MY OC'd Athlon T'bird

[Jeff Bolton]

Hey guys, I'm new, both to this board and overclocking. I'm going to ask a question and hope you guys can answer it (you seem to know your stuff!). I guess I'll start out by explaining my system. I have an Abit KT7A mobo with an Athlon T'bird 1.2 ghz CPU (Delta 60mm 38 CFM fan, Coolermaster heatsink), 512mb PC133 ram, 40 GB Maxtor HDD, Plextor 16x10x40x burner, and an AOpen 16x40x DVD-Rom drive. Anyways, this is the first system that I've built and it hasn't given me any problems. I had always noticed when looking around in the BIOS that I could raise my clock speed from 1200 to 1250 very easily, without having to change to the "User Defined" setting to change clock speeds. Previously, the multiplier had been 12, but when I changed it to 1250, the multiplier went up to 12.5, so actually on reboot the processor was running at 1300 mhz. I was happy/suprised (since I don't know anything about this area of the computer yet, though I am eager to learn). I looked at the system monitor that came with the mobo software and I was running at about 87 degrees farenheit at idle (roughly 32 degrees celsius). Is this a safe temperature to be idling at? I think the big Delta fan helps a lot, but as I said, I'm not too knowledgeable about OCing and processor temps yet, so please, if you can, let me know what you think. Thanks,

Jeff

[thestramel]

32 C at idle is very good for running 100mhz over CPUs specified frequency. Sounds like you will be able to push it even further. What are your load temps like? Have you tried testing for stability with Prime95?

[Superman53142]

Load temps matter more than idle temps. For instance, your temps when running Folding@Home or Seti@Home will give you pretty much a maximum temp. If you're max temp is under 50Celcius I'd say you're A-OK.

[Superman53142]

Hey 400th Post!!! Cool.

[Jeff Bolton]

in load temp do you mean like when i'm putting a big load on the processor? because i tested it out after playing Max Payne for a while (big pull on processor mind you) and it was about 113 degrees farenheit...about 45 degrees celsius. so i hope that explains it...thanks for the fast answer too...didn't expect it. awesome.

jeff

[ReTiCuLeX]

87F is very nice. Between below 0 and 130F is ok , anything over that is too high. K first off you can set the multiplier to raise you'r clock speed but you can also make +1mhz increasements using the front side bus. Say for example - you have an 1.2Ghz athlon 200fsb (front side bus) well you can adjust the front side bus by bumping it up one by one , this will raise you'r cpu fsb as well as the clock speed of the cpu itself. You don't wana go too high when adjusting frontside bus as you can damage other components in you'r system. if you have good ram don't go over like 150fsb.I would pull out that cpu and post us the Stepping ID of you'r processor the code , it should be something on the 2nd line like AXIA - XXXXX or AVIA - XXXXX AYHJA , AYHJAR . Better yet post the whole cpu #s and lettering , this would all be located on the core of the cpu the middle aka called the DIE of the cpu.Once you know what stepping ID you'r processor is we could give you recommendations of cpu speeds you should try to overclock you'r processor too. AMD Stepping article (http://www.athlonoc.com/stepping1.php) use this website often they have lots of great articles.heres a few extra websites HardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/) AMDmb (http://www.athlonmb.com/files.php)

hf and good luck hope I helped a bit explain, if you need more help email me at reticulex@si.rr.com or contact me on AIM at ReTiCuLe1 or Icq 92377457

[Jeff Bolton]

actually i am happy with 1300, i did it just to show my friend that i would ( and to have the fastest processor in my dorm room). my friend has a fancy pre-built dell with a P4 1.3 ghz that he thinks is the end all-be all of computers, but we all know that AMD kicks Intel to the curb. So maybe some time in the future i will try to go higher, but for now i'm happy with 100 mhz over factory speed, but thanks for the links anyways, and if i decide to take the processor out i'll get the numbers down and post them too, thanks again.

jeff

[ReTiCuLeX]

Np glad to help.Goto http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/ and download sisoft Sandra for his pc and urs. Then compare the cpu benchmarks and it will show that ur 1300mhz AMD is way ahead of his 1300mhz p4 lol hf.

[fuzzba11]

Hehe, awww, how cute, a new OCer...I think it might be a good thing that you're happy with 100 MHz over...I wasn't happy with 500 MHz over my 1 GHz! :D

[Jeff Bolton]

heh heh, sounds like fun....yeah how cute

[-=UR=- Ranger]

Allways nice to find new members, interesting that you´are happy with that 100 Mhz, I´m only happy when I have squeezed out very last Mhz out of my system....

And welcome to the Forum!

[wild_andy_c]

Originally posted by ReTiCuLeX
Np glad to help.Goto http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/ and download sisoft Sandra for his pc and urs. Then compare the cpu benchmarks and it will show that ur 1300mhz AMD is way ahead of his 1300mhz p4 lol hf.

I bet my Morgan would kick the butt of that P4 too .................

[train22]

I only get a 200MHZ safe o/c and I am somewhat unhappy, not because of only 200MHZ but because I know my ram like I know my teeth, it should easily be able to plant a 156FSB and all I want is 10.5x155=1628 yet it doesn't like it, I can do 10x156=1560 and 12x137=1644 (Didn't even tried a 157FSB but it might work, was too lazy and went from 156 to 158 or 160 so I dunno but 155 should have done it)

I guess it could be because I am using ram sinks and they only hold the heat for a while, once they heat up it reboots. (It didn't start up though)

Going to burn it for a few more days at 12x137 and see the rock be cooking,

damn o/c has sooo spoiled me, I know peolpe that have P3 450s and are happy. Shame on me...