Help & advice on overclocking.

Hi, thanks for looking at my post. Im new to this forum and so if this is in the wrong place or i have broken any rules im sorry.

I have had my system a few years now and when got it was a top pc, sadly tho times have changed and i am now looking to increase its preformance via overclocking it... something i have never done before and have no clue where to even start!

my setup consists of....

Abit IC7 motherboard (bios upgraded to last official release - not beta)
Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 3ghz
1GB corsair CMX512-3700 ram - 2x 512 sticks (its ddr 466 ram but only ever runs at ddr 400, not sure why)
heat has never been a problem for my system as have it all in a arctic cooling rig using a freezer 4 heatsink. when ever i touch the heatsink on cpu its always cold.

not sure what it means by my ram is running 3-4-4-7 if that makes any sence

what i would like to know is what i could overclock my rig to and what settings i would need to set in softmenu.

i had a little dab at it before posting this and increased the fsb and got a inproved speed from my cpu, but not sure if i need to do anything else ect so have put it back to stock and thought i would be best to ask before i fry my pc

thanks in advanced

Welcome to the forums!

To be sure your temps are good, download and run a program called speedfan , touching the heatsink isnt always accurate.


3-4-4-7 are your timings, the lower the number, the better the performance basically. But if its too low it could cause problems, and if its too high, performance will degrade. Try OCing that ram 5 mhz at a time until it dosent post.


To OC that system, you would first need to see what your temps are when @ stock, then you can tell how much room you have to OC. You wont fry your system, but it could be come unstable, keep increasing the FSB uitil you freeze up, then increase the voltage and run Orthos prime to be sure your stable, be sure to keep an eye on your temps too.

Get your temps and post them here, then I can help ya more

thanks for getting back to me

ok i have run that program that you said to, speedfan, and get these results...

temp1 29
temp2 44 i think this is my cpu
temp3 35
hd0 27
hd1 39
temp1 43

how do i overclock my ram? you say to try 5mhz at a time but how do i do this and if i have got 466 ram only working at 400 would that not indicate that it would be stable to overclock it by 66 to start with (showing how little i know about overclocking)

when you say about freezing up, do you mean wont post or starts fine but crash in windows?

Temp one is your CPU. Thats damn good for a 90nm CPU!

I think its supposed to run @ 400mhz. idk about Abit BIOS but there should be a mem speed thing under the CPU FSB. That ram should take around 600mhz, mines slower @ stock, and it takes 700-795; 620 daily.

By freezing up, I mean windows locking up. If it wont post, decrease the speed about 30 mhz at a time.

i know you guys know what your talking about and all that but i realy dont think temp1 is my cpu. is there any other program i could use to test my cpu temp?

Not really. Why do you have a hard time believing that temp one is your CPU?

There isnt really any other good programs. Asus PC probe is good, but i doubt it will work on Abit.

Try this. blow air on your northbridge(the thing on your mobo with a heatsink on it.) and see if that temp goes down.

i just ran sandra and thats telling me that my cpu temp is 49.5C

ill go through my bios and wright down what options i get as i still not 100% sure what i should be doing.

Nothing wrong with that. My P4 didnt really go high, it stayed there. Idle 44C load 45C.

ok heres the wright up on my first attempt...

i increased my fsb up to 225 from 200 giving me a cpu speed of 3375Mhz, AGP of 64 and pci of 32 and dram 225

everything seemed to be going well when it did post but then i noticed that it had lost my hdd.. my second hdd was still there but it would not detect my main one. both are sata drives. i tried swapping there cables and even what channel they are on but still did not find it. in the end i had to revert back to default settings and it found the drive no problems.

ok this is what options i get in bios so if anyone could give me a clue what they should be set to i would realy appriciate it..

* indicates what it is currently set to
----------------------------------------------------------------
N/B strap CPU as
By CPU *
PSB400
PSB533
PSB800
PSB667

DRAM ratio (CPURAM)
3:2
5:4
1:1
by spd*

AGP Ratio (CPU:AGPCI)
Auto *
3:2:1
4:2:1
5:2:1
6:2:1
7:2:1
8:2:1
fixed

CPU core voltage
1.5500 - 1.9250 (1.5750, 1.6000, 1.6250, 1.6500 etc)

DDR SDRAM voltage
2.5, 2.55, 2.6, 2.65, 2.7 & 2.8

AGP Voltage
1.5, 1.55, 1.6, 1.65


i also found this to do with ram i think...

CAS latency time
2
2.5
3*

ACT to precharge delay
8
7*
6
5

DRAM RAS# to CAS# delay
4*
3
2

Dram RAS# precharge
4*
3
2

thats all the info i could find in bios to do with it i think.

i know im a pain but i realy dont have a clue so any help people could give would be appriciated.

idk whats causing your HDD to not show up, but im 100% sure its not the RAM.


I got to go do something right quick, ill come back and think about it in a few.

I have no experience with this board but i should think you will nead to set AGP ratio to fixed that should isolate your graphics and hard drives from the fsb try that and increase to 225 and see what happens.

AGP voltage to 1.65
DIMM voltage to 2.8
AGP/PCI ratio - fixed 66/33
CPU voltage to 1.55

Download CPUz and Clockgen

Don't try to boot up at 3.375 right off the bat. Use clockgen to ramp up and test your system between jumps. When you find a good stable overclock, change the BIOS. Your RAM might not be stable at 225 fsb. If so, you may want to use a RAM divider, but hold off on that ubtil you find youe best overclock at 1:1 CPU:RAM

thanks for the info guys, ill try locking agp and see how it goes.

when you say about clockgen, does that change my fsb ect from in windows to test it? and how do i know if it wont work ect.

That ram should be able to get about 800mhz @ good voltages. As long as its sinked up well.

what type of cooling do you have right now? how many fans and what size?

another good temperature logger would be motherboard monitor.

http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

how do i go about getting the ram up to 800mhz or is that just from the fsb?

my case - http://www.arctic-cooling.com/pc_case2.php?idx=118
my cpu fan - http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu2.php?disc=1&idx=9
my gfx card fan - http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?disc=1&idx=63

i have got it working at 220 fsb and seems to be stable. have had Orthos prime running for 45min now with no probs and it has passed both 1024k and 8k... how long do i need to run it for?

Clockgen allows you to change FSB from Windows. Just be sure to get the right version for your motherboard.

mat.knott said:

how long do i need to run it for?

Click to expand...

Normally, 5-7 hours. To be 100% sure your stable; 24-48 hours.

what is the max voltage i should use on my cpu and also what is the max recommended temp?

i have looked on intel website and it says 70 but is that fully loaded or max temp no matter what?