Problems OC'ing Venice 3200+ and Asus A8N-E

Hi all,

I've been reading these forums for over a year, but this is the first time I've actually taken the time to post something.

My question is this:

I got a Venice Core 3200+ Bundle from the AMD Tech Tour last week, and using Clockgen I am unable to push my CPU past 2.4 ghz... literally, as soon as I hit 2.4ghz it'll BSOD on me. I had set the memory clock down to 266mhz and HTT to 3x in order to isolate the best CPU overclock, and I hadn't played with the voltage (nor do I intend to beyond reason).

Here are my system specs, as best as I can remember them:
Venice 3200+ - I believe week 19, I don't remember the stepping code off the top of my head
ASUS A8N-E
2 x 1gb Corsair Value Select PC3200
connect3D Radeon X800 XL 256mb
1 x 74gb Raptor
1 x 250gb Seagate
Fortron 350W ATX PSU - forget the exact name, but I had read good reviews about it on the PSU forums a year ago
BIOS ver 1005

From first glance, I figure that PSU may have something to do with it, as I had added the 250GB Seagate and upgraded from a Radeon 9800 Pro to the X800XL... I was able to achieve a 2.5 Ghz OC on a Newcastle 754 based system, so I'm a little disappointed with the OC for the Venice so far... Any input on why I'm hitting this 2.4 ghz ceiling?

yeah, i'd guess power man.

Fortron makes a 550 watt which can be had from newegg for like $80

it also have the native 24-pin power plug

have you tried raising vcore?

Yeah, I raised the VCore from 1.4 to 1.5 in ClockGen... I still hit a wall at 2.4ghz...

I will probably end up getting a new PSU sooner or later, but I was wondering if there may be other factors that may contribute to a non-optimal overclock before I go investing $50+ in a PSU.

In my opinion, get a decent PSU.

Ur GPU is power hungry, so I would say as a minimum, a decent 400w or higher is needed. I think if ur going to buy a PSU make sure us can use it in future upgrades to.


Also, the Asus mobos (got A8N-SLI) seem to have vcore issues, supplying a stable vcore is a problem for them...another thing.

Lock as many of the BIOS setting down as u can. I found that turning of things that I dont use or wont be using gave me an extra 100mhz.

U really have to play with these mobos and hope for the best.

I cant hit a decent OC because my crappy mobo cannot give me 1.6v or higher with some stability.

did your mobo work with your cpu, i dont think mine supports venice cpus, i havent gotten it to work at all, it's been a month

It is 100% your psu.

YGPM also.

Hey, thanks for your replies guys... I think you guys are right... I had figured that it may be the PSU, but I wanted to get second and third opinions b4 spending more $$$.

Do any of you know how to estimate your power requirements? That's one thing I never really took the time to figure out.

JenBell - I probably won't play with the voltage too much... my aim isn't a max OC, but more of a practical, "bang for your buck" OC.... I know what you mean with mobos, my MSI K8N s754 would magically OC to 2.4-2.5ghz when I connected my HD to a different SATA port...

techun - Yeah, mine works with the Venice CPU, as it should, I don't think AMD would be giving out bundles that have an incompatible motherboard with the CPU... have you tried a BIOS update?

jack222 - Sorry, what does YPGM mean?

JPBaller97 said:

jack222 - Sorry, what does YPGM mean?

Click to expand...

YGPM - you got private message

and if you really think it's your power supply, try taking out all the nonessentials off your comp, if you have one, try connecting a PCI vid card for now, and see if you can clock better. Fortron makes pretty damn good psu's, and even though it's rated at 350W, i'm sure it'll load at least 400-450.

Ryufreak,

I don't have a PCI vid card on hand, but I can take off one HD and the DVD drives....

In any case I will probably get a new PSU, if I add anything more to this build I'll definitely feel the PSU issues at that point I figure anyways...

Yeah, Fortron makes some pretty good PSUs... I found that out reading the PSU supply forum, and one guy who sounded like he knew what he was talking about was saying at the time (a year ago) that the Fortron 350W can pretty much run anything, as it's high quality power and it provides power beyond spec (like you said, 400W+)

So, I'd have to figure I'm probably pushing 400W+ already with all the stuff I have there now, and then OCing probably pushes it over the limit... It makes sense though, once you push it beyond a certain speed, that the power requirements increase... doesn't the FX-55 and FX-57 have a higher TDP because they're clocked so high?