Need 865PE OC tips :( !!

Problems
=========
- Performance can only set to "SLOW"
- Can't OC over 2.5GHz (I see people get at least 3GHz)

Spec
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- P4 2.4 HT 800FSB (summer 2003) @ intel HSF
- MSI 865PE Neo2-LS with newest BIOS
- Kingston value ram DDR400 256x2 (dual)
- 420 W Power supply

Really want to get to 3GHz
Do I need new RAM?

pronoob, I am not sure of how new you are to Overclocking so forgive me if I mention some things that you might know already

I have some questions first

1 What are your power supply specs?( in Amps )
2- are your running your memory in " Dual Channel" ?
3- What Brand of Ram are you running?

I have this board and at one time was running the same chip at 3.2 no problem. Without seeing your system specs ( please post specs as it would be much easier, see my signature for what I need) here it goes.........

1- Lock you AGP/PCI bus to 66/33 or as close as you can get it . I think my board let's me get to 67/34 which is fine. Once you change the FSB this will change and will be greyed out . Move the cursor down and you will be able to change it back

2- Change your memory volts from the defaut or 2.5 to 2.7 or 2.8 ( run the lowest at which it is stable)

3- For now set your memory Divider to 5:4 This is done by setting your Memory Frequency to "333" instead of "400" Depending on how high you get your FSB I might have you change it back to 1:1 but doing this now will elimate the possiblity of your memory holding you back. You will give up some memory bandwith but will gain most of it back with the higher FSb speed (hopefully)

4- As you raise the FSB you might have to change " Performance" mode to Fast, and as you raise it higher you might have to then go to Turbo and if you get the FSB up high enough Ultra Turbo. This is hit or mis . Sometimes at one FSb setting I have to run it in Turbo and another might require Slow

5- Disable " Spread Spectrum"

You also might want to read some of the posts at the MSI Forums
http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?sid=

Let me know how you do

Good Luck
Dave

i mentioned Kingston (Brand) and (Dual)

anyways if i set my RAM clock to 333 so it will be 333 no matter what FSB i set my CPU to?

i mentioned Kingston (Brand) and (Dual)

Click to expand...

Yeah, but depending on what slots you stick it in, it may or may not be in Dual Channel. It has to be in slots 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 to be in Dual Channel if I remember right.

I would add that you're going to be limited by the stock Intel HSF as well.... your temperatures are probably getting really close to your cpu's max temp with the stock HSF. Now, you can't fry your processor b/c Thermal Throttling will kick in and shut your computer down but just having high temps is enough to make your oc unstable. Do you have Corecell or some other temp monitor enabled? If so, can you tell us what your load temp is... i.e run a game for 5 minutes or run Prime 95 LINK and then post what your temps are.


Some other questions first...

1) What is your vcore set to? You won't be able to make it past 2.7 or so on stock vcore, you usually have to up it a little ( I wouldn't go past 1.55V with the stock HSF) to get past that.

2) Have you flashed your BIOS yet? I would read up on how to do that and then flash to the newest BIOS.... sometimes you can oc higher when you flash to the newest one.

anyways if i set my RAM clock to 333 so it will be 333 no matter what FSB i set my CPU to?

Click to expand...

No, what it will do is run your RAM at 333 ( 166 mhz really) when your FSB is 200 and then both will increase from that point on. If you run both at 200 mhz, you ram will inhibit your overclock fairly early on b/c ram doesn't oc very well at all. I would only expect to get a 30 mhz overclock on that ram if your lucky. If you run the ram at 166 mhz it will allow your FSB to be a lot higher before your ram reaches that max speed again.


Hope this helped and Welcome to the Forums

- Meatball

pronoobNoob , as Meatball explained what you are doing is slowing down the memory speed then picking it back up when you increase the FSB

to try and explain it in simple terms DDR runs at 2 x the FSB
200 x 2 = 400mhz
Now if you were to increase your FSB to 230
230 x 2 = 460 mhz

you will see that you are really overclocking your memory as it is rated to run at 400 . Some memory will run this far out of spec but most will not

So that is why you run it with a 5:4 divider , you are basicly underclocking the memory then by raising the FSB to bringing it back into spec
Dave

Waht's a good temperature for P4s
Actually I can only go up to 2.6GHz stable with 1:1 divider (2.8GHz + 5:4 divider causes unstablity)
I just keep using the default voltage for processor and 2.65V for RAM
I know that increasing voltage of CPU will decrease life span + I see people going to 3GHz with stock HSF and default voltage. Do I have to control the AGP/PCI speeds? I don't know how to lock them @ 1 speed tho

Do I have to control the AGP/PCI speeds? I don't know how to lock them @ 1 speed tho

Click to expand...

In the bios chose the Frequency/voltage control tab
you will see a setting just under the FSB adjustment labeled PCI/AGP Clock
When you adjust the FSB to anything but the stock FSB this setting will " Grey Out" but that is ok because you still can adjust it

Just move down to this line and use the "page up" and "page down" keys to lock it at 66/33 ( I think it might only let you go to 67/34 but that is ok)

I am not sure of how you got to 2.8 without locking this as this is one of the most important things you have to do to have a successfull overclock . If you are not locking this bus then this might be what is causing your problems.

Actually I can only go up to 2.6GHz stable with 1:1 divider (2.8GHz + 5:4 divider causes unstablity)
I just keep using the default voltage for processor and 2.65V for RAM

Click to expand...

The reason for this is because you have to raise the voltage . If you look at the specs for your ram you will see that it is 2.7 or 2.8 but for some reason the MSI boards set it at 2.5 as a default . You are not going to hurt anything by raiseing this to 2.7 or 2.8 I have been running this same memory for almost a year at 2.8 with no problems

As far as raising the default Vcore you will not cause any problems as they are rated to go 10% over ( just do not go crazy)

Waht's a good temperature for P4s

Click to expand...

2.4 chips run cool I do not think that this will be a problem . I think mine ( it was long ago so forgive me ) ran at 32C at idle and never hit 50 under a load

I know that increasing voltage of CPU will decrease life span + I see people going to 3GHz with stock HSF and default voltage

Click to expand...

This can be a mis leading statement . Sure increasing the voltage will shorten the life but by how much? a year , two years , who cares? if the chip has a five year life span and you just took a year off of it so what . In four years you will be buying anouther chip anyway right ? as a 2.4 will be obsolete ( and for that matter so will my Prescott 2.8E )

So why not live a little that chip is a good over clocker . give it a shot

Keep the questions comming and Meatball & I will keep answering

Good Luck

Dave

Ahh thanks
my case: 40C
my CPU idle: 41C running directx 9 games for 10 min: 50C

====
edited
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cpu: 1.55V
default HSF: 48C idle, 51C when open internet explorer
ram: 2.65 @ 400MHz
gfx: 68MHz

now I will try gaming hope it wont crash

after 10 min of Call of Duty 800x600@32bit Trillinear
CPU: 66C
case: 46C

after 10 min of Call of Duty 800x600@32bit Trillinear
CPU: 66C
case: 46C

Click to expand...

Whoo boy! I bet Thermal Throttling kicked in at that point. I would reduce your overclock and vcore until your load temp is below 55-58°C, that's what most Intel chips with stock HS's run at.

Now that we have your temps ( BTW, what are you using to monitor temps? You might try Speedfan LINK and see if your temps are the same.... ) we can give you some recommendations for increasing your overclock.

Now for some more questions

1) What's your case look like? How many fans do you have and have you cleaned up your wiring?

2) Can you afford to buy a new HS? If so, I would recommend the Thermalright line of HS's.... the SP-94 if you can afford it or the slk-948 ( I own this one) if you want to save a little money, the performance difference between the two isn't that great. For a fan I usually recommend the Delta HHE but it's out of stock so most of us recommend the Thermaltake Smart fan II or the Panaflo H1B ( You'd want to get the 92mm version of both fans for lower noise and more airflow).

Now this is dependent on where you live, so if you could post if you're in the US or in some other country that would be great. Thanks

I am running default volt @ 3GHz
Case: 3 fans in 2 fans out
Using Motherboard monitor 5 to look @ temp.
Maybe that 44C is my northbridge chip temp.. dunno
Its just summer maybe

Well I just got a system today and I'll let you know my results.

It's a P4 Northwood 2.6GHz @3.25 1.525V IDLE
MSI Neo2-PFS 865PE
512MB DDR500 Geil... runs @ 2-4-4-6
28C IDLE / 46+C @ LOAD

I'm using stock cooling with a GeForce TI 500 Video Card

I have my voltage set to 1.525 for CPU
2.65 for the Dual Memory
1.65 for my AGP

I believe in the Bios I set it to Ultra Fast, not Turbo though.

I was able to hit 3.45GHz, but it would lock. It would run around 3.35GHz, but after running a burn-in program for about 5 minutes, it would crash the program, but the system never rebooted.

I under clocked the ram to 333 and clocked it up to 400.

I even tried going as low as 266, but my results were worse. I have not tried every conceivable option, but I'm pretty sure I can't muster out much more. I did not try to set the ram to 433 or higher and then change the FSB, I think that's the only options I did leave out.

Also, I turned on the settings in the BIOS to manually change the voltage. It seems to me that even though I used Core Center, it would not change my voltage to what I wanted. I also never tried to bump up my Voltage on the CPU... I would rather leave it lower to reduce heat and extend the life than try and make it more stable. I guess if I was interested in finding out the maximum overclockablility of the CPU I could, but that would take more time, patience and testing.

I turned spread spectrum off.

Basically you just have to read and test your configuration.

I'm not sure what was causing my system to crash... Before I changed some settings I was running earlier... http://www.bimmerinfo.com/overclocked.jpg < as you can see I was hitting 61C with my high voltage settings... hah I said I didn't change any, but this was when I just started and after I moved it to 1.525, I never changed it back.

Here are some photos of the Geil memory settings:
http://www.bimmerinfo.com/geil.jpg
http://www.bimmerinfo.com/geil2.jpg


Here is a picture showing how quickly my temperature would drop after running prime95 or another stress testing program. 46+C @ load to 28C @ idle.
http://www.bimmerinfo.com/temps.jpg

Here I show that I was able to hit 3.406GHz notice the 27C idle http://www.bimmerinfo.com/overclocked2.jpg

and here I raise it even higher @ 3.457GHz
http://www.bimmerinfo.com/overclocked3.jpg

-

This is all done with a stock P4 heatsink and fan... I will add that the case has 1 front fan, 1 rear fan and a large 120mm fan directly facing the P4 chip and heatsink. What I'm getting at is I'm not using any special heatsink/fan combo, just an extra fan basically.

Anyway I hope some of this info helps.. I just read a lot by googling and just browsing and reading away.. it also helps to have hardware that likes you =)

First, Welcome to the Forums


Okay, now onto your questions.... It looks like you have a very nice system built, it should be able to give you an excellent overclock with later cpus (and with your current cpu) if you decide to upgrade.

1) I would set your DDR voltage to 2.75 or even higher... it's rated to 2.95V by the manufacturer, so you can run it all day at 2.95 and not have any ill effects ( If you see the red lettering in BIOS saying that those settings are not recommended, just disregard it... it's just meant to warn people running a stock setup) . I believe stock voltage is 2.75 for my Geil, so right now you're undervolting your ram and that is probably one reason why your computer is locking up.

2) Don't be afraid to raise your cpu's vcore, it doesn't reduce the lifetime of the processor enough that you'll have to worry about it. If you take the vcore to 1.65V the lifetime is reduced to 5 yrs or so, but by then you're going to upgrade the processor anyway....so you might as well have fun with the chip while you own it.

With that said though, you do have to watch your temperatures when you do that b/c high temps ( 58-63°C) will give you an unstable overclock, not to mention no one likes seeing temps in the fifties ( unless you own a Prescott ). Thermal Throttling will kick in to protect your processor if the temps climb too high, so it's basically impossible to fry your chip.

If you have stock cooling, I would recommend only increasing the vcore to 1.55-1.57V to stay at a reasonable temperature. Now my PFS undervolts quite a bit, so you might find that you have to set it to 1.6V in BIOS to get it to 1.57V in Windows. Just experiment to see what works.

I believe in the Bios I set it to Ultra Fast, not Turbo though.

Click to expand...

Is that related to your cpu or your memory? I would recommend setting it to Normal b/c your overclock is usually affected if you activate memory boosting programs. It may not affect your max oc, but stability may be affected.... just try switching it to Normal to see if that helps.

I under clocked the ram to 333 and clocked it up to 400.

I even tried going as low as 266, but my results were worse. I have not tried every conceivable option, but I'm pretty sure I can't muster out much more. I did not try to set the ram to 433 or higher and then change the FSB, I think that's the only options I did leave out.

Click to expand...

With DDR 500, I would just set it to AUTO and let it run at a 1:1 ratio, you get better performance and a more stable overclock if you leave it at a 1:1 FSB:RAM ratio for as long as possible. At that speed your memory will be running at stock speeds, so you shouldn't have any problems at all as long as you raise the memory voltage to 2.75.

Oh, BTW.... unless you've read the Memory Basics Sticky or are fairly familiar with overclocking memory, I would loosen timings. Your timings of 2-4-4-6 are okay, but they will reduce your overclock quite a bit. CAS latency has very little affect on performance but a huge affect on stability. Either let SPD decide or set it to 2.5-4-4-8 to get your max oc. Setting it manually with ensure that the timings remain constant b/c SPD makes mistakes sometimes. By loosening your timings, you lose ram performance but your FSB gain more than makes up for the difference.

I think that's about it, so good luck trying those out. Hope it works for you

- Meatball

Thanks for the Warm Welcome.

I'll give those suggestions a go.

I do know when I raise the voltage to 1.55 or higher the temperature creeps up around 55ºC +/- when I do an stress test on the CPU. If I keep it to 1.5375 or 1.525, the temperatures are about 10ºC lower on a stress. Once again it's stock cooling, and I'm not looking to drop another $50 for a Heatsink and a fan when I already have a 24% increase from the 2.6 P4 chip I'm fairly happy.

I guess I should raise the voltage up on the RAM since there is no need to underclock it. Right now it's still underclocked since it's running at 200Mhz. I did do some reading up on RAM and the CAS settings. I believe the difference was around 2-7%, like you said it's not much of a difference. That TURBO I believe is the RAM setting for the Timings. I know if I change it to FAST it lowers it to 2.5-5-5-7 or 6-6-7, I can't remember off hand. I'll have to check and see on that. I know what I wasn't setting it to Auto to run @ 1:1. In the BIOS it just says AUTO and then says 266/333/400/533 etc and in Core Center, it had about the same 400 and up. I guess I was looking for '500' and wasn't thinking AUTO.. I'll change that. I know it will easily do 261MHz each as I had it at one point at that. The temperature on the side of the Geil is more of eye candy than anything.. it's not as if I can actually see it, but oh well.

What normally happens when I raise the FSB in the MSI Core Center, the PC just reboots if I raise it too high, otherwise if I do a stress test, and it gets unstable, I will just see an application fail, and then the temp goes back down.

You didn't mention the voltage settings for AGP, so I assume my 1.65V are fine?

Basically I'll probably be limited by the HEAT on the chip.. if I hit 1.55V I get a spike of 10ºC, and I think that will be what ultimately limits me.. but hey a 24% increase with stock cooling, I can live with.

-

On another note, how does your 2.4C compare to a 2.6 running at a close compariable speed... with Hyperthreading.

I'm just wondering if the 2.4C would be a nice chip to get if it can perform similarly to a 2.6 or above overclocked. I need to read up on the 2.4 chips. I assume that the C version is very much overclockable... are all versions similar or do other versions lack.. a in the ballpark answer will work.

Thanks,
Ray

Oh Ya, what's the stock FSB on the 2.4C chip of yours?

I do know when I raise the voltage to 1.55 or higher the temperature creeps up around 55ºC +/- when I do an stress test on the CPU. If I keep it to 1.5375 or 1.525, the temperatures are about 10ºC lower on a stress. Once again it's stock cooling, and I'm not looking to drop another $50 for a Heatsink and a fan when I already have a 24% increase from the 2.6 P4 chip I'm fairly happy.

Click to expand...

I know exactly how you feel...now, you can leave it at 55°C and absolutely nothing will happen to it. Stock temps for desktops get up to 60°C and they work for years with no problems... so if you want to raise the vcore a little go ahead.

What normally happens when I raise the FSB in the MSI Core Center, the PC just reboots if I raise it too high, otherwise if I do a stress test, and it gets unstable, I will just see an application fail, and then the temp goes back down.

Click to expand...

I don't even have Corecell installed... it was such a pain to use that I unistalled it. If you want to leave it for temp monitoring, that's fine.... but for overclocking you should stick with changing setting in BIOS. You'll find that your computer won't freeze when you oc from BIOS and you can find your max oc a lot faster.

You didn't mention the voltage settings for AGP, so I assume my 1.65V are fine?

Click to expand...

I don't know enough about video cards to help you on that one... I have my voltage at 1.6V and got a decent overclock on it, but it depends on how good your cooling is. I would make a thread in the video section to see if they can help you a little more.

On another note, how does your 2.4C compare to a 2.6 running at a close compariable speed... with Hyperthreading.

Click to expand...

The 2.4C will get slightly better performance b/c it's FSB will be higher than the 2.6's when they're running at the same speed. The 2.4C's a great chip, but I would see what overclock you can get on the 2.6C before you consider upgrading it. Here's a pic of my benchmark at 3.42 gigs. PICLink

You'll probably have to click on it and go to the Full Image button ( if you hold the mouse over the pic, a orange thing should appear in the lower right and click on it to get the full image). Don't you love my technical instructions

The stock FSB on all "C" chips is 200.... all that changes is the multiplier. For example, my chip is 200 x 12 = 2400 Mhz and the 2.6C is 200 x 13 = 2600 . To get an idea of what other guys with your chip are getting, go to www.cpudatabase.com and select your processor from the list.... take the speeds with a grain of salt, but it will give you an idea of what speeds to expect from your processor.

Good Luck

I know exactly how you feel...now, you can leave it at 55°C and absolutely nothing will happen to it. Stock temps for desktops get up to 60°C and they work for years with no problems... so if you want to raise the vcore a little go ahead.

Click to expand...

Hrmm.. I guess I'm confusing Voltage with Temperature as far as lifespan goes. Is there a location to go and see what temperature ranges people are running their chips at, that would be some good info. Obviously I the lower the better.. but if someone can run their 2.4/2.6 etc chip around 55-63ºC and it's fine.. for x number of weeks or months, then I should be.

I don't even have Corecell installed... it was such a pain to use that I unistalled it. If you want to leave it for temp monitoring, that's fine.... but for overclocking you should stick with changing setting in BIOS. You'll find that your computer won't freeze when you oc from BIOS and you can find your max oc a lot faster.

Click to expand...

Hrmmm.. I guess I don't see where in the BIOS you change the FSB manually... I have had no problems with Core Cell... It's been nice to be able to make changes on the fly. I do you the Speed Fan though to check out my temps and what not.

The stock FSB on all "C" chips is 200.... all that changes is the multiplier. For example, my chip is 200 x 12 = 2400 Mhz and the 2.6C is 200 x 13 = 2600 . To get an idea of what other guys with your chip are getting, go to www.cpudatabase.com and select your processor from the list.... take the speeds with a grain of salt, but it will give you an idea of what speeds to expect from your processor.

Click to expand...

I was just interested in case I wanted to purchase another motherboard and chip for future projects

Thanks for the info.

Is there a location to go and see what temperature ranges people are running their chips at, that would be some good info. Obviously I the lower the better.. but if someone can run their 2.4/2.6 etc chip around 55-63ºC and it's fine.. for x number of weeks or months, then I should be.

Click to expand...

I've know people that had those temps for a long period of time... but I don't know of any links to average temps. What you could do is post in the cooling forum about inexpensive mods to lower your temps. I know of a few that you can do to lower your temps by a few degrees.

1) Cut out the metal fan grills that cover your intake and exhaust fans, most are very restrictive and if you cut them out... it's usually good for anywhere from 2-5°C reduction in temps.

2) Organize your cables as much as possible... route long cables behind your mobo or zip tie them together. This helps reduce turbulence in your case.

3) If you have the tools, adding a blowhole on the top of your case or intake fan on your side panel ( put the hole where your cpu is and mount a fan there for excellent temp reduction.... this works the best b/c it blows room temp air on your HSF rather than it having to blow case temp air on the HS) you can use a dremel, tin snips, or nibbler ( nibbler would be freakin slow, so I don't recommend that unless you have a lot of time on your hands).

Hrmmm.. I guess I don't see where in the BIOS you change the FSB manually..

Click to expand...

It's called clock speed or something similiar in BIOS.... just look for the number 200 and that should be it. It will be in the area that allows you to change your cpu and memory voltage. I'll look around and see if I can find a pic of it.

Ah here's a pic... it's under Frequency/Voltage Control in BIOS and look at Adjust Cpu Bus, that's the FSB speed.

PicLink

Here is some photos of some benchmarks from Sandra.

Cache and Memory Benchmark



CPU Arithmetic Benchmark



CPU Multimedia Benchmark



Memory Bandwidth Benchmark


I just overclocked my new video card from 276.x Core / 270 Memory to 343.x Core / 312 Memory with zero Artifacts

Cache and Memory Benchmark
http://img5.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img5&...ache1memory.jpg

Click to expand...

If you want to put a link in, but you don't want the whole link to show up... what you can do is this.

[*url=www.something.com]LINK[/url*]

and

LINK

will show up. That helps to make your posts a little cleaner. This isn't to say that you can't have the entire link in, but if you want an alternate way to do it....


BTW, nice marks on the Sandra benches , they seem right on track with what my stats where at those speeds. You're memory bandwidth is a lot higher than mine right now though. There's a long story involved in that though.

My brother is an AMD guy and he wanted some faster dual channel ram to see if it increased his oc at all ( he had DDR400 at the time)... so he goes into my room and swipes my ram. After he's done with it, he puts it back in my computer.... only now my mobo doesn't see it as Dual Channel so my bandwidth dropped from 6000 to around 3900

So I'm trying to figure that one out.... b/c he installed the ram back into the same slots and I haven't changed anything else. Oh well.

That's a great overclock that you have, especially given that your at stock vcore. Have you Primed it yet? If you don't have Prime95 (here's a LINK), it's one of the best overclock testers out there. It finds if your overclock is stable.... for example, if Prime finds an error, either your vcore is too low or your oc is too high. You want to be able to run Prime stable for about 8-24 hrs before you can consider your overclock completely stable.

For the best tests, go to the Options tab and select Torture Test... then pick one of the three options ( depends on what you want to test, I usually do blend or cpu intensive burn ins, I use Memtest for my memory) and burn away.

Now if you've run Prime, I would recommend doing a Hard Shutdown when you're done running it b/c some people have gotten hard drive corruption if they run it while their overclock is unstable.... if you shutdown normally, Windows will save bad memory information on your HDD and that's bad juju. It's better to just do a Hard Shutdown after you run Prime... saves you a lot of grief later on.

Good Luck