P3 550E To Overclock or not to Overclock that is my question?

[BioAngel]

I have a PIII 550E that I would like to squeeze a lil more juice out of. for the reason that I dont feel like spending another $100+ on buying a 800mhz when I plan on buying a 1.7ghz AMD system . If it is possiablle please can someone tell me the procedure oon how to do it? Thanx.......Its sitting on a Iwill VD133 MOBO ........description (@)

[AmbientFiction]

Well if your case temps are good along with your CPU temps then what you need to do is look in BIOS for your FSB setting. If you can't find any maybe you have something that can control your FSB (ie: Jumpers or Dip switches) Most likely you would have jumpers on your motherboard. Know that your Multiplier clock is locked. If you still can't find that then. I'd start looking for the clock gen on the board. Just incase you get this far and can't O/C well here is a link that might help. http://www.podien.de/FSB.HTM
and you can get SoftFSB at http://www.octools.com/

[BioAngel]

My system is running at 32"C case and cpu there are
Iwill smart settings in bios that gives me .5 cpu ratio increments and 100,103,105,110,etc for cpu frequency ive tried to change it to 7.5 @ 100fhz but when i restart it still shows 550 at start up does this confirm oc lock? and if i am able to oc what is a safe spd?

[AmbientFiction]

Hummm you got me there maybe someone else can help you with that I haven't every had something like that happen

[The Doors]

Hi BioAngel,
excuse me but have you setted Fsb on 100Mhz? or more?
(probably i've not understand)

I ask you coz your chip have a multiplier 5.5x and a Fsb of 100Mhz that give 550Mhz, so you must set an higher Fsb to OverClock it.

[most deaf]

you are trying to change the multiplier, you CANT, change the fsb speed to 105MHz save and reboot, this will give you (reach for calculator) 577MHz, if it works set it to 110MHZ giving you 605MHz, keep on going like that until it is unstabvle in windows, then back down till it is stable

[jmsandrsn]

They're right...it does no good to try and change the multiplier...it has to stay at 5.5X. That chip will probably be good for at least 733 MHZ(133 FSB). Just try 133 FSB and if it doesn't run good you may need to up the voltage to 1.7V or so. Also, make sure your PCI divider is at 1/4 and that your AGP dividier is at 1/2. If you can't find the AGP divider, don't worry about it too much....the system may set this automatically for you.

[BioAngel]

most deaf (Jul 22, 2001 05:42 a.m.):
you are trying to change the multiplier, you CANT, change the fsb speed to 105MHz save and reboot, this will give you (reach for calculator) 577MHz, if it works set it to 110MHZ giving you 605MHz, keep on going like that until it is unstabvle in windows, then back down till it is stable
I did that and my system hanged then it had a Hard drive power fail error so can it be the voltage and if so how do I change the voltage?

[BioAngel]

My bios gives an option to change myr ram spd to ethier 8ns,10ns,fast,or turbo? what is this and should I mess with it? I have:
(1) 128m of Kingston pc133 sdram
(1) 64m of Kingston pc133 sdram
(1) 64m of PNY pc 100 sdram

[BioAngel]

cool it seems to be working at have it set at:
5.5@124mhz fbs wich brought it to 682mhz
system and cpu temp are at 35"c and holding
was hoping for 700+ but I guess I cant complain
now is there any precations I should be warned of?
please let me know you guys have been alot of help I really appreciate it alot!

[deez]

Your PC100 RAM may be holding you back b/c from what i've seen even with the good pc100 will not go over 125Mhz. So pull that PC100 and try increasing voltage if you haven't done that yet.

Also it could be your agp settings. When you were running your CPU at 550 you probably had your agp set at a 2/3 ratio to the FSB. AGP bus speed is default 66Mhz. Check to see if you have a 1/2 divider for agp in your bios if your running at 133.

[Octoman]

Just to comment (first post) i had my 550E up to 825 with no problem.
However, i usually ran it at 770 (140fsb) with out a glitch at all, i also have pc 133 ram though.

my 2 cents:)

[BioAngel]

do you mean? all your ram is 133 or your cpu bus spd?

[Octoman]

All my ram is bought pc133. However it is OCed with the fsb to 140.

[surfinguru]

BioAngel, it's been a while since I had my 550e running, but when I did it was at 733 no prob. Just up the FSB, increase the vcore a little bit (only as needed to ensure stability), and make sure you're using decent quality PC133 RAM and you should be able to get the most out of that chip. Good luck......

[floyd]

shouldn't even be a problem - i have a 550e and immediately went into the bios b/4 i even turned on my 'puter (soyo sy ba6+III mb) and changed my FSB settings to 133 mhz and 1/4 multiplier for the pci bus ( agp is still overclocked [89 mhz, not 66} but runs fine w/geforce2 mx)..................w/more cooling, i would jump higher but 733@133fsb is killa for most applications and for watching video...............

pIII 550e @ 733/133 fsb
soyo sy ba6+III
geforce2 mx
192 mb generic pc133 sdram
soundblaster live! value
WD 15/20 GB drives - 7200 rpm (need better MB)
Other assorted peripherals