Athlon XP Overclock

Guys i need your help. I have an Athlon XP 2600+ overclocked in 2800+ with 5% overvoltage.The problem is that when i go him over 2800+ the system is unstable.I mean that when i log on Windows the system reboot.My mobo is a GA-7VAXP-A ULTRA.Have you got any ideas for making my system stable by oveclocking it over 2800+?

Can you be mores specific on what you are changing? i.e. multis, fsb, etc.? Also, what are your temps and what is your cooling? What voltages are you running at? What type of memory are you using? What FSB does your motherboard support?

What is your actual oc speed, not in XP eq but actuall speed? Even with fsb only ocing you shoud see at least 10% oc. A lot of it has to do with your dram timings. What are they and what speed is your dram? To oc you need the right combination of fsb, multiplier (if applicable), voltage adjustments (cpur, agp, chipset), dram speed and timmings. And of course cooling. Are you air or water?

Hooah!

I change the multiplier.The deafault is 12.5x167 and now is 13.5x167.Now i have 34-38oC.My Cooling is a Volcano 12.Vcore is 1.82 overvoltaged from 5%.The fsb that my mobo can support is 400Mhz i think.Mem 512/400 DDR

i think.Mem 512/400 DDR

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I have a locked 2800 and have had it oc'd via fsb alone to 2,500Mhz (not XP eq+). I have the voltages on all my AMD's at 1.875 to 1.9. No less. I have my AGP voltage and the chipset voltage (not in front of my cps for exact numbers, but one voltage below the max for each). I have 512 of PC 3200, but I had to relax my dram settings to like 3-3-3-3-11 and downspeed the dram from DDR 400 to 200. A lot of instablity is the dram settings and speed. My is on air, but due to the folding at home which stresses you cpu to the masx i had to downclock mine to 2,412Mhz.

Check your dram timings and speed and report back

What is dram settings?

get your multi lower en your fsb higer to 200 or something than it runs the same as your memory only changing your multi is not good because fsb is life i think you can do 11x 200 ?

What is dram settings?

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Boot to your bios settings to where you can chnage the dram settings. Default is By SPD, change it to user.

These are examples of dram settings:

T(RAS, Active to Precharge) - 8
T(RCD, Active to CMD) - 3
T(RP, Precharge to Active) - 3
Cas Latency - 2.5

or 2.5-3-3-8 in the above example. Those are the settings you need to look for. Ideally in gaming and benchmarking a fsb of 200 is better than a higher multiplier. For folding it does not matter.

Where i must go to change those settings? My BIOS is Award

what PSU are u using ???

What is PSU?

A PSU is your power supply. Ideally if you look at the 3.3 and 5.0 voltage outputs, for good overclocking the amp of those two should ebe between 200-250. 3.3 volta x 24A + 5.0 volts x 30A =229A.

You go to you bios setting, maybe advanced you should see a setting for dram speed, etc

Hooah

the problem is tha i went into bios settings, i searched everywhere and i didnt found anything for dram speed.

I'll be god damned....

I'll be god damned....

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You need to refrain from the explicitive. Sorry, but we all have to follow the rules. An admin might not be so nice.

Now for your mobo and the bios settings. I walk you through this, though it is listed in your user manual. You mobo has a VIA KT400 chipset which is a good overclocker, but not as good as a nforce chipset, however it is a good chip set. Your mobo also has an overclocking function in it's bios.

First SW 1 (swithc one) located on you mob, that switch must be set to 100 (on or default) if you are using a fsb of 200. Since you are using an Athlon 2600, that switch should be set to auto.

When you boot to bios you should see this on your screen bios boot screen 1 On your mob you need to hit the Ctrl-F1 key to bring up the advanced bios settings.

Go down to the Frequency/voltage control and hit enter.That is where you modify the dram speed settings, voltages. First the spread spectrum should be disabled. Play with each of those settings until you can tweak the best oc. if the system hangs, just use the clear cmos pin.

Also use gigabytes Easytune software ocing program that is on the distro cd of the mobo.

Try all that and let us know what happens

Hooah!

edit Here is a link to a review of this board and the how-to bios ocing for it 7VAXP review

when you say dram setting, you mean the dram busrt,queue depth,command rate,write recover time,and dram tWTR?

Yes to that and the actuall speed can be changed ie if you use DDR333, you can often down clock it to DDR266, or 200 and then readjust all the dram timmings to best match you oc. Check out the review link I posted in my last post. It is your mobo with the 2700 Athlon. Use their settings as a baseline.

Hooah!

whats the make/model off your PSU u need a good strong 12+V line more than the 3.3V and 5V lines

now my curent settings are:2-4-4-8-4-4-4-2-3-1.Is it ok? The FSB now is 175x13.5.Is it ok?

As long as you are stable, take what you can get. You can loosen up loose settings more by uping those 2's to 3's lie 3-6-6-9 if you want to get to a 200fsb. It's all trial and error.

whats the make/model off your PSU u need a good strong 12+V line more than the 3.3V and 5V lines

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Actually, it is the 3.3 and 5 v lines that are the most important for "raw" output for ocing for Athlons. For P4's for stable ocing the combined watts of 3.3 + 5 should be in the 220-250 watts range. The 12v line is important as P4's suck their power directly from the 12v aux rail. Athlons still feed off the 5v rail. For P4's you should have between 18-20A for the 12 volt rail and for Athlons 15Amps. An example: A 3+Ghz Norwood will draw max 70Amps at 1.525 volts, this = 106.75 watts. The more you oc the higher wattage you'll need. So in fairness for max ocing stabilty for a P4 your 3.3 volt rail + 5 volt rail should be between 220-250 watts AND the 12 volt rail should be at least 106+ watts. Watts = volts x amps. Since you have an Athlon your 12 volt rail should have 15 amps...look at the rail data on your psu, but since the Athlon feeds off the 5 volt rail you need to make sure it has minimal of 30amps, 35 preferably. A good Athlon PSU would have (3.3v x 25a) + (5v x 30A) = 232.5 watts. The 12v rail should be 15A = 180 watts. Now just for those 3 voltages you are looking at 412.5 watts. I'm not saying you need to go out and buy a quality 450 to 500 watt psu, that gives you a general idea of PSU and ocing requirements.

on the NF7-S and some other N-force2 boards its like the P4's its draws the power for the CPU from the 12V line it

EDIT: my bad didnt look up his motherboard and didnt see he only had a KT400A chipset