Stability Issue

I've got my cheapie Athlon XP 2600+ that i've had for quite a while now, and attempting to overclock it has certainly produced good results, but inconsistant ones at that. I ran Prime 95 in the way that the makers intended it to be ran, searching for prime numbers and such. I did not run into any errors whatsoever doing this. However, as soon as i do the torture test, it gets an error within the first 10 seconds. Is this a sign of system instability, and therefore should i lower the clock a little? I am currently running it at about 2150 (stock 1900), with a Vcore of 1.750. Any suggestions as to how I can stabilize it? I've heard of burning-in, however I dont really know what specs to start out with

also, a 250 MHz overclock doesn't seem much compared to what i've heard of some people achieveing. Could it just be that my processor is old?

as soon as i do the torture test, it gets an error within the first 10 seconds

Click to expand...

yes this is a problem. It means your cpu is unstable. you could increase in the vcore or lower the fsb. increasing the vcore more than stock is going to create alot of heat, and going past 1.75 would probable put alot of stress on your hs. you might wanna try burning in your processor although it might not do much. there are threads on the forum for that. you might just have a bad processor, or your ram could be holding you back.

well, i guess i'll just lower down the FSB until my new stick of RAM arrives (was shipped out on monday, so i should get it by the end of this week) and see if that improves things. if not, well...I'm considering upgrading processors anyways. I can't even remember when i got this 2600, it was so long ago...

Now that i think about it, my whole computer is quite old...lol. I think the most up-to-date piece of equipment i have is my 60 GB WD 7200RPM hard drive lol. but that's all the space i'll ever need so i'm good with that.
It was top of the line...like 3 or 4 years ago...lol (maybe even longer ago?)
I'm looking into a new motherboard also, something a little more current than my MSI MS-6712. I'm debating between a single Socket A mobo with RAID in case i wanna get another hard drive, or a dual Socket, however, i've heard of problems with incompatibility issues of certain processors on dual socket systems, so it would be quite a bit more research before i decide on that
my main issue is price...i want pretty much the most cost-effective build i can come up with...a nice system without paying a buttload

i feel ya heres a good article that just came out about a 500 dollar gaming rig. They make sense of the components and what really m1atters in overall peformance when penny pinched

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20051014/index.html

if youre gonna try to make a decent overclocking attempt you might wanna consider sata drives because there interface isnt as susceptible to corruption associated with oc'in. or atleast thats what ive heard.

as far as dual socket/dual core processing goes, there are no compatibility issues. unless you consider that only one core is gonna be working most of the time.

if you just want to upgrade your best bet is getting a mobo with dual channel ram, and maybe a new processor like a late model barton. that you could pair with a nf2 board for relatively cheap.

the huge oc's you see on 2500+'s and 2600+'s are all done with mobile chips, aka XPm's. these run at much lower default voltages, and can usually do 2.5-2.7ghz on really good air cooling.

i bought a regular 2500+ system for my mother, and i could only get 2.2ghz out of it, and it was not quiet enough for her tastes, so it stays at stock.

if you are looking at getting a new motherboard, there is no reason to stay with socket A. buy a cheap 754 or 939 board, and a cheap Sempron (basically a axp with an onboard memory controller, much better chip, and should overclock pretty good).

hmm...i've also just started looking not only into other sockets, but perhaps venturing outside of the AMD realm *gasp*
One of the two sites that i get quite a bit of my equipment off of (directron.com...the other site is ebay lol) has a P4 motherboard for $51 and a Celeron D 340 (2.93 GHz) for $98...or would this be the wrong place to mention such a thing in...
or are there some other random issues that might be created with other miscellaneous hardware?

and I've decided to scratch my notion for a dual socket mobo...that would mean getting a new power supply too, as my 350W wouldn't be able to handle it

Update on stability:
lowered to 2.1 GHz, Stable for few minutes, but still errs
lowered to 2050 MHz, same result...grr...that's it, back to stock until i get new equipment lol

What is your RAM rated to by the way you never mentioned. You do know that as your cpu is so old you have the ability to manipulate the multiplier assuming your mobo supports multiplier adjustment?

I'm not exactly sure what my ram is rated to...how would i go about finding out? The new stick i bought said it has a speed 400 MHz, so would this create a problem if i try to use it with the 533 MHz FSB Celeron that I'm considering buying? if it does, would it still create a problem if i got a 400 fsb instead and was trying to overclock it? also, if i WERE to go pick up a 533 MHz stick (might be able to sell the 400 MHz stick to a friend with crappy comp) would it create problems when overclocking the processor, or would that be the equivalent to just overclocking the memory, which i am all in favor of =)
I also remember reading somewhere about the DDR-ness having some effect on the FSB that it can handle...exactly what effect is this? basically i'm asking if my 400 MHz stick of DDR will work with a 533 MHz FSB proc

and I haven't been able to adjust the multiplier. I go into the bios, where i adjust the FSB, and the closest thing i see is "CPU Ratio". adjusting this has no effect on the speed, so i assume it's somehow locked or my mobo doesn't want to adjust it

If your cpu is 3 years it will not be locked. It could be that the bios does not have multiplier adjustment however what kind of selections do you have in cpu ratio?
As for the memory the Celeron 533 is likely quad pumped so actual RAM speed is 133Mhz (someone using an Intel can confirm this). Your memory is likely DDR400 (double data rate so actual RAM speed is 200Mhz) so probably no issue using with Celeron.

different options i get are like 10.0, 11.0, 11.5 (my current multiplier), 12.0, and a 13.0/14.0 option. there are also a couple lower, i think it goes down to 6.0. and the reason i inquire about the celeron, is becuase my sister's computer is goign out, and i've narrowed down the problem to the motherboard. I got my mom to contribute some money towards new equipment for me, as long as i let her use my motherboard and processor in my sister's comp (which my mom uses all the time anyways). She actually gave me $100 for it, so i'm getting me some better, more up-to date stuff instead of old junk off ebay

Sounds as though you have a Barton 2600+, if you can verify how long you have had the system I could say for sure if its was locked. However the cpu ratio you refer to is the multiplier adjustment. It might depend on what you are trying to change it to as being the reason why it is not changing.
The way to approach this is after upping the FSB to a point of instability then you need to increase vcore further if temperatures are under control. However the caveat is the speed of your peripherals as the AGP/PCI is not locked on KT400 boards and this maybe causing the instability.
Firstly to see if its locked or not try turning FSB back to 166 in bios and booting at 12 and if it "sticks" try 12.5. From there you can further increase via FSB so you dont impact on peripherals.

One other thing I think i should point out is that if you have a Barton around 2.2Ghz I would not be so sure that a Celeron (even overclocked) would give any performance improvement.

Edit: Did some research for you - Xbitlabs did an excellent review of budget processors and you can easily compare the Celeron D 340 with the Sempron 3000+ (which is essentially a 2GHz Barton). The overall summary is shown in the link below with the celeron less than 5% better than the Barton.

Frankly you could achieve that improvement simply by buying a Barton XP-M!

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/sempron_10.html

Review the article in depth as it could be that you use a certain type of application more than another and this might sway your decision making.

hmm...nice article...i dont have the time to completely read through it right now, although i will a bit later today

oh, and i did try to adjust the multiplier...no effect. Set it at 12.0, CPU-Z still tells me i have a 11.5 multiplier

EDIT:
ok, so i speed-read a little bit of it, and yes, it would be cheaper to buy just a sempron than an intel mobo/proc, however i have a special case that's in favor of going for the Intel. As long as i give my old mobo to my sister's computer ( I believe her proc is just fine, i'll have to check that tho) I get 100$ towards new equip for me (which doesn't really make sense considering my mobo is worth like $20, but i'm not gonna complain). since cost is an issue for me, i just went for the cheapest, high-perf system i could get.

soo...$123 for a Sepron...or $149 (minus $100, making it $49) for the intel mobo/proc. idk, but it's looking towards the intel so far

I'll still read through that article though, still open to suggestions

You might also want to read my experiences with Prime95:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=418823

well, although yeah, systems dont really need to be 100% stable for everyday use, 99% or so stable is good enough, but even the slightest instability will trip out Prime95. However, my system was having erros in places other than prime95 also, although not frequent. In my playing of Guild Wars, I noticed that in place of NPCs, sometimes a white cube would appear maybe once every 2 hours. this started as soon as i overclocked, and stopped as soon as i clocked it back down to stock speed. so my system was unstable, even outside of prime95 testing