AN7 Overclocking Guide: Revenge of the Abit NFII Black Sheep

[harlam357]

Lame!

Seriously dude... I'm out of suggestions.

Although the Plats are giving you better results than the Patriot, so that's good. The only thing that comes to mind is that I ran both my boards @200Mhz for some time(months) before I ever really tried to push either of them. Then in the 215-220 range, that's the best it would do b4 L12 hard mod. Then I stuck that little wire in there and it was like magic- Boom! Both boards started scaling higher and higher. Maybe letting the NB break in before trying to push it helped.

I don't know what you did with the first board... but in the case of this refurb, it's kinda like a drag car trying to put 1000hp on the ground without warming up the tires first. It just can't handle all that power. I think there can be something said for a "burn-in" on the NB. Just an observation.

My next goal on my rigs is to apply Sen's burn-in technique on my cpus to see if I can shave some vcore of my current oc. Well, that's my long term goal... in the meantime, I'll be adding a Stasis NV6800C3 cooler on my eVGA 6800. It's gonna be sweet! That freakin' card idles @50C and is bleeding heat right into my cpu heatsink. I imaging that if I can get the 6800 temps down to around 35-40C idle, then it will shave a few degrees off my cpu temps as well... the 6800 is definitely the biggest heat source in the case. My 5700-Ultra with the Jetart cooler idles ~29C.

Dude... I'd scrap the refurb and start stability testing the fully modded AN7 to see if she's gonna hold out ~240. Of course, I think that's what you're going to do anyway- but that's what I would do...

Again bro... Good Luck!

Happy Friday!

 

[ket]

i agree, the AN7 IS better than the NF7, i proved that the instant the official 1.7bios was released

 

[Darien]

Well..

I've pretty much given up on 250 FSB... but I've come to terms and I'm happy with my overclock...

I'm running 242 x 10 Stable... the OCZ's probably run the same as my first set of PDP's that I ruined... and probably the second set would have done fine @ 242 if I had kept it at 242 instead of torturing it to get 245 with almost 3v's... the OCZ's do run with less volts than my second set of PDP.... I bet I could get the OCZ's to go higher if I blasted them with more volts, but i just won't do it... I'm sick and tried of ordering, testing and returning RAM...
and quite frankly, I kinda happy to just leave it alone for a little while... It's stable and now, I'm just gonna play some games...
I've been stability testing (playing ) KOTOR II, SW: Republic Commando and Doom 3 / Doom 3 Expansion...
and like you say, after a month or so if I feel like tweaking it again, it may give me a little more... It's nice to actually play a game on my comp after all this time, for months my only game has been memtest86+... watching a blue screen for hours praying no redlines show up

I was having some real issues with my video card, I was VERY close to returning it... I was using ATI TOOL to OC it and it was crashing my system something fierce, and then I couldn't get through the intro on republic commando, and when I did it would still crash when playing after a few minutes...

speaking of bad luck, guess what... it was getting worse, the system started to freeze up in windows and then wouldn't boot, I'm like WTF!! turns out, my Maxtor HD failed on me!!! lol, can you believe my luck dude!!? so I realized alot of the crashing was do to my hard drive... or maybe all the crashes with system restars corrupted my drive, i dunno.... so I tried to format the drive and do a fressh windows install.... couldn't do it... tried for 5 hours to recover bad sectors with check disk... nope... drive went south... so I had to break down and get a new drive... happy I did, I got my first SATA drive, 160GB Seagate Barracuda... this thing is so cool, fast as hell too...
So, with the new HD I tested stability with Doom 3 to find out if it was my card or just problems with republic commando and ATI TOOL and the old busted HD? but it turns out my system is solid now with DOOM 3, much better with republic commando, hasnt' froze in windows once and is a little better with ATI TOOL...
I remember benching with CrystalMark 2004, the HD bench, my old maxtor drive would only show a sliver on the bench, and I was like... damn, that's slow.. so I benched again with my new SATA baracuda, and it scored WAY better like ~ 40% of the total bar length!!! and now my system, and the games on my Virtual drive (Alcohol 120) on the new drive runs so damn fast it blows me away!!! I never realized just how bottle necked my system was using that old Busted up 5 year old IDE pata drive... boots faster now and everything Oh and I used www.tweakhound.com guide for how to Install window XP properly, he's got a really really good guide for windows optimization, to cut the fat off of XP, streamline it and make it more secure. Check it out.

The new ATI Sapphire Atlantis 9600 XT perfroms pretty good, I think I'll keep it... I hate ATI though, defineately would perfer nVidia, but for $93 bucks I can't complain if it's stable at 540/330... I'll test it out more this week, if it gives me any problems I'll return it for a nVidia 6600 ~ $ 110-120

Any how Harlam, if you have any opinions about video cards and I know you do, please give me some advice in this thread I started
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=407287

one last thing Harlam... It occured to me, I've been so focused on blamming my AN7 for maxing out @ 244.... but I realized... It may be my CPU that's maxed @ 244... on two different AN7's it stopped at the same place... could still be the mobo... but It's quite possible I've got a sub par barton??? oh well, doesn't matter anyhow.

I'm gonna go play some games

 

[Darien]

i agree, the AN7 IS better than the NF7, i proved that the instant the official 1.7bios was released

care to elaborte on that? I assume you had an AN7 ? give us the details please

 

[harlam357]

Darien,

Nice to see that you've settled in on an OC and got her up and running stable. Isn't nice to actually use your rig?

Sounds like you tortured the heck out of your old PATA drive. That's awesome that you've gone SATA and that the drive upgrade killed the video card and system errors. It's also a huge jump in overall system performance as well. That's been evident to me on both my rigs as I've continued to upgrade drives. Just wait until you try a Raptor...

I'll checkout the guide... I imagine a lot of it is a plethora of registry tweaks and service tweaks. Some reg tweaks are good but some lack merrit... there are a few though that I use on most every system. For the most part, disabling useless or unused services has proven more beneficial than many of the reg tweaks I have tried over time... in other words the tweaking time is much better spent with services imo.

Any how Harlam, if you have any opinions about video cards and I know you do, please give me some advice in this thread I started

What? Me? Have an opinion... I'm full of 'em man! I love to hear others opinions... especially when they don't agree with mine... but it's separating opinions from facts that some folks have difficulty with. I give you and another buddy of mine jeers all the time because you guys like TT- I like TR! It's because the fact that I respect your opinion that you and my other friend have swayed my opinion towards TT and broadened my outlook. They're still not the best imo... but they are an excellent alternative air cooler for anyone looking to get into the aftermarket... let's put it this way- I'd recommend a TT before I'd recommend a Cooler Master or a Kingwin HS. And the moral of the story is- nobody ever learned anything by having everyone else agree with them all the time.

I'll pop into your new thread and be sure not to disappoint.

Cheers! Now go frag somethin'! You've earned it...

 

[ket]

care to elaborte on that? I assume you had an AN7 ? give us the details please

dont have my an7 anymore so cant give screens, but it did do 255FSB in the end and my XP-M was clocked @ 2.55GHz. probably would of done a bit more on its FSB.

 

[freeagent]

dont have my an7 anymore so cant give screens, but it did do 255FSB in the end and my XP-M was clocked @ 2.55GHz. probably would of done a bit more on its FSB.

Did you do that fsb with 2*512s? the clock speed is no big deal, most mobiles hit that anyways. Also, how well does the quality of the fsb compare to the nf7? like in sandra or something like that,.. Im just curious, because my buddy has one hes looking to sell. And i already know the limit of my board, the price is right, and im curious.

 

[ket]

2.55GHz @ 1:1 with the AN7 is actually pretty special, and for any other NF2 board really as the NF2 wasnt designed for high bandwidth. at the time though i was using 2x 256MB OCZ in dual channel, i doubt my OC would of changed though with 2x512MB sticks. In comparison to the NF7-s v2 i owned, the AN7 pwnd it in every area, you just have to get through peoples thick hides because the AN7 got off to a bad start. THe timings and performance i can remember though, at 7-3-3-2.5, 240FSB i think it was, i was getting 3.8GB\s, nothing shabby at all for a NF2, and at 250FSB i was at something like 4.1GB\s

 

[freeagent]

Interesting. I was refering to the cpu clocks that didnt matter. But since you put it like that, i shouldve chosen better wording 250 fsb is very nice, and same with pushing 4.1gb/s. i maxed at 3.7 at 250 2t, pretty much wasnt very stable until i brought it down to 248ish, and was prime stable at 246, at that point i just went back to 1T at 240. I can get the an-7 for 50 bux, im not sure if the extra fsb would be worth it, since i could just grab an a64 for my next upgrade.

 

[Darien]

2.55GHz @ 1:1 with the AN7 is actually pretty special, and for any other NF2 board really as the NF2 wasnt designed for high bandwidth. at the time though i was using 2x 256MB OCZ in dual channel, i doubt my OC would of changed though with 2x512MB sticks. In comparison to the NF7-s v2 i owned, the AN7 pwnd it in every area, you just have to get through peoples thick hides because the AN7 got off to a bad start. THe timings and performance i can remember though, at 7-3-3-2.5, 240FSB i think it was, i was getting 3.8GB\s, nothing shabby at all for a NF2, and at 250FSB i was at something like 4.1GB\s

Dang! That's some nice clockin'

 

[Darien]

Well...

I found out one of the things that was holding back my OC...

Out of nowhere and for no apparent reason, my comp wouldn't start one day... After fiddling with it for 10 minutes I realized my PSU was shot... I opened it up and sure enough the fuse was blown... don't know how or when it happened?... I soldered in a new fuse... still no luck... I looked closer and saw that a resister was fried.... exploded would be closer to the truth... again, I heard no pop, saw no performance drop, it just wouldn't start one day... it was an odd resister 0.08Ohm resistance??? couldn't be bought a Radio Shack... Since it was less than 1/10 of 1 Ohm, I thought I would just short it out since there was almost no resistance anyways...
Well... the PSU exploded when I turned it on... LOL... don't try that at home kids...

so I broke down and bought the top o the line OCZ Powerstream 520W AdjSLI.... Nice I noticed the STRONG 12v rail... my old 12v rail was like 11.98v - 11.87v... it was now 12.55v stable.... I hadn't even boosted my 3.3v rail yet or my NB with the vdd volt mod... and I was able to run my exact same OC stable!

So, I thought I would bump it up some and see how it did... turns out I was able to bump up my OC to 244, and with a little extra juice to the NB... I was able to get it stable!!
before I would get memtest errors the first run @ 243.... now I'm stable at 244 with my new PSU.... maybe with some extra tweaking I can get a little more out of it? I still don't think I'll get 250... but I'm running a Higher Overclock with less volts cuz of my kick@ss powersupply!!

so it's true the PSU it one of the most important and overlooked aspects of a good OC... without a strong 12v rail you won't get the most out of your CPU

 

[harlam357]

Good show Darien! I considered the OCZ 520w as well, but opted for the PCP&C for my new 170. Spare no expense I always say! Sagging rails can always play a detremental role to your rigs OC & general health. Just make sure you're keeping it cool running all that extra juice through your board/cpu/gpu etc.

Happy New Year 2006!
<- (see avatar)

 

[Darien]

Good show Darien! I considered the OCZ 520w as well, but opted for the PCP&C for my new 170. Spare no expense I always say! Sagging rails can always play a detremental role to your rigs OC & general health. Just make sure you're keeping it cool running all that extra juice through your board/cpu/gpu etc.

Happy New Year 2006!
<- (see avatar)

Thx Harlam!

yeah the PCP&C 510... nice one... in the $200 range most perfer that to the OCZ Powerstream 600... but I got just 2 words... adjustable rails... under warranty no less... thats why I got it... I like the fact I don't have to do a line sense mod and that I can keep it under warranty.

Man.. I wish other companies would follow suit and make PSU's with adjustable rails.... that are modular... that would be my dream PSU, adj rails and modular.... OCZ has both... just not in the same PSU

anyways... until I can drop $1200 for my opty 170, DFI Ultra-D and 2 x 7800GTX SLi... this old rig will have to do...

 

[Darien]

Thx Harlam!

yeah the PCP&C 510... nice one... in the $200 range most perfer that to the OCZ Powerstream 600... but I got just 2 words... adjustable rails... under warranty no less... thats why I got it... I like the fact I don't have to do a line sense mod and that I can keep it under warranty.

Man.. I wish other companies would follow suit and make PSU's with adjustable rails.... that are modular... that would be my dream PSU, adj rails and modular.... OCZ has both... just not in the same PSU

anyways... until I can drop $1200 for my opty 170, DFI Ultra-D and 2 x 7800GTX SLi... this old rig will have to do...

Well just to keep things updated.. I did get my DFI SLI-DR and 2 x 7800GTX SLi rig.. with a Opty 165 CCBBE... all H20 cooled with a Danger Den set that I customized... and I clocked stable up to 3GHz... and put in a stable entry in the G-G-G club over at DFI street..

back on topic with the AN7...

I decided to buy another AN7 motherboard.... for ****s and giggles...

I plug her in with some 2 x 512 Corsair BH5, everything stock, no mods, 3.2vdimm v17 2t bios... and the darn thing hit 250 2-2-2-11 !!!!
I tried for almost a year is the other board to get 250... this new one did it right out of the box... 250 probably isn't 100% stable.. but i got right into windows np problem and was able to mess around without crashing... it's been running 240 2-2-2-11 3.2 vdimm all week rock solid stable.

just goes to show ya.. it defineately the AN7's NB memory controller that is the weak link there... kind of anti-climactic after the clocks I've achieved with my DFI Ultra B.... but shes a keeper... and if I put love into this AN7, she may perform even better...

will post results when I push the overclock.

 

[harlam357]

Darien! Back in action! Good to see ya bud!

Sounds like you're still having fun with teh AN7s. My boards, alas, are not what they once were. Sliced a trace coming to/from the NB/memory on the back of one. It still works, but isn't stable even @ 200Mhz (in a box). The other is still running @ 2.52Ghz (210x12). So no high bus there... and it's almost flakey at that speed. I've been semi-looking for a replacement, but it's tough to find one of these boards anymore that someone hasn't beat the carp out of already. But would love to get my hands on an Ultra-B if I can find one in good shape.

Anyway, with my Folding addiction and need for true stability theres just no room for running a bunch of XPs anymore. I've since purchased my 170 & two 4400 ADV Toledos, a 144, & a 146. Boards (DFI Infinity RS-482) and psus (FSP) are coming for the two single core Optys to put them back to work. 146 does 2.8Ghz and the 144 is capable of 3Ghz though I had been running it @ 2.9Ghz on lower volts. Of course TCCD will be going in both of those.

That's teh scoop on me... take care man! Let's see some numbers out of that thing!