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Need tips on overclocking 1.6a on Epox 4SDA+ mobo

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mychacho

Registered
Joined
Jun 2, 2002
This is my first attempt at p4 overclocking, so naturally there is quiet a few questions I have about a best stability/performance balance for the overclocked system.
I got an Epox 4SDA+ motherboard with P4 1.6A and the stock intel heatsink/fan. I also have 2 256MB PC2100 Crucial modules from BestBuy . Its a CT3264Z265 memory module(CL=2.5).
It was fairly easy to take the cpu over 2ghz by setting the FSB to 133, but other settings in the bios I am not at all familiar with..
1. How far can I take this memory? How do I overclock it in the 4SDA+ bios?

2. why would I want to increase or decrease voltage to agp, pci, ram, cpu, etc.

3. I have a few pci cards in there, and I will be doing digital video editing on this comp, so stability is extremely important for me. I dont want to take the hardware to its extremes, but if it has a potential for greatness, I want to use it as long as I am guaranteed stability. So how far should I take and h ow far have you taken it? I want to overclock the pci/agp buses as little as possible.

4) Does oveclocking affect the ide controllers or raid? I need my hds to be very stable

5. post your results and bios settings relevant to overclocking with 4sda+
 
1. How far can I take this memory? How do I overclock it in the 4SDA+ bios?

You will just have to try and see.

2. why would I want to increase or decrease voltage to agp, pci, ram, cpu, etc.

Higher voltage will usually help stability when overclocking or allow a higher overclock. Don't get silly here the or you might end up with dead componets.

Agp/pci=If you want to oc your video card. I wouldn't mess with that one myself video cards can be easily damaged.
Same for trying to get a pci card that dosen't like running over spec.
Ram=2.5v +.2v or 2.7 is safe, going over that probably won't hurt but there is a slight risk an it increases the higher you go.
CPU=1.75v is probably going to be ok with a good heatskink and fan if you have the stock unit you might want to keep at 1.70v or under. If you use watercooling 1.90v would be about the max I would use. Every cpu is different some going from 1.75v to 1.90v will only gain you a extra 40mhz some will gain you alot more.
I think its best to run at a point where you are gaining the most oc but getting a higher oc requires alot more voltage.A extra 40mhz is not worth having to use .25v for.

3. I have a few pci cards in there, and I will be doing digital video editing on this comp, so stability is extremely important for me. I dont want to take the hardware to its extremes, but if it has a potential for greatness, I want to use it as long as I am guaranteed stability. So how far should I take and h ow far have you taken it? I want to overclock the pci/agp buses as little as possible.

Run it at 133fsb or close to it and a 4:5 or 4:6 ratio if your memory can do 4:6 or not is something you will just have to test but I doubt it will do it.

4) Does oveclocking affect the ide controllers or raid? I need my hds to be very stable.

Yes, the pci bus these componets are on runs at 1/3 the fsb from from 100-119mhz and 1/4 of the fsb at 120 mhz and over.

These componets are at spec 33.3mhz at 100 and 133fsb
They can take running over spec some.
 
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I am having a number of problems with 1.6a and 4sda+. Basically I switched Bios to optimized defaults, overclocked the cpu to 133mhz where its running at 2.13ghz and pci/agp should be running at 33 mhz. The memory is runnin at SPD setting which is 133x2 or PC2100(its crucial cl2) and I upped the voltage on memory to 2.7v. I didnt change the voltage on CPU yet. The temperature ranges from 45 Celsius during startup to 52 during high load times(CPU BurnIn). I know its due to the fact that the bios is reporting faulty temperature, but how much is it off?

The problem is that I had 3dmark crash on me during benchmark twice. It crashed to the point where it rebooted the cpu instantly. I ran memtest86 for couple of hours, that turned out to be ok.Im running CPU Burnin right now and that doesnt seem to cause anyproblems. I will try to run 3Dmark again later once I up the cpu voltage a bit, but in the meanwhile, do you guys know when the bios firmware would be released that fixes the temp. problem.


Also PLEASE post your voltage/FSB/etc settings for 1.6A with 4SDA
 
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