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WANTS TO LEARN HOW TO OVERCLOCK SLOT A 900

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dunno

New Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2001
Hi all! I want to OC my system and I have been reading alot about it for about a month now...
Now I am ready to try it. First I want to stay conservative and and just OC the FSB etc.
then I plan to get a GFD for more of a boost afterwards.

SPECS:
Operating System: MicroShit ME
Processor: AMD Athlon @ 900MHz (not a T)
Graphics Card: ASUS AGP-V7700 DDR SGRAM v5.16
Memory: 256MB PC-133 (micron) cas 2 I believe.
Motherboard: ASUS <K7V>
BIOS Version: ASUS K7V ACPI BIOS Rev 1008 Beta 001-C
ok... I want to know more about:
1. the VIO (3.3, 3.4, 3.56) 3.4 was default .
2. the FSB (default is 100) although I have tried up to120 (110 112 was stable)
now this is where I get confused..... if I set the CPU frequency to 110 I have an option to set the DRAM frequency to the same value or 146 (i think) but doesnt that need to be roughly 33(L2 CACHE SPEED) when divided for PCI? and if so the only options were for 1/2, 2/5, and 1/3(L2 CACHE SPEED) all of which are well above the standard PCI speed.(?!??!?) what is the disadvantage and advantage of the lower setting when upping my FSB?
and when I tried 110 and 112 i had the most stability (with vcore at 1.8 up to 2.0) but the processor was only 1008 MHZ shouldnt I be able to get up to around 1.1 with out the multiplier and around 1.2+ with it?
ANY WHO............ If you could help me and teach me how to better understand this I would be in debted to you for life =)
Hell, I 'll even settle for the correct settings alone without the tutorial if that would be easier for you.
Thanks,
That Strange Guy
 
The DRAM timing is the speed setting for your ram. host-clk will run it at whatever the fsb is. host-clk+pci will add the pci bus speed to the fsb and run the ram at that speed. Since you have a 900 your cache divider is already at 1/3, so you can't really do anything with that other than try to get some cooling on the cache chips themselves.(they are only good upto about 350MHZ) But as with any OCing, if you cool it, you can usually squeeze alittle more out of it, maybe 400. Bear in mind that when fsb OCing, you are running everything in the comp out of spec and can sometimes be more prone to lockups and the like. All you really need to do is get a goldfingers device, find a fsb that is stable, then play with the multiplier until you get the speed you want. Good Luck... :)
 
Thanks!
but, how do I determine the speed of the cache?
for example:
If I up the CPU frequency to 110, Dram to 146, L2 CACHE to 1/3 and vcore to 1.90 (and, oh, the VIO is at 3.56) running @ 990.
And.... does the above specs seem too high for that small of an increase in speed? (meaning shouldnt the speed be at least 1G with that much change?)
I have plenty of cooling, I run at 27 C after 8 hours of CS
(HEHEHE thats not a typo. I am an addict!)

** also 1/3 of 146 is 48.6 which I'm assuming is the PCI speed. is this too high?
 
Just a word of caution. A "Classic" Slot A Athlon, without a GFD at least in my experience, is a terrible overclocker. The highest FSB I was able to achieve, with a GlobalWin VOS32 hsf, was only 105. I have read and followed a lot of articles on these chips, and they pretty much suck. Only with a GFD was I able to get it over 1G.
 
Some slot-A master advice...

dunno (Apr 03, 2001 07:46 p.m.):
Thanks!
but, how do I determine the speed of the cache?
for example:
If I up the CPU frequency to 110, Dram to 146, L2 CACHE to 1/3 and vcore to 1.90 (and, oh, the VIO is at 3.56) running @ 990.
And.... does the above specs seem too high for that small of an increase in speed? (meaning shouldnt the speed be at least 1G with that much change?)
I have plenty of cooling, I run at 27 C after 8 hours of CS
(HEHEHE thats not a typo. I am an addict!)

** also 1/3 of 146 is 48.6 which I'm assuming is the PCI speed. is this too high?

How to determine speed of L2 cache:
simply do [CPU core]x[cache multiplyer]=[cache speed].
for a 900, that will be 900x1/3= 300MHz

The factory setting for L2 cache for Slot-A athlons from 850 till 1000 is 1/3. It wouldn't be wise to tamper with that, running your cache at higher speeds only decreases your stability, while the gains in performance are minimal.

If I get you right, you seem to be mixing 2 different things: DRAM and L2 cache. For L2cache, this are the chips on your CPU pcb, the speed can not be set selectively, it varies along with your core speed and cache multiplyer as described above.

The DRAM setting is for 100 or 133 mhz ram (3 or 4 times PCI). When you increase your FSB, the K7V will account for the change in PCI speed and update the displayed speeds in the bios. I use the K7V myself, it's a blessing, only minus is you can't set 4-way interleave (I use bios 1007, have they added the 4-way interleave yet in 1008-C?). By the way, leaving your DRAM at cas2 at high FSB isn't very wise, it will become unstable at high FSB. When I try high speeds, I always set my DRAM back to 3x PCI speed, and when I reach the max. speed for my core I see if DRAM can handle the 4x PCI. But since I don't overclock FSB (anymore), I don't run into problems with that. My highest achieved FSB was 107 stable, 110 top. Maybe it's because I have much cards in PCI slot's but I'm not going to remove them only for a little more FSB.

And your CPU, is it 900 factory default? Just because you say cpu@ 900.

Tip: when you buy a GFD, get one without the need for external voltage, for instance the TweakingDevice 2.0. I use one, it is A BLESSING!! Just pull it off, set it, put it on, run!

And succes with the almost forgotten art of overclocking Slot-A athlons :D , one of the best things around! Succes, and keep us updated.
 
About that L2-cache

I forgot to mention about L2 chips. Cooling them is a good thing, the guys in Malaysia are very greedy when it comes to thermal grease. When I cracked open my athlon, there was almost no contact between the L2cache chips and the heatsinkplate, and even if there was some, I don't think 2,0mm (=exact space between the top of the cache chips and core chip) of that crapy standard silicon grease would have conducted very much heat. I use one big watercooled block, so I had to add something that would conduct the heat over the 2 milimeters.

I don't have much resources, but in the Netherlands we have coins of exactly 1mm thick. I use 2 of them with theremal grease to make 'm connect even better on either chip(thanx to the greedy asses in Malaysia!).

If I remember well, it's about 1mm of space between the L2 chips and the standard heatsinkplate, but that is still far to much for a good thermal exchange.

I run my cache at standard 1/2 speed, so that will be 400MHz for a chip that runs 250MHz at factory default. The nanosecond rating of them is printed on the cachechips themselves, it are the last 2 numbers of the serial number. For me blah-blah-xx 33, so I have 3.3ns chips, that would be 303MHz max. So cooling is the magic word. Anyway, happy overclocking!
 
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