lanparty 250 gb nf3 with athlon 64 3400+ mobile

[DragoXT]

Things will seem easier, but before you over clock, a rule of thumb is to make sure at stock settings the stuff works and you can get into windows and have the system stable and some base line scores so you have an idea of what kinda performance increase you are really getting from your overclock.

 

[pcrx]

FInally, Many Thanks to DragoXT-
Dragoxt, your hel has yeilded me success as fas as the system not rebooting- Iam just trying to get things setup and clocked as close to spec as possible. once I do that I will dive into OC'ing. I think I am a few days away from that,even still I don't want to do very much. maybe 5 ot 10 % just to learn. I do have good cooling but I am not in this right now to burn barns!.
anyway 1.5 didn't work but I confidently raised the vcore one incriment at a time until I had a solid boot to widows startup. (i still can't get into windows yet but that may be another story, I havn't checked it out. I did clear the bios and then applied your suggestions from two posts ago. the vcore ended up at 1.575 before it would actually boot and see all devices, so at least I know the processor is good, and I can most likley make it work with some tweaking ( thats funny, I'm not even trying to overclock, but I guess i will be going thru the same process.)
tomorrow I will get to it sopme more and see if I can get to windows without having to do a repair install(no big if I do) but I would like to see it boot to this 3400 instead of the other 3400 mobile vs DT version. right now I put the DT back in so I can get some work done.
thanks again DragoXT you've been a great help.
PCRX

 

[DragoXT]

NP pcrx

The only other things that i remember having to do when i started over clocking was to put the LDT multi at 4x instead of auto since it is a s754 board. That is in the genie bios settings up at the top. This DFI board seems to undervolt the RAM, so give it a manual bump up to 2.7v and if there is still issues, you might have to manually set your RAM timings starting fairly loose so you can get windows up and running. I can get you the info here if you need it.

Usually you only have to reinstall windows when you change motherboards, not cpus, though if you have a spare hard drive lieing around, you might try putting your mobile chip in and trying to install windows on that other hard drive.

 

[pcrx]

Give it a try, now it starts!

Well I didn't think I was going to get off that easy. as far as hard drives I have 20 or 30 extras around , and as far as reinstalling, no big deal, takes me 20 25 mins. and if I need to, I have many ghost images and all that. I am not worried about any of that, I have 4 machines here I am just practicing on this one -
now on with the techincal stuff-
I was afraid I was going to get into the ram loosening and tightening... that seems to be the more complicated part of overclocking, at least right now. tell me- do you think it is normal to have to bump the voltage higher than spec, (1.575) I am sure there are alot of reasons for it to report +/- spec, including power supply and just electronics on the board in general. but the question is ..typically is it expected to possibly have to do that.?
anyway I can see now that the bios has to be completly cleared (jumper PSU and batt) and re-set , to get an image loaded after changing processors. so that may be all I need to do this time. as far as memory voltage thanks for letting me know , I know where the settings are for all that, and have read enough about it to kinda understand whats supposed to happen, but not absolutly sure which 3 or 4 main dram settings will tighten or loosen. specs on them are above in cpuz image above earlier post, maybe you have had some experience with something similar, you seem to have/had experience with this board. by the way I have been running the 3000+ newcastle for 3 or 4 years and this 3400+ claw runs noticably better I just wanted the 1 mb cache on the mobile without having to spend 150.00 for a 3700+, I figured I could oc mobile to 2.4 and have the 1mb cache for $25.00 instead and learn how to OC at the same time.
will try the ram stuff right now you suggested and be back to report. (yes I am only trying to get stock stable right now) will OC after I trust myself and know what I am doing. LOL

 

[DragoXT]

When i get home, ill hit you up with the parts of the memory that you need to set in your bios. My OCZ Platinum Rev. 2 with auto on the board loosened its timings pretty bad, so i had to manually set it for 2-2-2-5. I think i have some links as well that will be helpful to you that explain a good deal about this boards bios settings and what they do.

As far as having to add more voltage over what is needed, kinda depends on your board and the sensors. I have my vcore manually set at 1.5, and cpuz shows it fluxing between 1.488 and 1.523. With Auto it was fluxing lower and higher than that, and the bios readings were even on the low side.

One more thing that you need to know about before you do any hvy overclocking on this board, is the PWMIC chip gets extremely hot and is rated for 120c, but it is close to your cpu socket, kinda a small rectangle above and to the left of the cpu near those capacitors. Usually that chip will run about the same temp as your cpu at idle, or a few degrees more, then at load it is usually higher than your cpu temp. You need some air flow blowing across it or something so that it doesnt get up to much higher than your cpu temp. Keeping that chip cool will help your over clock since it is close to your cpu, that added heat can affect how far you can go. I was kinda stuck at 2.55ghz for a while till i redid the airflow in my case so i could get that chip to within 5c at full load, and then i got up to 2.64ghz only having to bump my vcore to 1.55. Oh and dont touch that chip while the computer is on, or for about 5 min after the compy is off, you can burn your finger.

 

[DragoXT]

Ok i got all the info about my memory settings, and it isnt to bad to mess with. Go into your bios, genie bios settings, make sure your fsb is set to 200, then go into the DRAM settings, the first link at the top once you get into the genie bios settings. In here there are 6 options that you can mess with to set your RAM timings, the command rate, and the RAM divider.

First up is the DRAM freq set, this is your RAM divider which you will use later when over clocking, for now you will want to set it to 1 to 1. In your bios to do that make sure that it reads:

200 DRAM/FSB:1/01

Next up is your command rate, this little thing is what controls if your RAM is doing 1T or 2T. The command rate is the delay between when a memory chip is selected and when the first active command can be issued. Basically 1T yields better performance with low latency RAM, and 2T can be more stable with RAM with loose timings. AMD chips are sensitive to latency due to the on board memory controler and the HTT, so it makes a bigger diff to run your RAM at tighter timings than to have the RAM going full tilt speed with loose timings. I would set yours to 1T which is enabled.

CPC: Enabled

Now we can move on to the actual RAM timings. Im going to post in order the default timings for your RAM at 200mhz from the cpu-z pic in order as you will see it in your bios.

Tlc = CAS latency =2.5
Trcd = RAS to CAS latency = 4
Tras = min RAS cycle time = 8
Trp = Row precharge time = 4

if you are having issues booting still, bump your cas to 3 and try again.

Oh one more thing, if your cpu rev on your MOBILE is a CO, the CPC will not show up in your bios and the default will be 1T.