8Knxp Newbie O/C Questions

Hi all,

Great forum you have here. I haven't done an overclock since
way back in the Celeron 266 days so was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction.

Relevant Equipment:
MB: Gigabyte 8Knxp (non-ultra)
RAM: 2 x 256 Meg Kingston Hyperx 3200 DDR
CPU: Pentium 4 2.8Ghz (800Mhz FSB)
Cooling: Stock Included P4 Cooling
Case: Antec Sonata with 350W Power Supply

O/C Aims: To maybe take the machine up
(must be stable) to 3.0Ghz or 3.2Ghz maximum
to help aid in Video encoding / decoding speed.

I don't know anything about memory timings etc,
or the best way to achieve my aims but if someone
could point out the sort of things i should set via
CTRL-F1 in bios like:

Vcore=
Memory Timings=
FSB=
VDimm=

To achieve 3.00 to 3.2 Ghz would be fantastic.

Currently the system is stable as a rock at its default speed of
2.8Ghz, although i havent been able to get EasyTune4 installed under XP so i cant check real CPU FSB, Temperature etc via Windows.

Any advice much appreciated.

Reklaw

Welcome to the forums.

Ill try to help some. The biggest thing to me, is cooling the CPU. All the overclocking isnt gonna matter if its too hot. I dont think youll have to worry about much, other than FSB and CPU temps to achive your goals. Here is a link to help alittle. Just keep asking if you have any other questions. Good luck.

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=228508

Edit: you may have to lock the PCI/AGP bus though.

I'm sorry to intrude on this thread. I just got my system running and somewhat stable. I say somewhat because, last night I was messing around the bios. Pressed ctrl+F1 and got a "Top performance" menu to pop up. I enabled it and tried to boot. But the system refused to reboot because one of the drives in RAID 0 (Intel's ICH5R) was not recognized. I recreated the Raid and started to install XP again.

Now I'm wondering if I try to change the voltage of the CPU and RAM would it screw up the raid set-up? does anyone had any problems after overclocking? Can you overclock in Windows?
Thanks for the replies.

I had bad luck too with the Top Performance. I had to clear cmos. I couldnt even get a BIOS screen. To set the BIOS up, I do it all myself. The only things I see that are really usefull in the ctrl+F1 BIOS is the memory timings and the IDE settings. ( HDD S.M.A.R.T. too, I dont know if you need that on todays drives though )

The overclocking program that comes with Gigabyte boards ( for inside Windows ) didnt really impress me. ( Im kind of old school, I guess ) I use the BIOS so I know exactly what the settings are at. One of the best changes I have made was the memory timings. As I overclock, the performance for the memory and the cpu goes up alot faster now.

I dont have a RAID setup but I dont think the FSB, Vcore or Vdimm would mess up the RAID array. As long the AGP/PCI is locked, things should be fine. I have a single SATA and have done all of the above without a problem. ( I have maxed the Vcore and Vdimm too ) You see people on here all the time that are overclocked with a RAID setup. Like I said, I dont have a RAID setup though. So, Im just guessing.

Thanks for the reply. Well I'm planning on buying another harddrive. An IDE hard drive for the O.S. only. So if the raid goes away, I can still boot.

One more thing, basically to overclock; one must increase the host cpu frequency (FSB) then increase the cpu voltage, and then the DIMM voltage, right? Oh yeah then hope for the best .
Thanks again.

Basic P4 overclocking starts with a FSB increase ( in very small increments ), and watching the CPU temp while doing stress tests and burn in programs for extended lengths of time ( I try to aim for at LEAST 30 mins per test ). After you reach the FSB limit you can try Vcore and Vdimm increases ( usually Vcore will be the one ) to allow more FSB. Increasing Vcore adds quite a bit of heat to the CPU ( well, so does large FSB increases ), so temps are VERY important.

I would start by reading all the info possible. Here is a good place to start.

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178072

If you are unsure about anything, ask, someone will have the answers. To start I would leave the voltages alone for now. If you have any problems, set it back to default ( safest settings ) and find some answers. Better safe then sorry. One more thing. Overclocking usually voids warrenties.

"These are my opinions and may not be expressed by others."