Overclocking Athlon X2 6000+

First of all i'd like to say hello to everyone as im new here!

Im here because im looking into overclocking my PC. This is all new to me ill be honest i don't know much about OC and i want to learn and attempt this on my old box. The problem is i dont know where to start and what to do exactly, so im here because im hoping to do it the "correct way" so nothing gets fried! lol..

so please feel free to give me any advice/suggestions... Ill leave my specs below

cpu- Athlon X2 6000+
Mobo-MSI K9N-SLI Platinum
Ram-Kingston 4 x 1gb DDR2
GPU- SLI 450GTS
PSU-Thermaltake Toughpower 750w
Case-Thermaltake Soprano DX


Cheers

The first step is to download and install these tools: CPU-z (reports info about your hardware and bios settings), HWMonitor (monitors CPU/core temps and voltages, and Prime95 (puts the system under stress to check for stability of overclock settings).

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=391768
heres some reading for you...this will explain alot...
welcome to the forums....
any more ? feel free to ask...

hey thanks for your replies,

I have done some reading, and installed those programs listed above.. so now to do some playing around .. also thank your for the link to that tutorial its something i have been browsing for, for a while now!

Cheers

oooh, hey... We have almost the exact same processors... May be different core versions... but I was able to get mine to go 3.25 ghz with a voltage change and mostly jacking up the FSB...

AND you have the soprano case lol... Did you get the same new-egg deal that I did with the free case with purchase of the processor? I built my 2nd pc into that one, and they later went back to selling that thing for $50+... Its a good case tho, free or not.

Maul555 said:

oooh, hey... We have almost the exact same processors... May be different core versions... but I was able to get mine to go 3.25 ghz with a voltage change and mostly jacking up the FSB...

AND you have the soprano case lol... Did you get the same new-egg deal that I did with the free case with purchase of the processor? I built my 2nd pc into that one, and they later went back to selling that thing for $50+... Its a good case tho, free or not.

Click to expand...

Hey Maul,

thats cool! hahaha, how does yours go with temperature ? i have been doing some research and found that the 6000+ doesn't like to stay 'cool' without an aftermarket cooler ? did you have an issue with this ?

I had a read through of the link above, but im finding it hard to work out what to do, as i dont wanna do it wrong! (id rather keep using my pc) lol

Unfortunatly New egg is not available to me here in Australia, so i had my box built through a local company a few years ago, but with SLI 8600's at the time, and upgraded to the SLI 450GTS about 2 months back

Cheers

brettyb2006 said:

Hey Maul,

thats cool! hahaha, how does yours go with temperature ? i have been doing some research and found that the 6000+ doesn't like to stay 'cool' without an aftermarket cooler ? did you have an issue with this ?

I had a read through of the link above, but im finding it hard to work out what to do, as i dont wanna do it wrong! (id rather keep using my pc) lol

Unfortunatly New egg is not available to me here in Australia, so i had my box built through a local company a few years ago, but with SLI 8600's at the time, and upgraded to the SLI 450GTS about 2 months back

Cheers

Click to expand...

It will run pretty hot overclocked. I had to get a better cooler, in this case an Asus Arctic Square...

It will go from 45c at idle, to 57c when stressed at 100%
I took the FSB from the default 200, up to 249, and the multiplier is at 13X... CPU voltage is at 1.4375, which is about where the guys at tomshardware capped out on theirs. They reched a limit at 3.3ghz, but they had to underclock their memory to do it (BOO, HISS, THROW THINGS AT STAGE!!!). I reached a limit at about the same point, but with my memory at almost full Phenom speed instead. They mostly adjusted the multiplier, where I mostly adjusted the FSB... Raising the FSB had the direct effect of raising my memory speeds above the 800mhz restriction. If you are already using 800mhz memory, this may be a problem for you. The thing is on the extreme edges of sanity and barely stable...

Also do you have the Black Edition processor, or the regular one? You might not be able to do much to the multiplier depending on which CPU you have and which options the motherboard will allow you to adjust...

So how about some screenshots of CPU-z tabls: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD" attached with your next post? Click on "Go Advanced" and then use the paper clip tool to attach pics. Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a nice tool in Accessories called "Snipping Tool" that does screen capture with built in framing and drawing features. With Windows XP you would need to download freeware screen capture tool.

Another thing that should be mentioned but is usually overlooked is that you will want to backup anything on that computer. Overclocking can be hazardous to your OS and you should be prepared to do a reinstall or two until you are sure that you have nailed down your final speed and not messed anything up in the process... After the overclocking is done, then you can go back to investing time in your operating system and software tweaks or whatever it is you people do on the other side of the screen...

----
EDIT:

My CPUZ validation... My core is a Brisbane, what is yours? That little bit of info is important to determine what to expect from it.

Hey thanks for all the replies, and i apologise for my late replies as i have been busy. I read a guide on OC but im still not 100% confident in doing so (because of the cooling situation) im planning on upgrading my whole computer later in the year so i dont really want to have to purchase any extra cooling equipment. But anyway ill post my cpu-z pics here now for u for any further info/advice

Cheers

Install HWMonitor and Prime95. Keep HWMonitor open while you Run Prime95 blend test for 15 minutes. Then post back with a screenshot of HWmonitor after that run. That will give us a snapshot of how your core temps are doing under 100% load at stock frequencies and voltages.

Also, turn off Cool N Quiet and (if you have it) C1E. Set your Windows Power Options to "Performance". Note in the CPU-z "CPU" tab the downclocking effect these power saving technologies are having on your CPU frequency and voltage at idle. It obscures what they are actually set to in bios and can also cause instability when overclocking.

looks like cool and quiet is on..
you want to turn that off...

And once you have that information, and it appears to be cool enough as it is right now, then you need to go into the BIOS and take the processor settings off of AUTO, and put it to manual. for starters, just put the manual settings to what the default AUTO settings are for it just to start. This will be a good start to messing with the settings. After you are sure its running fine on manual settings, then start upping the FSB a little at a time. It looks like your multiplier locked, but you can try to change that too just to see if it has any effect. Your best bet is the multiplier, but I don't think you can use it. Your ram looks a little slow and upping the FSB might stress the ram and cause it to be your largest limiting factor. You may need to up the voltage to your memory to get it to play along with you. You really want to make sure that you only make 1 small change at a time and then go test it. If you change a bunch of settings, and then the system doesn't work, you will have no idea what exactly went wrong. I disobey this rule sometimes, and it usually results in me cursing at the screen and calling myself an idiot. My information and experience suggests that you can get to 3ghz or better without changing the processor voltage at all. When you hit your first roadblock, I would suggest looking at your memory first. You should also take a good look around to see if there is any way to manual set the memory to a lower speed or use a different ratio, and then overclock your processor to get that speed back up to normal, and hopefully everything will "jive"... You may want to purchase memory that is faster than you need in the future to deal with this problem on your next major upgrade/build. I don't upgrade as often as most people around here, so I usually get components that are a bit overkill because I know that I will still be using it 6+ years down the road... My general take on the matter is that if you need to upgrade your motherboard every 3 years or less, you must have picked a really bad one, you have more money than sense, or rarely, you have unusually demanding but necessary tasks for your system... But I am getting off topic now...

You should also take the time to locate the CMOS reset switch/jumper on the motherboard in case you put the system into a state where it wont POST for you...