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Can I have some tips about OC'ing a 1.8ghz P4 w/512KB L2...

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crb41479

Registered
Joined
Apr 13, 2004
Here's a brief rundown of my applicable specs

1.8ghz P4, w/512KB L2 (I think that's a Northwood, right?)
I'm using the Thermaltake Volcano 7+, set on medium
2x 512MB Samsung PC2700 DDR33
ATI- AIW 8500
2x120GB WD Caviar SE w/8mb buffer
1x80GB WD Caviar SE w/8mb buffer
1x160GB WD Caviar SE w/8mb buffer
I have a Lian-Si case w/2 fans inthe front, and 2 in the back.

I just got a Thermaltake Hardcano 12 and put the probes on the side of the Volcano 7+, on the side of the powersource, on 1 of the RAM sticks, and on top of the Hard Drives.

I'm running a dual W2K/WXP boot.

What do you think is the optimal setting for this set up? I kept changing my FSB and nothing was stable. I got it to boot to Windows fine, but when I tried going above 2.1ghz, it wouldn't boot into windows

I'm looking to get to about 2.2ghz- 2.4 stable w/o increasing the CPU voltage too much.

Also, I wanted to know if anyone had any tips for oc'ing the PC2700s
Thanks for your time

Chuck

Edit: The temp of the probe taped to the side of the Volcano 7+ is around 30 C
The temp on the RAM hovers around 32 C.
 
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Your first goal should be to get 133fsb. This will run the processor in sync with your memory. Most 1.8s will do this with a little vcore boost. I have some crucial PC2700 memory with samsung chips that will run at 380 which will be good for your processor unless you get a truly good OCer. I ran a 1.8 B1 stepping for a while but it really struggled to hit 2.6.
 
Oops..

I left out one of the most crucial things.

I'm using a Soyo Dragon Ultra SY-P4S motherboard!

Should I disable the 'goback' program I have to protect my W2k boot? (It won't protect both for some reason)
 
Overclocking should not bother Goback or other software. I'm not familar with the Soyo BIOS settings, but there should be a way to set the CPU clock speed to 18X133=2400. You might have to bump up the voltage to 1.525v or 1.55v if you're not stable at default vcore. Watch your CPU load temp.
 
Any idea why...

Any idea why I would get like a BIOS load error after trying to bump the speed up to 2.2ghz initially? Could it have been an incorrect ratio of FSB to multiplier? or could the formula have messed up the PCI/AGP speed?

Also, do you think my fan setting is adequate based on the approx temp? Setting the Volcano 7+ on high makes it really noisy.
 
Overclocking to 2.2 gig means you used 122 FSB. Unless that mobo allows you to lock the PCI bus, that's running the PCI at 40.7 MHz, which is way too high. Since the IDE controller runs off the PCI bus, you can have all kinds of data corruption going on. It's possible to have a BIOS checksum error too at high PCI bus speeds. That's why Flanderson and I suggested trying 133 FSB, because then the 1/4 PCI divider automatically kicks in and the PCI bus is back to default speed. If you want an easy no-brainer O/C just to get your feet wet, try 110 or 112 FSB.
 
I will try that tonight and report back...

I'm a little confused on the divider though. I've read on several sources about it, but I'm confused as to whether it's something I set separately? I haven't seen that within my Award BIOS...unless I was looking in the wrong area.


Thanks again for your help!
 
I don't know about the Soyo motherboards, but Asus and Abit mobos have a BIOS setting that allows us to "lock" or "fix" the PCI/AGP to default speed. Not all motherboards have that feature. If not, then the PCI divider is automatic. At 100 FSB the divider is 1/3 or 100 divided by 3 equals 33 MHz PCI bus speed. At 133 FSB the PCI divider changes to 1/4, so 133 divided by 4 equals 33 MHz PCI bus speed.
 
Here's a link to the manual if you're interested...

http://www.soyousa.com/downloads/se...&col1=Proc_Intel+Pentium+4&col2=6&col3=Manual

I am looking through to see if I can find something to adjust the PCI settings.

Edit: I didn't see anything on locking PCI speed. Do you know the generic name for that function?

It's funny that the O in Dragon stands for Overclocking, but in the manual under troubleshooting, it says, 'Do not Overclock your CPU'. lol
 
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