Novice needs help overclocking!

k, there is a wealth of knowledge available on this website, but there's so much I can hardly figure out what to read and even if I do, I don't understand some of it. If i'm posting this in the wrong section of the forums, I apologize in advance, I'm new here.

Recently I bought and put together this:

-Asus Nforce 4 sli deluxe
-Athlon 64 3500 Venice
-BFG 7800 GT
-1 ram of low latency ocz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227209
*Linked the ram so that you'd see the exact specs on it.
-Seagate 160 gig 8mb hard drive
-A very good thermaltake CPU fan. ran me like 40 bucks.

History. I did a little overclocking on my last machine, got it from 1.5ghz to 2.0 and it ran smooth as silk. was the first thing I ever overclocked.

This one I got to overclock up to 2.37ghz stable. I was not stable above that. A friend, mentioned that I need to manipulate my ram and maybe voltage as well. I see stuff in the bios to adjust this, but I've also heard that adjusting the voltage can be very dangerous. so, I'm looking for some advice on how I can get the best stable results possible out of my new gaming rig.

I would certainly appreciate any help. Below, I will post information that my bios has for me to manipulate in regards to ram and cpu information.

*jumperfree configuration
-Overclock Profile
*Manual [*]
-auto
-standard
-AI Overclock (no clue what this means)
-AI NOS (ditto)

I know to put this on manual, but for the purpose of knowing I'm a novice, I'm putting it anyways.

*CPU Frequency (this is the front side bus if I understand correctly)
range starts at 200 and goes all the way to 400. I currently have it a 236 because that is the highest rate at which I can run it stable.

*PCI express clock (I'm assuming this refers to overclocking my video card) I also beleive my BFG comes overclocked by default and don't know if I should attempt to overclock for some extra output, or if it will lower the lifespan of my card if I do so.

range: 100mhz-145 mhz (optimal frequency anyone?) or just leave it alone?

*DDR Voltage

-Auto [*] <-- currently here
2.60<----->3.00 (don't know enough about voltages to competantly manipulate them)

*CPU Multiplier Auto, then 4-11 in .5 incriments. Currently set at 10x

*CPU Voltage Auto, then 1.550v all the way down to .800v

*PCI clock syncronization (huh wha?!?)
Auto
To CPU
33.33 MHZ

Once again, any help would be wonderful. thanks in advance.

forgot

I forgot to post the DRAM configuration page. One dude said I would need to change or overclock ram to get my overclock higher.

DRAM configuration page

Timing Mode Auto/Manual

Memory clock index value 200-600

Cas# latency (TCL) 2/[2.5]/3.0

Min Ras# Active Time (tras) 5T-12t

Ras# to Cas # Delay (TRCD) 2t-7t

Row Precharge Time (TRP) 2t-7t

Row cycletime (TRC) 7t-22T

Row refresh cycle time (TRFC) 9t-24T

Read to write time (trwt) 1T-6T

Write recovery Time (TWR)

1t/2T memory timing 1t/2t

On this, I don't know what to ignore or what to actually adjust.

to the forums, try these on for size:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=391768
and
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=384756

-1cem4n

Manually set the PCI-E frequency to 100 MHz. That's default. Going above that don't O/C the vid card, just puts more stress on the PCI-E bus and can add instability. For memory voltage, as long as you have decent case ventilation, 2.8v should be quite safe. As for RAM timings (DRAM configuration), I suggest posting this question in the memory section. Set the PCI bus to 33 MHz for the same reason as described for the PCI-E. Hope this helps a little.

batboy said:

Manually set the PCI-E frequency to 100 MHz. That's default. Going above that don't O/C the vid card, just puts more stress on the PCI-E bus and can add instability. For memory voltage, as long as you have decent case ventilation, 2.8v should be quite safe. As for RAM timings (DRAM configuration), I suggest posting this question in the memory section. Set the PCI bus to 33 MHz for the same reason as described for the PCI-E. Hope this helps a little.

Click to expand...

awesome thanks bro. I'll post the results of exactly how much I could squeeze out of this puppy.

If you are still running default vcore, you might ask in the AMD CPU section about safe voltage and safe load CPU temp. I suspect you might need a bit more voltage if you want to O/C higher, but I don't know much about your processor. Remember, increasing voltage increase temps, so cooling gets very important.