NEWBIE HERE! First OC in a while.. parts comin tomorrow.. need advice..

Hey everyone..

New here, last time I OC'd anything it was a Celeron 300A on some a-bit board.. It's been a while.. the whole concept has been lost on me.. My current athlon t-bird 1.4 is getting a lil old.. plus my HD was dying so I figured.. fawk it.. i'll build a new PC..

Here's what I'm getting:

Abit NF7 Nforce 2 Audio Lan ATA133

2x CORSAIR DDR400 PC3200 512MB

AMD ATHLON 2500+ Mobile

Vantec VA4-C7040 HSF

Antec Performance II SX635BII case w/350W power supply

ATI/Sapphire Radeon 9600 256M DDR

Seagate 120GB 7200RPM 8MB

What kinda OC results can I expect with this setup .. air cooling only.. Also.. could someone explain to me raising the multiplier / core / voltage...

How bout OC'n memory as well??

Probably be easiest to throw some settings that work .. I can try with those and play around after that...

Does it make a diff when you OC?? Should I do it before / after I install windows??

Anyways, lookin aroun on this board, there's obviously tons of knowledgable people, any info / help you can provide will be appreciated..

thanks..

-Tawheed

Check the "AMD Processors" forum. They've got a whole sticky of Mobile Barton 2500 results.

I'm not sure, but I've read that you can expect 2.2ish or 2.4ish on them.

Before you install your processor, check out the AMD section of this forum. That way you can be sure everything goes right.

Did you get any thermal interface material (ergo Arctic Silver?)

yep check the amd forums for more info but here's some quick tips right off the bat. start your overclocking at low speeds, i.e. 2.0 to 2.2 ghz first then slowly move up testing each setting for stability. it's also a good idea to record on a piece of paper what values you use in your bios and which ones are stable so you can track your progress or failure. each processor although they are the same make and model will overclock differently depending on different factors so you'll have to experiment a bit with different fsb's, multipliers, voltages, etc. a common setting is 200 fsb x 12 or 12.5 multiplier at 1.65v to 1.8v. that will give you a speed of 2.4 to 2.5 ghz. always start with a lower voltage to keep the heat from your cpu down and move up in small increments as needed until stable. i wouldn't recommend going above 1.9v unless you have very adequate cooling. you may also need to adjust your ddr/cpu ratio, memory voltage, and chipset voltage to find stability. good luck and have fun!

If you're planning on hitting decent overclocks on air, I don't know if you'll want to keep that Vantec HSF or not ...

Do not install windows on an overclocked cpu.

Anyway, I do not agree with your parts list, but you did ok. To start overclocking, you first have to set your multiplier and fsb. 11x multiplier and 166(333) fsb are the defaults for the desktop 2500+(1.83ghz), so they seem like a good base. That will be your default clock. Now, try raising your fsb to 200, thus giving you 2.2ghz, or a 3200+ cpu. After this, you may need more voltage, so I would set it to 1.75v. Now raise your multipleir up 1/2x at a time until your system doesnt boot or is unstable. Lower it back, or give it more voltage.

That is a VERY generalized oc'ing faq, but it should help. The best thing to do is just experiment. Also, I would get a new power supply, 350w is terribly weak to overclock your cpu past around 2.2ghz, which is far below the maximum overclocks obtained from the mobiles. Also, the 256mb 9600 comes with slower ram, which means it is slower than the 128mb version. It also overclocks worse. The 256mb will do nothing for you now, so you might want to look into a 9600xt or 9800pro(128mb).

Ohh btw, aluminum is so oldschool now, you should also invest in a good copper thermalright heatsink. The thermaltake volcano 12 is also good, but I would take a thermalright over it.