What is limiting my overclock?

I can only get my FSB up to 137.

I have a Asus A7N8X with 256 MB of Samsung PC2700.

I have a Athlon XP 2000+. I was just wondering what was limiting my overclock, is it my ram?? or the CPU?? I have tried upping the voltages to both the RAM and the CPU but still can't get higher. I have the AGP/PCI busses locked at 66/33.

Temps?

CPU is 45

Celcius or Farenheit? If that is celcius it is pretty high, though I am not familiar with AMD.

Celcius

You're temperatures sound high.

AntmanMike said:

Celcius or Farenheit? If that is celcius it is pretty high, though I am not familiar with AMD.

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45 farenheight would be 7.2 celcius. If the temp was that low, it certainly would not be holding the guy back.

Here is a great page for metric conversions.

I know how to convert sir. He didnt specify if the temp was C or F (or K or R).

my thoughts would be temps, although how are you reading those temps? mbm5 or another software program, or are you reading those straight from the bios?

do you have the latest bios for you mobo? have you tried taking the side panel off of your case and having a large fan blow into it? 45c is a bit high for any decent oc'ing however, what sort of cooling do you have?

also, how's your power supply? it'd help if you would list the entire configuration of your system, so that we can better assist you.

and what happens when you cannot go any higher on the overclock exactly.. does it just not boot, do you get boot errors, or does windows not start up (assuming you're running windows) or does it just lockup on intensive applications?

answer some of those and we'll get this figured out.

John

[edit]

as for those temps, thats just the processor. the northbridge could be overheating as well, limiting your overclock. alot of manufactures cheap out, and put a nasty sticky thermalpad under the northbridge active cooler - removing that and replacing with some artic silver or alumnia, will generally help you get a few more mhz.

45c isn't dangerous by any means, but it does limit your overhead for higher overclockability. most of my XP's have topped out due to heat around 50c...

45 C isn't that high for a 2000+ Palamino (am I assuming correctly that it is a Palamino?)

Palamino's maxed out at what? 2100+ 2200+ in limited quantity?
Are you RAM timings conservative or 'Ultra/Fast'?
Do you get the blue screen entering windows or just a post then restart?


My 1600+ Pally only goes to 151FSB on Ultra timings. I won't budge the timings because I'm convinced there's no point in having slower RAM timings and a faster FSB, seems to me they'd cancel each out, performance wise.

45c is infact too high, not in terms of being in danger of burning up his cpu, but in the sense that you get consistently worse overclocks the higher your temps are.

perhaps your 2000+ is just a bad chip for oc'ing, that is entirely possible, although try all those things mentioned above for sure first. what stepping is it?

but what i am thinking is that something else is holding you back, possibly a hard drive, or NIC, or modem, etc etc... that is why it would be beneficial for you to post your entire system specs.

AntmanMike said:

I know how to convert sir. He didnt specify if the temp was C or F (or K or R).

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[Klingon] I do not question your honor. However this is an international fourm and the post required clarification. [/klingon]

yeah, kinda funny how most of the 'mericans here list their CPU temps in Celcius.
I always report temps in C, although I don't know how to convert to F in my head The only thing I use the celcius scale for is hardware, and labratory work!

it could be your voltage. raise that a little. or maybe your system isnt stable when its overclocked that much. i had an athlon 1.2 and couldnt overclock to 1.5 it was the voltage and bus speed, maybe you need to get better cooling.

punisher2k3

The Palomino core ended officially at 2100+ (1.73ghz);however, many people, including myself, have pushed palominos past that point.

I would say 45c under load is not limiting his overclock. For aircooling that kind of load is not that high with a chip that fast.

I second upping the vcore. And it's been asked before, but what kind of PSU are you using?

Shade00 said:

The Palomino core ended officially at 2100+ (1.73ghz);however, many people, including myself, have pushed palominos past that point.

I would say 45c under load is not limiting his overclock. For aircooling that kind of load is not that high with a chip that fast.

I second upping the vcore. And it's been asked before, but what kind of PSU are you using?

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i am not neccessarily disagreeing with you, but am only talking out of my own experience. i had a 1600+ that sat at about 51c until i got an ax-7 on it, dropped the temp to alittle over 30c, i then proceeded to get another 150mhz out of it.

others on this forum have had similar encounters, everyone chip is different though.

i never said 45c was the only contributing factor to his poor OC, i just stated that it could be playing a part, and the farther you up from mid 40's, the less high you're going to get it.

Well, with the locked PCI/AGP you know it can't be any kind of card or drive holding it back. The RAM's good for 166fsb at least (if you're running it in sync with the processor, which you should on an AMD system) so I doubt it's that.

Unlock your chip.

If you can't get more clock frequency out of it, but get a higher fsb, then you know it's most likely the chip. (Needs to be unlocked for this, try lower multi + higher fsb)

If that is true, and it is the chip, then give it some more voltage and see what happens. That and get an SLK800 or Swiftech

DISCLAIMER: I have no hands-on experience with AMD.

Thanx for all your help, I thought it might be the CPU, I can get a Tbred 1700 for $100 CDN, so I might grab one of those. I think it is my CPU, and I don't really wanna fool about with unlocking my CPU, so I will wait until I get a Tbred B (which my mobo unlocks for me).

???

Your mobo can unlock it for you??? How's that happen?

All I want for Christmas is my P4 unlocked..........

nForce 2s unlock the multiplyers in Tbred Bs in the BIOS