Pentium II 400- First time visitor

[Krome]

Hello all,
I am new to this OC thing. I have a Compaq 4880, running windows 95. I had a new processor board installed in my pc it is a " Compaq SPS-BD, Proc-686". Where do I begin? Any help would be appreciated.

[outhouse]

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

sorry but from here on its bad news Compaq and other name brand PC's do not give you the ability to overclock there are no settings in BIOS to change front side bus speeds and no jumpers on the motherboard that will let you do this either, your only hope is that a software program called softFSB will work and first your clockgenerator has to be supported you can find softFSB at www.tweakfiles.com even if this works you will get a mild overclock at best, your last option would be to buy another motherboard that is overclocking freindly. goodluck

[jeff_harrison_344]

Too add on to what outhouse said about the mild overclock, he is right, for all the work that you would have to do, you would prolly gain about 50MHz. And I have noticed that to actually 'feel' a preformance gain when overclocking, you need arguably about 175MHZ.

[Phil]

What I recomend for you as someone only just getting in to overclocking is to bide your time. Don't be disapointed that you can't overclock your system, use the time until you get your next system to learn about overclocking, then when you do come to buying a new system you can make sure you have all the best overclocking parts for it. I spent ages reading about overclocking before I had the chance to do it properly, at which time I came onto these forums and already had the knowledge that most learn from these forums and used that to help others. Just because you can't do the pratical work doesn't mean you can't become great at the theory, and on these forums knowing and understanding the theory behind it is an important skill as you will find it easier to help a wide variety of users and undertstand explanations given to you much better rather than having to have everything cut down to basics for you which can be very time consuming for the person helping (this doesn't bother me I love writing epic posts full of detail, even if someone who had been overclocking for years and was like a senior member here asked for advice I would still be very thorough for the sake of others reading)

[[Oc]acaridans]

I will 3rd that..I have a Compaq persario w/PII 350..Ive looked into oc'ing it but ive found that it would be better buying a 500Mhz chip and maxing out the box, that trying to overclock what I have.
sorry bout the bad news
welcome to the fourms :)

[Krome]

So if the techs @ Best Buy replaced my "processor" board, what is was that supposed to achieve? It was under warranty, so I paid nothing, but what gives?

[Shadow ÒÓ]

unfortunately they'll replace it with another of Compaq's proprietary boards which will also have limited settings on the board or in the bios. In order to get some good overclocking features, you'll probably have to change the motherboard and the case. (most Compaq cases only fit Compaq mobo's)

Consider this.......buy a decient board to play with. Maybe even a BX board, but something inexpensive in the $80 range. I just picked up a case locally with a 300w psu for $35 so you're only going to have to spend $125 ish to get something running. You can use your existing sound/vid/hard drive(s)/floppy and CD Rom (as long as none of them aren't integrated into the mobo) for the "new" machine, and this would be a very good starting point.

Hope this helps.

BTW........Welcome to the forums!

[Phil]

I still think you are best leaving off until you are ready for a new system. The best you could hope for out of this cpu is 25% and probabally only 12% really and the cost of a new motherboard to achive this could probabally just buy you a faster chip. Like I said, leanr about overclocking and build up a knowledge about it. Then when you come to buy your next system either get a custom one put together for you or build your own with all the best components (after checking them here of course :) )

[nucro]

I now that a PII400's don't oc well but Ýf you are luckly like me you can oc it to 560. And I did it only at 2.1V and only with adding another fan on the retail hs. If I had a 150 Mhz ram I think it could do 600. But this is really a great luck.

[Phil]

Yeah but the price of a new board plus maybe new components would be more than a new cpu. If you want a quick boost I recomend a celeron 600 and a slocket, to overclock this you can either get a slocket with bus speed selection to trick your board into detecting the celeron 600 as a 900 or just buy a normal fcpga slocket and cut pin b21 on it. this would only cost you about $70 or so and would be faster than overclocking your 400

[Stolid]

Yeah, the best way to geta good overclock is to get lots of information. Let me give you the way that I would recommend it:
1.) Start saving cash for your system
2.) Go read the articles about OCing in general
3.) Sketch out your system - any part you don't already have in mind go and find
4.) Read any articles specifically about your setup (i.e. Amd or Intel)
5.) Check for problems with your parts working together, either by posting or searching (for example, the KT133/SoundBlaster LIVE bug)
6.) Take money you've saved by this, note that three parts have had upgrades and prices have fallen, therefore you can buy better stuff since you waited
7.) Buy system
8.) Have problems that delay it by 2 months (@#$! - BTW: Shadow has supposedly finally sent me the case/cooling loop... I think.)
9.) Put system together, discover new incompatibility, and drool over parts that came out during that 2 month period. ;)

Stolid

[Phil]

that was what I meant by telling him to bide his time and read up on it. What you suggested is right but I think going at it alone is the best way of learning the theory. Theres nothing wrong with coming here for advice on putting that theory in to practice but it's better to find your own way when just learning about it.

[Krome]

Thanks for the help guys. What is the only "definate" way that I can be sure that my pc is not going to oc? Should I bust the case open? If so where do I get the #'s that I need?

[Phil]

Well if you don't have fsb options in your bios at all it is unlikely your board will have jumpers for them on it but not impossible so have a look. Di you try SoftFSB on it?

[Krome]

I dl'd the FSB, but I dont know what information to input in the fields. What is the exact name of the proggie I need?...

[Phil]

It's just called SoftFSB. You will need to look on your board to find which clock gen you have. It is a small chip (smaller than a memory chip) and it is usually near the agp slot, up in the top right corner or inbetween the cpu and ram. It will have a silver chip next to it (the quartz) right down the information for this and find one in softfsb that is at least similar as that will usually suffice.