Need urgent help overclocking 3200+ please

Here's my spec:

Athlon XP 3200+ At 2.3Ghz/1.725V
MSI K7N2 Delta Series Motherboard
1GB PC3500 OCZ Memory At 2.7V
PowerColour X800 Pro 256MB Video Card At 510/468Mhz
Maxtor 200GB SATA 7200rpm Drive
Nexus NX-350 Special Edition (350W) PSU
Arctic Cooling Copper Silent Heatsink


So here's my problem - I have it running at 2.3Ghz, which is 211Mhz FSB. It runs 3DMark01SE fine, getting a score of 20,038 at the end.

Yet after about an hour or so in CS: Source or a few minutes in HL2, it just locks up and a hard reset is required. Also, when I run the Small FTT test in Prime95, it runs fine - yet when I run either the maximum heat test or the memory-testing one, the pc just locks up again.

At first I thought it was heat, since the CPU was at 59C. But although this is a bit hot, the problems are never at the beginning of a game/benchmark, even if I've just reset the computer from a lock-up.

So I suspected my CPU of being unstable. But it runs the Small FTT test in Prime95 fine, testing L2 cache etc. with ease. It's only when I run the other two tests that the pc freezes in less than a minute. Also, the Sims 2 runs for hours and hours with no problems at all - yet HL2 freezes within minutes and CS: Source within an hour.

What about the memory? Well, this is PC3500 stuff - rated up to 217Mhz at 2.6V, and I'm running at 2.7V for added stability.


So it doesn't make any sense. All the components check out (except for my PSU, could it not be giving out enough power maybe?) and 3dMark01SE runs absolutely fine even after several hours of gaming - so it doesn't seem like a heat problem.
Yet some games and some parts of Prime95 lock-up: why is this? I'm asking the AMD experts here for some help, since I've tried everything to get a reasonable overclock.

The powersupply may be to blame but PSU issues usually lead to the machine just shutting off or restarting by itsself.
Also, the fact that there is instability is a pretty big clue that something is unstable, most likely the cpu. 59*C is a pretty high temp and you should try to get that down under 50. Try running memtest86 to see if there is instability with your RAM. Also check to see if the RAM timings are within spec beacuse that will cause problems also.
Try just lowering the speed of the cpu and then test for stability and if it is stable, then you know it was the cpu that can't handle running 2300mhz with 211 fsb. There's really quite a few possiblilities and sources for instability so you'll have to start eliminating them one by one to determine the actual problem. My guess though is that the CPU is unstable at that speed. My second guess would be that your PSU is not powerful enough, especially for a high end video card like that. You could also try reverting your video card overclock back to stock to make sure that that isn't the source of your game freezing.

Thanks for the reply

You could also try reverting your video card overclock back to stock to make sure that that isn't the source of your game freezing.

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Tried that already with no change.

Try just lowering the speed of the cpu and then test for stability and if it is stable, then you know it was the cpu that can't handle running 2300mhz with 211 fsb.

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I'll give that a try, but shouldn't all cpus be able to overclock at least 100Mhz over their stock speed? (Even an appalling overclock chip should just about manage it - my XP 2800+ wasn't a good overclocker at all and that reached 110Mhz above stock with no vcore increase.)

Also (not being an expert on Prime95) I think it's probably more to do with cpu-ram interaction rather than the cpu itself, as it runs the Small FTT test fine, where it stresses L2 cache and other parts of the processor but not interacting with the RAM much.

Terminat. said:

I'll give that a try, but shouldn't all cpus be able to overclock at least 100Mhz over their stock speed? (Even an appalling overclock chip should just about manage it - my XP 2800+ wasn't a good overclocker at all and that reached 110Mhz above stock with no vcore increase.)

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OH yeah, I forgot you had a 3200. Yeah, it should probably be able to manage a 100mhz overclock, but it might just be a fact that you need to increase the voltage or something. I was just afraid of telling you to increase the voltage because it will also increase the heat generated and seeing that you are already at 59C I don't want you to fry your chip!
There's lots of combinations of RAM timings and voltages and speeds to test out so get memtest and give that a few runs and see what turns up.