Opinions for OCing an older system

[Solidliquid00]

Hello everybody,

I was hoping to get some suggestions or opinions on OCing my system. Now before I get into it, I must tell you I am a poor, starving, college student, with less than negative money (that's -$0), so I would prefer comments that aren't "just go buy a new computer". I can't. I'm broke. I'm looking for comments and opinions that have to do with what I have. I'm trying to work with what I got. That being said, here's what I got:

ASUS A7N8X-X
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton)
ATI Radeon 9600
1 GB RAM (2 sticks of 512, one Xerox, one Jade Star, both PC3200)
Phoenix - Award BIOS
Windows XP (Service Pak 3)

Ok, right now I'm OCing my system at

193 FSB
11.0x Multiplier
1.840 VCore Volt.

Also, whenever I run a game, I have ATITool which OCs my video card from the default:

Core: 324
Memory: 195

to

Core: 429
Memory: 244


So what I'm looking for help/advice for is other people's setups and suggestions. I've Googled my specs and found a few other people from days of yore who had my same setup, and were overclocking more than what I'm OCing at, and yet I'm still having problems. A few of which I've experienced are:

Firefox randomly crashing
Whenever I've played Civ 4, it freezes and I need to restart
iTunes randomly crashing

I understand that it's probably due to my OCing, so I've tried restarting and resetting my FSB from 180-189. The problem with that is, I get to the login screen, my computer resets. It seems like any FSB speeds between 180-189 are locked or unstable for whatever reason, but 190-200, are stable enough to run Windows, but with the aforementioned side-effects. I think the last stable frequency I had running was 175 FSB, but knowing that Windows can run at 190+ makes me want more.

I've run Prime95 stress tests, and the longest I've gotten has been at FSB 193 for 6 hrs and 39 minutes before it halted for errors.

So I guess I would like opinions and suggestions and tips on seeing if I can get my system stable when running a FSB of 190+ or between 180-189, but without my games and programs crashing randomly.

Or, if you think it's way out of the ballpark, what the best option would be to run at a FSB of below 180.

Again, I know my system is old. I bought it back in '04 from CyberPowerInc.com, and it's been with me ever since. I've played WoW on it, Civ 4, not anything too high end. I love it, and I'm just trying to get it to run optimally but still have decent graphics in games while I don't have to worry about my computer or any programs crashing.

I don't want to hear "Dude, you system is old and crappy. Buy a new comp." Or even for upgrades for my system. I have zero cash at the moment, and if somebody suggested get some new RAM or something to that effect, I might as well just save up that money and buy a completely new system. But again, I HAVE NO MULA!

Anyway, any help/comment/suggestions for my 'old-timer' machine, would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Grnfinger]

Hello everybody,

I was hoping to get some suggestions or opinions on OCing my system. Now before I get into it, I must tell you I am a poor, starving, college student, with less than negative money (that's -$0), so I would prefer comments that aren't "just go buy a new computer". I can't. I'm broke. I'm looking for comments and opinions that have to do with what I have. I'm trying to work with what I got. That being said, here's what I got:

ASUS A7N8X-X
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton)
ATI Radeon 9600
1 GB RAM (2 sticks of 512, one Xerox, one Jade Star, both PC3200)
Phoenix - Award BIOS
Windows XP (Service Pak 3)

Ok, right now I'm OCing my system at

193 FSB
11.0x Multiplier
1.840 VCore Volt.

Also, whenever I run a game, I have ATITool which OCs my video card from the default:

Core: 324
Memory: 195

to

Core: 429
Memory: 244


So what I'm looking for help/advice for is other people's setups and suggestions. I've Googled my specs and found a few other people from days of yore who had my same setup, and were overclocking more than what I'm OCing at, and yet I'm still having problems. A few of which I've experienced are:

Firefox randomly crashing
Whenever I've played Civ 4, it freezes and I need to restart
iTunes randomly crashing

I understand that it's probably due to my OCing, so I've tried restarting and resetting my FSB from 180-189. The problem with that is, I get to the login screen, my computer resets. It seems like any FSB speeds between 180-189 are locked or unstable for whatever reason, but 190-200, are stable enough to run Windows, but with the aforementioned side-effects. I think the last stable frequency I had running was 175 FSB, but knowing that Windows can run at 190+ makes me want more.

I've run Prime95 stress tests, and the longest I've gotten has been at FSB 193 for 6 hrs and 39 minutes before it halted for errors.

So I guess I would like opinions and suggestions and tips on seeing if I can get my system stable when running a FSB of 190+ or between 180-189, but without my games and programs crashing randomly.

Or, if you think it's way out of the ballpark, what the best option would be to run at a FSB of below 180.

Again, I know my system is old. I bought it back in '04 from CyberPowerInc.com, and it's been with me ever since. I've played WoW on it, Civ 4, not anything too high end. I love it, and I'm just trying to get it to run optimally but still have decent graphics in games while I don't have to worry about my computer or any programs crashing.

I don't want to hear "Dude, you system is old and crappy. Buy a new comp." Or even for upgrades for my system. I have zero cash at the moment, and if somebody suggested get some new RAM or something to that effect, I might as well just save up that money and buy a completely new system. But again, I HAVE NO MULA!

Anyway, any help/comment/suggestions for my 'old-timer' machine, would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Barton 2500 was a decnt chip I had that same chip running on my A8N SLI-Deluxe b4 I swapped it out for an FX-60.
It will take some time but I think I have an old oc profile from way back, I'll try to hunt it down if I can find it.
as to your issues, your locking the pci bus I assume and you should run memtest to test the ram out, you might just need to losen timings a bit to achive stability.
anyways I dont know many ppl here, but I know lots over at XS, I'll see what I can find out for you.

 

[Solidliquid00]

Sweet.
Thank you. I'll run memtest, see what I come up with.
Yeah, I remain at my conclusion.
Was just playing Civ 4: Beyond the Sword, and it crashed right when I was kicking ***. Grrr...
Thanks, Grnfinger.

 

[ChanceCoats123]

Hello everybody,

I was hoping to get some suggestions or opinions on OCing my system. Now before I get into it, I must tell you I am a poor, starving, college student, with less than negative money (that's -$0), so I would prefer comments that aren't "just go buy a new computer". I can't. I'm broke. I'm looking for comments and opinions that have to do with what I have. I'm trying to work with what I got. That being said, here's what I got:

ASUS A7N8X-X
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton)
ATI Radeon 9600
1 GB RAM (2 sticks of 512, one Xerox, one Jade Star, both PC3200)
Phoenix - Award BIOS
Windows XP (Service Pak 3)

Ok, right now I'm OCing my system at

193 FSB
11.0x Multiplier
1.840 VCore Volt.

Also, whenever I run a game, I have ATITool which OCs my video card from the default:

Core: 324
Memory: 195

to

Core: 429
Memory: 244


So what I'm looking for help/advice for is other people's setups and suggestions. I've Googled my specs and found a few other people from days of yore who had my same setup, and were overclocking more than what I'm OCing at, and yet I'm still having problems. A few of which I've experienced are:

Firefox randomly crashing
Whenever I've played Civ 4, it freezes and I need to restart
iTunes randomly crashing

I understand that it's probably due to my OCing, so I've tried restarting and resetting my FSB from 180-189. The problem with that is, I get to the login screen, my computer resets. It seems like any FSB speeds between 180-189 are locked or unstable for whatever reason, but 190-200, are stable enough to run Windows, but with the aforementioned side-effects. I think the last stable frequency I had running was 175 FSB, but knowing that Windows can run at 190+ makes me want more.

I've run Prime95 stress tests, and the longest I've gotten has been at FSB 193 for 6 hrs and 39 minutes before it halted for errors.

So I guess I would like opinions and suggestions and tips on seeing if I can get my system stable when running a FSB of 190+ or between 180-189, but without my games and programs crashing randomly.

Or, if you think it's way out of the ballpark, what the best option would be to run at a FSB of below 180.

Again, I know my system is old. I bought it back in '04 from CyberPowerInc.com, and it's been with me ever since. I've played WoW on it, Civ 4, not anything too high end. I love it, and I'm just trying to get it to run optimally but still have decent graphics in games while I don't have to worry about my computer or any programs crashing.

I don't want to hear "Dude, you system is old and crappy. Buy a new comp." Or even for upgrades for my system. I have zero cash at the moment, and if somebody suggested get some new RAM or something to that effect, I might as well just save up that money and buy a completely new system. But again, I HAVE NO MULA!

Anyway, any help/comment/suggestions for my 'old-timer' machine, would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Firstly and then onto the helpful. Ok so everything in red is most likely a problem with windows and not with hardware. I have had opera crash once before and I was messing around with window's settings. So no go there. As for Itunes, in my experiences, it is a mule of a program. When I was still on the old celeron sinlge core rig, windows would freeze and itunes would chug along. I could change songs and such, but desktop was useless.

And as for things in blue is most likely due to excessive wear or unstable clocks. The fact that is won't run at lower specs (I'm guessing with less voltage too...) might mean that the chip is shot and simply NEEDS that much voltage from now on.

 

[Archer0915]

A couple of questions

1. have you tried testing at default to see if you have a defective component?
2. have you adjusted your memory timings?

 

[Solidliquid00]

Firstly, yes I have tried running at default. I assume what you mean by that is going into the BIOS and setting everything back at factory settings. Yes, everything runs fine at 100 FBS, 10.0x multiplier, so I don't think it's a defective component.

Secondly, with memory timings, I don't know much about it so I'm afraid to touch it, hence, when Grnfinger suggested running Memtest and loosening up the memory timings, I was a little hesitant. However, I did run Memtest86+. I'm not too familiar with the program and what information you're supposed to take out of it, but I'm still in the process of reading up on that.
There are two settings which I have played around with in my BIOS for the CAS, which are 'Optimal' and 'Aggressive', both of which kind of have the same result (programs crashing, etc.) only I think with Optimal, it occurred less frequently. Optimal (which is what I'm running right now) runs at: 3.0-4-4-8.
Aggressive runs at: 3.0-3-3-8
I haven't really played around with User Defined settings. Any suggestions?

As to ChanceCoats123's post about the program's crashing due to Windows, does anybody have any suggestions on what I could do to remedy that issue? What settings within Windows could I tinker around with to see if I have more success with Firefox, and Civ 4? (mostly Firefox).

As a side note, I changed my core voltage to 1.775, running the same FSB and Multiplier settings, but its strange. I changed it to 1.800 in the BIOS, but on CPU-Z it read as 1.840 voltage. Now, since I changed it to 1.775, it's reading as 1.824. Whats up with that?

So, that's whats up. Geez, i've realized I'm a wordy guy, my posts get way too long.

Thank you SO MUCH guys for all your help. I really appreciate it and I know I wouldn't be able to do this by myself.

 

[QuietIce]

3-4-4-8 is about as loose as RAM timings can get, though 3-5-5-10 might help with stability. (If it'll run - some RAM doesn't like that so it might crash). I'm also willing to bet a big issue is the unmatched RAM, that's never a good thing.

First thing I'd try is slowing the RAM down some more, then increase the bus and see if that works. CPU speed is the king, RAM comes in second ...

 

[Solidliquid00]

Trying the 3-5-5-10 out now. Other than loading an old System Restore Point, its working swimmingly.

Question about Memtest86: By about Test #5 I had over 130,000 errors. Bad? What exactly does that mean? I pressed 'Enter' and it continued on. I got to about 6 passes...
Anyway...still pressing on.
Thanks again guys!

 

[ChanceCoats123]

The voltage increased in windows because some of the mobo's bios like to add a tad bit of voltage. Nothing to worry about though. Now personally I have never actually run memtest86 so I have no idea on that. I am always too lazy to burn the image onto a disk... And for the windows issue, have you installed any buggy software recently?

 

[Solidliquid00]

Hey guys. Just an update.
So I set my memory timings last night to 3-5-5-10. It was working fine at first, but then Firefox began crashing again. And then when I woke up this morning, Windows was at the login screen and when I did login, it said Windows had just recovered from a serious error.

I did my reading up on Memtest and I'm gonna start doing process of elimination. I think I'm gonna try setting my BIOS settings back to default and see if I still get the same errors I've been getting (crashes, Memtest86 errors, etc.)

Again, thanks for all the help. Keep it coming, I'm not out of this yet

 

[QuietIce]

Yeah - those 3-5-5-10 settings are iffy but some RAM likes it. Hey - it was worth a try!

MemTest errors are a BAD thing. ANY MemTest error means the RAM is buggy. I'd say you've found your problem. If the RAM was OC'ed then you'll need to find other timings or drop the speed down. If it was running stock speeds and timings then you're probably looking at new RAM sticks ...

 

[Archer0915]

Have you cleaned your case lately? Is the PS blowing cob webs out the back?

I dont think it will help with memory errors though.

 

[Solidliquid00]

Ok, did some Memtest running at stock speeds and didn't get any errors (whew!), so I know my memory sticks are good. Now its just a matter of finding the right setting for OCing. As to the comment before about it being a problem with Windows...I don't think that's the case any more. I'm running my computer at BIOS default speeds right now (100 FSB, 10.0x Multiplier, 1.09 Ghz) and there has been no crashing of Firefox.

As for cleaning out my case...yes, I have done that. It was chock-full of dust. The ventilation in the house that I live in is incredibly crappy, so tons of dust is all over the house, so I kinda can't help that. But I clean out my case on a monthly basis, so hopefully that isn't effecting any of whats going on.

So, I think its down to finding the perfect OC settings. Enough that i can get some speed out of it, and not so much that I don't have things crashing on me again.

Any suggestions?

Ya'll rock!

 

[Solidliquid00]

Yeah - those 3-5-5-10 settings are iffy but some RAM likes it. Hey - it was worth a try!

MemTest errors are a BAD thing. ANY MemTest error means the RAM is buggy. I'd say you've found your problem. If the RAM was OC'ed then you'll need to find other timings or drop the speed down. If it was running stock speeds and timings then you're probably looking at new RAM sticks ...

Oh, and thank you for suggesting those timings. It was worth a try.

 

[c627627]

Which heatsink, fan and power supply are you using?

_____________________
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ AXMH 2500 FQQ4C
IQYHA 0348 SPMW
2 x 512MB Centon PC3200 (Samsung chips) @ 9 4 4 3
[200] FSB x 12.5 = 2500 MHz @ 1.87 Vcore with memory frequency at 100% [200 FSB] @ 2.90 Vdimm and 1.6 Vdd
nForce2 Epox 8RDA3+ v2.1, BIOS 07/29/2004
Thermalright SLK-900A with 80x38mm Delta EFB0812HHE fan
Geforce 6800 256MB; Antec SX-835II case ; 500W OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS
Five 80x25mm Case Fans

 

[Solidliquid00]

Well, I couldn't find the model number for my heatsink, but I'm pretty sure its a Thermaltake of some model. I took some pictures.
Here's what I got:

L&C LC-B450E 450W Power supply

and

I have a fan on the side of the tower, also one in the back.

 

[c627627]

Yeah, Thermaltake was not too great but should be adequate for average nForce2 OC. The power supply was known to have capacitor issues. Just something to keep in mind.

If the RAM has passed memtest, why not initially put the timings on optimal so we can find out the highest stable overclock.

I am assuming with your setup we'd be shooting for 2.3 GHz fully 12-24 hours Torture Test stable. More may be possible with a Thermalright heatsink but probably not with that Thermaltake which tested much worse in comparison back then. Maybe we can go for 2.4 GHz at 12.5 x 190?


I've had Prime95 fail after 11 hours on Nforce2 so it's got to be half a day or more stable.

 

[Solidliquid00]

Ok, I tried doing 2.4 Ghz at 12.5 x 190...however it resulted in multiple crashes from AVG, Firefox, and then Windows. I was in the middle of typing this message, when Windows crashed.

Also, I could be mistaken, but I think my multiplier is locked at 11.0x I set my multiplier at 12.5x and when I got to Windows, I opened up CPU-Z and it said my multiplier was 11.0x and I was running 2.1 GHz.

Comments?

 

[c627627]

Oh, it's not an unlocked mobile Barton? Then things are simple, you're looking at how much higher than 190 you can get it to be stable. I couldn't get mine to go over 200 but my multiplier was unlocked.

Note that immediate crashes suggest you're probably far over your stable overclock with this setup.

Try 11x192 to start. 1.87 volts and also raise your RAM voltage to 2.90.

Post what the temperatures are and be ready to go down with that voltage if temps get out of whack. Set your shutdown temperature.

Be ready for summer so you need to leave a little room there too.

 

[Solidliquid00]

Whats a good program to monitor temperatures?