Pentium II 233 First Time Clocker

[newclock]

I've got a Dell Dimension XPS D233 that's out of warrinty and is ready for some more speed. I can't seem to find out who made the MOBO. Where do I look for the manufacturer and model no.? I know how to get into the setup thru setting the jumpers and getting into the "maintanance mode" How high should I clock it? I have a triple ball bearing fan to put on the factory heat sink. I'm just doing basic stuff, no water cooling or stuff like that. for now.

[got_yogurt]

I dont know for sure, but i think that dell makes its own motherboards (Anyone know for sure?). Overclocking dell machines, and most other OEM machines for that matter, is usually harder, because they build the board quite specifically. If you have a manual, look all through that. You may be unlucky in that some machines have auto-detect, and thats a real pain. Just look on your mothergard for printed graphs, sometimes you cna find a chart printed on your mobo that tells you where the jumpers are and what they do. The PII 233 is a really good overclocker, and it should be multiplyer unlocked, you should be able to at least make 300, and most lickely more. Good Luck!

[Phil]

theres a good chance that if the chip was made before august 98 that it isn't multiplyer locked or limited so you may be able to just raise the multiplyer, other than that SoftFSB is your best option, it has the option for the dell xps d3** or something which is close enough for softfsb to recognise your board

[newclock]

.
What is SoftFSB and where do I get it?

[Phil]

it overclocks you front side bus (memory and motherboard chipset) it has been discontinued by the programmers so i'll email it you (76kb)

[newclock]

Thanks, I got it. I'm going to try it later tonight. If I donn't fry something, I'll give you the results.

[newclock]

Okay Here's what happened. I set my cpu speed to 300 by going into the "maintenace mode". After doing so, I plug in the machine, it comes on without pushing the power button and I get nothing. I go back in reset the speed to 266 and got the same result. So I reset to 233 and it starts fine. So now I go and load SoftFSB. I find the setting for "Dell XPS D3xx" (mine is actually a D233) and the max setting for FSB is 80. I select that, hit OK and my computer locks up solid. I have Windows Me so I go into safe mode and system restore and correct it. My chips numbers are 80522PX233512 SL2HD 97460183-368. What's next?

[Commited]

newclock (Mar 04, 2001 12:19 p.m.):
Okay Here's what happened. I set my cpu speed to 300 by going into the "maintenace mode". After doing so, I plug in the machine, it comes on without pushing the power button and I get nothing. I go back in reset the speed to 266 and got the same result. So I reset to 233 and it starts fine. So now I go and load SoftFSB. I find the setting for "Dell XPS D3xx" (mine is actually a D233) and the max setting for FSB is 80. I select that, hit OK and my computer locks up solid. I have Windows Me so I go into safe mode and system restore and correct it. My chips numbers are 80522PX233512 SL2HD 97460183-368. What's next?

Its possible that you may need a new HSF. Try more fans in the case. Are you using a decent thermal compound?
You could always buy a second hand faster one.
Only a few suggestions!

[Phil]

80mhz fsb is runnning the pci bus at 40mhz! most harddrives will not tolerate this, are there any other fsb settings? 75 will normally work on most systems, the only time I have seen it not work is at the moment in my system becasue I have a really old agp 1X card that won't tolerate it (fried my tnt2u)

[newclock]

Ive set SoftFSB at 73.2 MHz. and it says I'm running at 256.6MHz. It runs fine here, no lock up. I still can't overclock using my settings from the " Maintenace Mode". When I change the settings to anything from 233, when I plug the machine back in, it lights up my power button but won't boot. I can't even turn it off with the power button. I have to shut it off with the master switch on the surge protector. Does anybody know anything about Dell's or know anybody that does? Also has anybody ever used a "Super Slocket III"? What is a good cpu to stuff in that?