nervous, if you mess up, you can use nailpolish remover to clean it up and try again, so if you make a mistake, you still have many chances. :) Like I said, get ALL of that geen stuff off, and I mean all, it sucks at conducting heat, once you do that, clean the core and heatsink with rubbing alcohol, apply your thermal paste(thin layer applied with razor), then put the proc and heatsink back into the comp. Before you do anything else, make sure that the heatsink is seated correctly on the core, if its not it will run very hot, or in worst case, kill it. Don't worry, I have taken my heatsink off a million times and it has always gone back on without any probs, i'm sure yours will too. After that, go into bios set the multiplier and fsb and you are good to go. Bear a couple of things in mind: 1-don't try to get a bizillion MHZ right away, go in small steps slowly. 2-keep a very close eye on your temps, if you get above 55'C- you need to cool it down. A good number to shoot for is about 45'C under load. Most proc's are stable there. I had mine up at 51'C and it was fine. Hope this helps, look forward to hearin from ya, I am glad I can help you out. Let me know if there is anything else I can do. :)
Fiz
P/S. you can email me as well if you like.
For your heatsink, you might also want to consider lapping it. A good way to do this I've found, is to peel off that stupid sticky gunk from the bottom of your hsf, remove the fan and stick the heatsink into a vice. Make sure that its level, or you might bugger it up. Then, take some 3M 400 or 600 grit wet sandpaper, a nice, flat sanding block (a piece of 2x4 would work) and some warm, soapy water, and have at it for about 30 or 40 minutes. You'll have a nice flat surface, virtually free of machining marks! ^_^
Hey FIZ, your making this pretty easy for me, I had a look at my L1 and the four lines ARE like this i i i i (without the dots on top) couldn't get the straight lines like you did...lol . So does that mean my bridge is already unlocked????
There are a couple of ways to check, the first and easiest way is to slap it in the comp, and try to change the multplier in BIOS, once you change it, (i would recommend only by one, the default is 7, try either 6 or 8) then reboot. All you have to do is see what the procs speed is and you'll know. If it still boots at 700, its locked and you will have to unlock it. If it does change, you are one the the few, the proud, the owner of a factory unlocked TB!! :) LOL. Tho other way to check is to take a mannifying glass and a relly bright light and make sure they are solid lines. The cuts are really hard to see, they are made by a laser at the factory so they are a pain to see with the naked eye. I would recommend just trying to change the mult in bios, you will know in a matter of seconds. :) Let me know, if you have to unlock it and you need help i'll be glad to offer any that I can.
Fiz
LOL...you're right, the four lines are like : : : : Had to borrow my grand-father's magnifying glass. I looked everywhere for a better heatsink and for some artic silver and can't find any around here. Guess i'm gonna have to order the goods...I'm putting and extra fan down bellow with the other one and switched 'em around blowing the warm air out of the case hoping it will help a little. Also drilled about 50 more holes in the front of the case helping the air exsaust from the fans....lol
Talk to you later
.....forgot something, some guy at one of the stores i called told me the speed of my ram may not be able to handle the O/C
128mb pc133
He says pc150 is made for o/c...What are your thoughts on this??
Generic pc 133 is usually good up to about 145 or so. I can get mine to about there with no issues. The only real way to see with ram is trial and error. PC 150 is made for OCing,but you don't HAVE to use it. It just handles the insane fsb speed better and will clock higher than PC 133 that's all. I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure your ram will do just fine. If you think about it, when you are running the ram at 145, that means the fsb is 145 as well, because AMD uses a DDR fsb, you are getting a 290 MHZ fsb, not too shabby. :)
Well i found some thermal paste,got a faster cpu fan on order, this guy here tells me that my tower is also not for the o/c . Says its too small. Used to be an intel pc but ugraded to what i have now. The tower is 8" wide by 16" high and long.Also says my power supply is too close to my proc. I have the style where the psu is mounted on the high back of my case...about 3" above the cpu fan. Is that too close or will the faster cpu fan compensate for that???
oh yeah...also wanted to show you this. This is what the lists are in my bios.
cpu vcore select default
cpu vio select 3.3v
auto detect DIMM/pci clk enabled
spread spectrum modulated disable
clock by slight adjustment 100
cpu clock ratio default
when i go in the spread spectrum modulated i have the option of 7x 7.5x 8x 8.5x 9x 9.5x 10x 10.5x and a few more i think...this is my multiplier right? And my fsb is the clock by slight adjustment correct? Are these the only 2 things i will have to adjust? or can i just change the multiplier by say 9x to go up to 900mhz. or slowly work my way up to 9. And how will i know if i have to change the voltage? (if i leave it on default will i fry my pc) can i test all this by those stability tests you mentioned ?
The numbers you see are the mults. You will know when you have to up teh volts because the comp does strange thing, it will lock up, or in extreme cases will not POST. Shut off the auto detect DIMM/ pci clk. Clock by slight adjustment is the fsb. I would first start at a mult of 7.5, then 8, and so on. You want to take small steps. When you get to a certain speed and you notice your stability going into the crapper, it's time to up the volts. Do this very slowly, there's no need to jump way up right away, try .25 or .5 volts first. The one you use to adjust the volts is the vcore select in bios. You can also up the VIO if you want, be careful, this is alittle more dangerous. for now, leave the volts alone and just raise the mult alittle. Make sure to keep an eye on those temps, that is the most important thing to an overclocker, if you look around you will see soooo many posts about temps. Make sure you don't get too high(mid 50's max). One more thing, remember that the more volts and speed you push on the proc, the warmer its going to run. let me know how its goin. :)
Fiz
Good job fiz. Very well explained instructions there. You hit it exactly on the money and explained it very well!
Thank you. I really appreciate that. :):):):)
Fiz
Hi Milk, just saw the post about your case. It's sort of true, the larger cases can offer better airflow and the more airflow you have the lower your temps will be. You should be able to do some decent OCing with your current case but may run into some heat issues at the higher speeds. As far as where your power supply is, thats fine, i think mine hase about an inch or so between my proc fan and my power suppy. The important thing is to get that hot air out and keep the fresh cool air coming in. As far as the holes go thats good that you added some holes to let air in, that should help out alot. The unwritten rule of thumb is this: Air comes in the front, and gets spit out the back. I'm sure you can do it the other way, but it seems to be most effective this way. There are some other things for case cooling I will tell you tomorrow(it's 1:30AM now and i'm sleepy :) ) to help you get some snazzy airflow. I did it to mine and it helped out a bunch. I just need to know how many watts you power supply is as this requires adding fans. I will post tomorrow, looking forward to it, see ya then. :)
Still haven't unlocked the L1 yet...waiting to get all my gear in order so i can go in there and do everything at once. Did do one thing though, drilled a whole bunch of holes in the front of the case and inside through the tin or whatever for my 2 fans to blow the air out . And i also had my voodoo o/c'd and brought that back down to default. Guess what...it lowered my temp by about 3 degrees celcius after some testing...so far so good...looking forward to the next steps. Right now it seems steady at 43 on idle ,then again it ran idle at 48 when i had the fsb at 108...
Read a few posts about the rule of thumb...(air through the front and out the back) also seen some guys picture of his tower...looked almost like mine. He had the voodoo 5 like myself which was trapping warm air around the psu and cpu. So, i drilled more holes...on the top of my tower this time . Took one of the fans i had below and glued it to the top of the case blowing out...getting rid of that nasty hot air...lol . Seems to have lowered my idle temp by one or two degress celcius. Now i'm guessing with a better cpu fan and some half descent thermal paste it should lower the temp significantly. Then i'll be ready to jump some bridges and get this puppy rockin'... i hope
I am glad that all is going well. I'm sure that the thermal paste and new fan are going to be awesome. Let me know how things are going when you unlock the bridges. :)
Fiz
Fiz my man...the bridge ? she be unlocked....One year ago i would have never attemted this o/c stuff.Had to take a few breathers before i actually tackled it. But hey, with a steady hand,good magnifying glass and some superb instructions(passed along by the one they call Fiz) evrything went smoothly.Brought her up to 750, temp went up 1c. raised it 800, temp went up 1c. Everything seems to be running fine in idle mode at 44degrees c. (can the temp rise just by going on line?) just went up to 45
Well my friend, where can i get the stability test you mentioned before (prime95) (seti). I looked around a bit but couldn't find 'em .
I still have many questions before my o/c journey ends.
1)How do i know if i need to supply more voltage?
2)Are there any other fine tunning i must do to keep good working order?(still a bit nervous of frying the system)
3)In my bios"Spread Spectrum modulated" (it's disable at this time) what is that?
4) What does enabeling the above mention do?
That's about all the questions for tonight...
Hey, found some Artic Silver 2 (cousin's coming down from Toronto for Easter weekend) will get some for me....15$ A TUBE. price you pay for playing this game i guess.lol
Also can get the Globalwin FOP38 for 50$
ok one more question (5) Which is better FOP38 or WBK38 ?
The FOP38 doesn't seem to have a psu splitter attachment thigny,only the 3 or 4 pin plug. Does that make a difference? i seen the wbk38 and it has both of them attachments on it.
I read something in cooltek about an alpha h/s that only had the 3 or 4 pin plug and the guy strongly recommended you split some wires or something like that to the psu so you dont damage the mainboard headers or something????(can't remember the article to well)
But anyway the o/c is coming along great and i owe it all to you.
Talk to you soon.
N E E D M O R E C O O L I N G !!!!(on it's way)
Hey Milk, how are ya? I'm glad that the OCing is going well!!! :) The way to tell if you need more volts is your stability will start to crap out. When you stress the cpu, it will start giving you errors or just plain locking up. When that happens it's time to up the volts. Like I said before though, do it slowly. You want to up the volts in the smallest increments possible, more volts equals more heat. Don't worry about frying the system, the only real hazardous thing you could ever do is get into coly modding and crazy stuff like that(it lets you feed over 2volts to the cpu core). I would never do that stuffin a million years. The spread spectrum modulated thing you should leave disabled, it is supposed to help keep out EMI, but all it really does is slow down the system, it's useless. And yes, being online will raise the temps a little bit(mine go from 35-42 depending on how warm my room is). As far as the heatsink goes, Go to WWW.HEATSINKFACTORY.COM, they have the WBK for 25 bucks and the FOP38 for about 22 I think. They rated very well as an online dealer, so I recommend ordering from them(I plan on it very soon). Of the two, I am going to get the WBK, I have been told that it's really the best one out right now and will really keep things nice and cool. Some motherboards fan headers cannot put out enough power to fully suppy the fan so they get overworked and burn our. The headers on mine can supply 6Watts each, more that enough for any fan. I am not sure what your are, it may tell you in the manual or at the website. But don't go splitting wires and stuff just yet, your mobo can probably suppy the power needed and if not the WBK comes with an adapter so you can use a power supply connector on it instead. The stability burn tests: SETI can be found right on this sites homepage, right when you come to overclockers.com, its right there. I can't think of a site that has Prime95, but if you go to WWW.MSN.COM, and do a search I know you can get it(that's how I found it). While your there do a search for Sisoft Sandra, this is a program you want. It lets you benchmark the computer and see the performance VS other comps, and you can also see how much the performance gain is from overclocking. Everyone uses that to benchmark. If you go to WWW.MADONION.COM you can download 3DMark2000 or 3DMark2001, these are a great test for your video card but also will test the whole system to see if it's stable. When you are running the burn tests, keep a close eye on the temps, if you get past 55'C, slow it down until you get the better cooling. Your goal should be somewhere in the mid 40's(in degrees celcius). Well my friend, welcome to the world of OCing, I am very happy that I can help you and if you need anything, post here or drop an email. Talk to ya soon.
Fiz
postimees
02-10-02, 10:10 AM
Great going Fiz. I'm a newbie overclocker also and I have run into a problem. I'm using SiSoft Sandra to check my proc. temps and I don't know which temp You are refferring to when you talk about proc. temps. If I have understood correctly there is a temp. sensor on the mobo right under the proc. and that there is also one right on the proc. die. In sisoft sandra there are 2 temps, board temp and proc. temp. Witch one I should be worried about more? My current temps are board 36c and proc. 28c. There is quite a gap between those two. Also I'm having problems with unlocking the cpu (athlon 1.0ghz, mobo ChainTech 7VJDA). I did the L1 bridges with a conductivity pen and the system boots up at 1.0ghz with all mult. (Did I do a poor job with the L1 bridges?).
All in all a great big thank you for your indepth explanation on overclocking, it was a god sent.
Mik - one other point. These mobos (MSI 6330) do some funny things when you change the multiplier. What will probably happen when you raise the multiplier is that it will probably not POST or it will give you a funny speed. If it does POST it will tell you that he speed is 600 or something.
Here's the work around change the multiplier and anything else and use F10 to save - Y to save and imediately kill the power to the mobo using the switch on the back of the PSU. Leave for a few seconds and then switch the power back on and it should POST at the correct speed. You will have to do this everytime you change the multiplier. Changing anything else is fine. If you ever kill the power to the mobo you will also have to go through this procedure as well.
RPM_Computing
04-03-02, 08:23 PM
Hello all, well I just purchased an AMD rig as well and have the 700 Duron on a K7T Turbo Limited Edition Mobo. The cpu is running stable at 900mhz, unlocked the multiplier using the pencil trick and everything is running smooth. Voltage is set to 1.8, multiplier is set to 9 and the FSB is default 100. I am able to run it at 1000mhz but some additional cooling is necessary, using a gorb for now but it does the job for now.
The reason the chip posts at the default after setting the clock is because the mobo has a failsafe feature that clocks it back to the default 100mhz if something is not jiving with the oc'd configuration. I know because I have been playing around with it for the past coupple of days, and read it in the manual ;) Well I am heading to T.O. this upcoming Monday to get some arctic silver and a new hs/f, I am looking to clock the chip to 1100 if possible but will be satisfied with 1000+
Good Luck to all and have fun!
FIRESTARR357
04-03-02, 08:37 PM
:D Good job man!!! Thats what it's all about, it takes some gut's but it's worth it in the end.And if you do enough reading and experimenting you can really learn to push a CPU safely.And it's a good idea to get a good cooler even if ya don't OC because the standers are not very good,and a cool CPU is a happy CPU :)
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