Stuck @ 1740, Suggestions?

I am running 12*145, with 1.85v. Stable at 33C

I tried running at 12.5, but it won't boot at higher than 133 fsb.

So thats when I went to 12.0, and got it up to 145. At 146, it starts having problems, at 147 it won't run fast command decode, and memory gets funky. It won't boot at 148.
So that puts me at 12*145 or 1740.

Next I tried backing it back to 11.5, and was able to go up to about 149 fsb before I had the same problems. Again stuck at 1740 mhz.

Shouldn't this chip be able to run higher than 1740? Do I need more voltage? Should I purchase another 1800, or should I be looking at another MB?

Welcome To The Forums!!!!!

.....and to the addiction


A few qeustions;

• Have you tried backing down from your memory timings?
• Have you tried increasing the voltage to the ram?
• Have you tried doing 8 X 166? Just to see if your ram will really hit 166 since it is rated at that
• Are you sure about the temp?

If you want higher clockspeed a voltmod might help you if it is the only thing holding you back.

Yes, when I overclock, I always start with slowest mem, and agp settings, then if it boots I try fully optimized, then if I have problems I start working my way through the settings seeing what I can get.

I have a temp sensor sitting on the CPU cooler, so it is pulling temp from the Copper CPU cooler surface, about 1 cm from the core of the CPU. The MBD temp sensor shows about 5c warmer, but it is pulling from the bottom of the CPU, and I am cooling the top not the bottom

I haven't Increased the voltage to the ram, because well when I first started over clocking this chip/board, I was trying to get to 150 FSB and I moved all 3 voltages to max, 1.85,3.65, and whatever that mem voltage is up 1 notch. System wouldn't post, I cleared cmos, and set the IO and Mem voltages back to def, and system did boot. Later on I tried just IO voltage and it worked fine, so I have been afraid to touch mem voltage.


I will try 8 X 166 and let you know.

Thanx for the Welcome

Temp sensor on the HSF/WaterBlock is no good since it is really a secondary heat path. A calibrated thermocouple stuck to the side of the core would be more accurate.

Have you noticed the NorthBridge temps go up when you push the FSB?

You need to test increasing the voltages one by one to find out which one caused it. Running 2.7V is not unheard of with memory.

You may want to try a volt mod since your temps are pretty low, I have my Kr7a raid volt moded and at 2.0volts I am running my 1800+ @1779, I have been to 1804 with it on air just not stable as I would like.

I think I'll try the Volt mod after I feel comfortable that this chip is stable in this setup.

I am going to try upping the Mem Voltage next...

Is the Epox Board a better board?

matter of taste

I have the same board you have, and I'm currently running an XP2000 on it at 1.82 ghz but while I had an XP1800, which is now in someone's home, I had it running clean and happy at 1.81 ghz, stable and smashing down the madonion with no other mods. I had the memory running full speed, and according to Sci Sandra was using nearly 99% of it's ability.

You can go to my site, (click below), and see these marks yourself. I had the latest updates to the bios, was running a 154 FSB and very happy with the whole setup, although it seems the board itself limits somewhat the ability of the chip to clock well.

Also, my chip was not unlocked. If your chip is not unlocked you may be hitting the "theoretical clock of the chip" There are some good articles about unlocking the XP's and defeating the laser lock on the buggers, but there's quite a lot of work involved, and it appears, according to those articles, that the payoff is not very high, about a 5-10% gain on the locked chips.

Good luck!

No its unlocked.

Its not hard to unlock them really.

I used the following
1. Radio shack super glue (I like it better, dropper is smaller etc)
2. Rear Window Defogger Repair kit. (6 bucks Auto-Zone)
3. 1cc Insulin Siringe (3 bucks for 10 at Rite-Aid)
4. Clear Scotch Tape (not magic tape)
5. Magnifying Glass
6. Flashlight
7. Exacto Knife

0. Clean your Chip, and tape it to your desk using the scotch tape, so it won't move while you work on it.

1. Place the Tape in a square around the L1 Bridge Gaps.

2. Drop the Super Glue into the square.

3. 1 Min Later pull away Tape Mask to reveal slightly raised strip of super Glue.

4. 2 Mins later Glue should well be dried. Use Exacto Knife to scrape the surface flat. (Probably the hardest part)

5. Starting on the left most Bridge lay the tap to the left side of the L1 bridges as close to the dots as possible. The lay tap accross top of bridges. Then down right side of first bridge. Finally accross the bottom of the bridges. The order is important because as you lay tap it will be on top of the other pieces you had previously layed, and there will be gaps that the paint will run along. You want it to run away from work you have already completed, because you can always scrape away extra. You just don't want it to get on the other already done work that you would have to redo.

6. Use the Siringe to draw the defogger paint into the needle. Express a small ammount and you will see a drop form on the end of the needle. Touch the drop against a paper towel and the towel will absorb some of the paint making the drop smaller. Once it gets very small, touch it against the L1 bridge inside your tape mask. It will instantly spread out to cover the Square, and some of the tape.

7. Use the flashlight to make the paint try on the visible surface faster, (about 10-15 seconds).

8. Pull away the mask slowely.

9. Using a second siringe that doesn't still have paint in it, scratch away excess paint that ran between the cracks in the tape.

10. Rub the paper towel accross the paint a few times to clear away excess dust.

Repeat steps 5 - 10 for all 5 bridges.

11. Place tape over the bridges to keep them from being scraped away while installing heatsink etc.

All done.

Took about 2 - 3 hours total.

Re: matter of taste

designwolf said:

You can go to my site, (click below), and see these marks yourself. I had the latest updates to the bios, was running a 154 FSB and very happy with the whole setup, although it seems the board itself limits somewhat the ability of the chip to clock well.

Click to expand...

See how did you get to 154 FSB? I set my FSB to over 150 and BIOS won't even post. I have to clear CMOS.

I'm going to drop my Sound and Nic out of the system and see if it will do any better.

how did I get to 154

I used a lapped, SMOOTH copper heatsink from OCZ (Gladiator w/delta 90fan), a shim, to keep the processor cool. I'm also using four additional fans in the case, but probably the most important mod was to take the stock fan off of the northbridge and replace it with a lapped blue orb, and to also mount a lapped blue orb on the south bridge. I'm moving a lot of air, my tower sounds like a freight train, and let me tell you this, it seems to be happiest at 148 for outright performance.

I also modified the memory and attached heatshields to them, (from ocz as well) and that made the difference for the memory.

No voltage mods or anything else. Since my chip is not unlocked, (not a surgeon, don't plan to be) the board with XP PRO seems only willing to let me fiddle with the fsb and the multiplier, and that's it.

Have you tryed increasing the core voltage? You may need to do a motherboard voltage mod to do that.

Have you tried increasing the core voltage? You may need to do a motherboard voltage mod to do that.

oops sorry I do not know how two got up. Maybe I hit submit twice

Actually I just started moving from the testing phase to production, to find that I won't play Dues Ex for more than 5-10 mins before locking up.

I Relaxed the AGP settings, which don't really affect perfomance that much really. Which got me to 10-15 mins, but I just backed off the multiplier, and FSB. I am not at like 7.5*143, and it is very very stable, and not much slower really.

I think I will see how high the FSB will go with this multiplier. Then try 8 etc until I find the highest FSB I can.

At the same time, my Epox KT333 board arives in about 2 hours, so I am torn between continueing to push this KR7A or see what the Epox can do. Will be a nice comparison.

IcemanVKO said:

I think I'll try the Volt mod after I feel comfortable that this chip is stable in this setup.

I am going to try upping the Mem Voltage next...

Is the Epox Board a better board?

Click to expand...

if epox in my opinion is better, i woulda bought epox. but i love my kr7a-133RAID weeeeela

Have you tried increasing your VMem? What happened? Did you try the temp sensor mounted beside the core instead of the WB to get more accurate readings? If your really doing 33°C load temps then how about just doing a multiplier overclock if your ram can't be coaxed to run faster?

Interesting posts... what is IO VOLTAGE and what does it do?
I have Epox 8kha+ and I'm able to run it @ 166FSB - 167FSB depending on room temp... I'm able to play Quake 3 for hours at those fsb max agressive mem timings with crucial the air flow isn't bad in my opinion. its one of those chieftech cases with 2 80mm fans up front and 2 on back thats about it. and I cant play games like Morrowind, or Empire Earth for 1-2+ hours because comp just reboots heck i don't know what happens but i'm pretty sure it isn't the ram more like the ATI AIW 32mb DDR which doesn't like high FSB