Need help/advice for Mobile Barton

hi all, i just got a mobile barton from excaliber pc and it seems that i can only get it to run at 2475 (198*12.5), and this is just for 2 minutes; prime95 fails. i can get it to run stably at 2079 (198*10.5), but this is pretty poor when my 1700 clocks faster. I've looked at all the guides to see what i can do and i'm at a loss. should i return it for another stepping?



Running
Barton Mobile 2600 IQYHA 0348 XPMW
Corsair XMS PC3200 1GB (2X512)
Abit NF7-S v2.0
2 X WD Raptor (Raid 0)
ATI Radeon 9800

I have similar setup as you do, and without wire mod, I'm stable at 216 x 11.5 rite now @ 1.8v. I think u should try lowering multiplier and first see what the fsb limit is. Also raise some vcore once u start hitting 2.3ghz +

p.s. I heard excaliber don't let you return the product just because it doesn't overclock well. you may be able to find the thread as it was just few days ago.

What were your voltages and temps when you were running these speeds? What about speeds in the middle ... there's about 400Mhz worth of testing space between the stable and unstable we don't know about. Did you have any luck in that range, or did you jump straight to the almost 2.5Ghz mark after hitting 2Ghz stable?

i would crank them volts up to 1.85 if u have good cooling

I originally used the newbie’s guide to overclocking post to set up the system. I knew that my old 1700 system was stable at 217 with the ram and the motherboard. So I tried a FSB at about 217 with the new chip. It didn’t even post. It would just get stuck, so I would have to go and switch the CMOS jumper to clear it. I tried 215, 210, 205 and 200. Then I tried 199, and it was ok for a while though windows would fail loading every now and then. This was all with a VCore of 1.8 and a multiplier of 5.0x. No matter what I did with the VCore, it just won’t post past 199. So I figured that I was a the limit of the FSB and ramped up the multiplier. At 12.5, windows loads but is really unstable. Temps were good at 43 under load. I have a Thermalright SLK800, and good case ventilation. Prime fails at each multiplier setting (and corresponding speed) until about 10.5. I’m not really happy with a 2079 MHZ when my 1700 was doing 2200 with ease (2400 with a little heat, but stable). I’ve tried a 36hr burn in also, and it doesn’t seem to do much. Temps were never an issue.

i am beginning to think, after reading a couple of posts, that i'm going to be stuck with the chip. Any help to get this thing stable for me is really really appreciated.

sounds like ur doing some rough overclocking, change the settings by a small margin each time with multipliers like 10's will still give you the max fsb. adjust vcore as well, not just stock 1.65v or 1.80v. overclocking isn't like an hour thing, it's more about weeks and months of work. try to adjust the settings with more precision, not jumping from 1.65-1.80, multi from 5x-12x, fsb by increments/decrements by 1s or 2s.

a related question; what does loose or tight memory timing have to do with FSB? I see most people have 2-2-3-11, on my 1700 (at 2400, i had 2-3-3-6

loose timings will let you push fsb further in the sacrifice of memory timings. many have steppings with ending "11" because that's what nforce2 are suppose to give you the most bandwidth. other three numbers should be low as possible. it's the matter of choosing between timings or fsb. I tend to choose memory timings over fsb, so when I overclock, I don't adjust memory timings.

oc_byagi, i had my XP-M 2500+ using multiplier 10.5 and upped my FSB pretty fast around 5Mhz. At 195x10.5 my system wouldn't post and my NF7-S would start beeping at me. I turned it off immediately scared i messed up badly and cleared the CMOS and rebooted back to 133x8??

I don't remember my vcore setting at that time but would this indicate either ram or low vcore is the problem? I know there are many factors but just wondering why i'm able to use 200FSB x 11 multiplier @ 1.525v. Maybe i should switch my Samsung ram with my sister Kingston value ram and try a little test...

System Specs:
Abit NF7-S (Rev. 2) (BIOS 1.9)
Barton XP-M 2500+
1x512MB Samsung PC3200 (value ram?)
WD 80GB (8MB Cache)
ATI 9500Pro
Viewsonic P95f+B
ANTEC SX1040 PERFORMANCE II (Antec 400W SmartPower)
Logitech Z-640

well i guess the memory timings were holding my back. at 2-3-3-11 i was able to get it past 215, i'm slowly working my way up the FSB first.

Quick question, should i use memtest or prime to see the upper limit of the FSB? And when raising the FSB how long should i run either to make sure it's stable?

thanks again