Sup all.
This is my first post, and first of all, I want to express my gratitude for you all unwittingly helping me evolve my rig into what it is now (see sig). Believe it or not, before coming to this forum, I did not know what FSB is (yeah, everyone chuckles). I am posting this thread here because this is where I learned most of the stuff from.
I have been around computers since the days of 386s, but not hardware-relatedly. About a year ago, when NV25 was all the rage, I started looking forward to buying my own rig. Back in those days, the setup I used at home (my parents') was a K6-500 powered Compaq, enough said, so I know a lot about misery and playing games at 640*480. So I decided to get myself something powerful and versatile, without having to sell my kidneys for it (sounds familiar?). Limit was set as 3000 CAD (~2000US). Athlon came as a natural choice, and I heard of something called overclocking from Maximum PC, I think...and you know what site pops up at the top of the list when you search for "overclocking"). So I set onto a path of selecting the best parts for my situation. After numerous hours spent on the net, and, after considering and reading reviews of every part, I ended up with my current system, save AIUGA (had AGOIA 2000+), XMS (had PC 2700, TCB-3, Samsung chips, non-Samsung PCB), Aeroflow (used stock cooler), and some cosmetic enhancements (rounded cables, neon fan on the side). On Friday the 13th, december, 2002, I plunked down my hard-earned cash onto a local retailer's table (after a LOT of comparative shopping, of course). My black-and-silver pimp-rig arrived a couple of long days later. "In your face, Alienware!" about covers what it looked like externally.
Of course, instead of enjoying my new piece of happiness, after checking that everything runs well, I fired up 3dmark2001...13000 @ stock speeds/defaults in drivers/Catalyst 2.5. Having tasted the speed addiction, I started tweaking, trying to eek out all the potential out of my hardware without burning the whole thing. Numerous over-night 3dmark2001 runs, Sandra Burn-ins and 3D gaming sessions later, I settled on 1.8 Ghz (144*12.5)@1.85 (in BIOS), the highest my RAM at the moment could handle with [email protected]. Got around 14000 3dmarks. Then I tried OC'ing my Radeon...highest it would go without artifacting was 335/330, must be one of the early models, probably has 3.3 ns VRAM, so it wasn't worth voiding its warranty for such meager results (580CAD is a lot of minimum-wage hours, you know). So I set up a 34 CFM fan blowing onto it and left it alone. Then, after a lot of hesitation, on a New Year's eve, when everyone except for me was drunk (for me, reaching a higher FSB was more important: )), I decisively unlocked my Pally. Bang, 171*11=[email protected] VCore! 5-3-3-2 memory, 2.8 VMem. Result: 14500 3dmarks. But that was it. Ram ran out of steam after that point (low-qualitry PCB). And maybe the stock cooler with AS3 wasnt up to it anymore (damn, having heard the stories about the crackability of the Athlon cores made taking off the HSF for the first time a memorable moment).
Then, an opportunity presented itself in the face of my parents needing a new comp. Used my pally, stock cooler and RAM, and bought myself a 1800+ AIUGA (50CAD cheaper than AGOIA), Vantec Aeroflow, and the much-coveted dual XMS 3500. Brought it home, fired up my rig, ran it at defaults (133*[email protected]), then jumped right up to 166*11.5 and...my mobo dies. It did not really die (my second board "died" the same way), must have been my VCore I did not raise, all that was needed was to unplug the comp and let it be for 10 secs, then it would reboot at 100FSB/defaults. But I did not know it back then, so had to wait for 2 weeks (!) for replacement. While sitting and looking at the XMS and the rest of the stuff.
So, I bring my rig with a new mobo home, install an old piece of RAM into it (played it safe with XMS at stake), fire it up, then up the voltage incrementally, go up to 166 FSB with ram at 6-3-3-2.5, then replace it with my XMS, push it further...and voila, 1950 [email protected] stable for CPU, 205 FSB for mobo! Hot damn! Then, it would not cold-boot at that CPU frequency, so I did the socket volt-mod as described on this forum. End result: see sig. The End.
P.S: However, there are 2 annoying problems with my setup: tapping on a side of my monitor sends a sort of a ripple across the right and the left parts of the screen (you know the test in PCMark2002 that has parallel vertical rainbow-colored lines across the screen? Well, in my case, the right-most ones were wavering, maybe that's how it's supposed to be, does anybody know?), and I can also hear the optical drives spinning and my MOUSE WHEEL SCROLLING from my speakers when I turn them all the way up, and sometimes they produce a popping sound out of nowhere (the most plausible explanation, imho, would be the interference of the South Bridge and the devices hooked up to it withthe MCP-T sound controller). If anyone came across these problems before, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Peace.
This is my first post, and first of all, I want to express my gratitude for you all unwittingly helping me evolve my rig into what it is now (see sig). Believe it or not, before coming to this forum, I did not know what FSB is (yeah, everyone chuckles). I am posting this thread here because this is where I learned most of the stuff from.
I have been around computers since the days of 386s, but not hardware-relatedly. About a year ago, when NV25 was all the rage, I started looking forward to buying my own rig. Back in those days, the setup I used at home (my parents') was a K6-500 powered Compaq, enough said, so I know a lot about misery and playing games at 640*480. So I decided to get myself something powerful and versatile, without having to sell my kidneys for it (sounds familiar?). Limit was set as 3000 CAD (~2000US). Athlon came as a natural choice, and I heard of something called overclocking from Maximum PC, I think...and you know what site pops up at the top of the list when you search for "overclocking"). So I set onto a path of selecting the best parts for my situation. After numerous hours spent on the net, and, after considering and reading reviews of every part, I ended up with my current system, save AIUGA (had AGOIA 2000+), XMS (had PC 2700, TCB-3, Samsung chips, non-Samsung PCB), Aeroflow (used stock cooler), and some cosmetic enhancements (rounded cables, neon fan on the side). On Friday the 13th, december, 2002, I plunked down my hard-earned cash onto a local retailer's table (after a LOT of comparative shopping, of course). My black-and-silver pimp-rig arrived a couple of long days later. "In your face, Alienware!" about covers what it looked like externally.
Of course, instead of enjoying my new piece of happiness, after checking that everything runs well, I fired up 3dmark2001...13000 @ stock speeds/defaults in drivers/Catalyst 2.5. Having tasted the speed addiction, I started tweaking, trying to eek out all the potential out of my hardware without burning the whole thing. Numerous over-night 3dmark2001 runs, Sandra Burn-ins and 3D gaming sessions later, I settled on 1.8 Ghz (144*12.5)@1.85 (in BIOS), the highest my RAM at the moment could handle with [email protected]. Got around 14000 3dmarks. Then I tried OC'ing my Radeon...highest it would go without artifacting was 335/330, must be one of the early models, probably has 3.3 ns VRAM, so it wasn't worth voiding its warranty for such meager results (580CAD is a lot of minimum-wage hours, you know). So I set up a 34 CFM fan blowing onto it and left it alone. Then, after a lot of hesitation, on a New Year's eve, when everyone except for me was drunk (for me, reaching a higher FSB was more important: )), I decisively unlocked my Pally. Bang, 171*11=[email protected] VCore! 5-3-3-2 memory, 2.8 VMem. Result: 14500 3dmarks. But that was it. Ram ran out of steam after that point (low-qualitry PCB). And maybe the stock cooler with AS3 wasnt up to it anymore (damn, having heard the stories about the crackability of the Athlon cores made taking off the HSF for the first time a memorable moment).
Then, an opportunity presented itself in the face of my parents needing a new comp. Used my pally, stock cooler and RAM, and bought myself a 1800+ AIUGA (50CAD cheaper than AGOIA), Vantec Aeroflow, and the much-coveted dual XMS 3500. Brought it home, fired up my rig, ran it at defaults (133*[email protected]), then jumped right up to 166*11.5 and...my mobo dies. It did not really die (my second board "died" the same way), must have been my VCore I did not raise, all that was needed was to unplug the comp and let it be for 10 secs, then it would reboot at 100FSB/defaults. But I did not know it back then, so had to wait for 2 weeks (!) for replacement. While sitting and looking at the XMS and the rest of the stuff.
So, I bring my rig with a new mobo home, install an old piece of RAM into it (played it safe with XMS at stake), fire it up, then up the voltage incrementally, go up to 166 FSB with ram at 6-3-3-2.5, then replace it with my XMS, push it further...and voila, 1950 [email protected] stable for CPU, 205 FSB for mobo! Hot damn! Then, it would not cold-boot at that CPU frequency, so I did the socket volt-mod as described on this forum. End result: see sig. The End.
P.S: However, there are 2 annoying problems with my setup: tapping on a side of my monitor sends a sort of a ripple across the right and the left parts of the screen (you know the test in PCMark2002 that has parallel vertical rainbow-colored lines across the screen? Well, in my case, the right-most ones were wavering, maybe that's how it's supposed to be, does anybody know?), and I can also hear the optical drives spinning and my MOUSE WHEEL SCROLLING from my speakers when I turn them all the way up, and sometimes they produce a popping sound out of nowhere (the most plausible explanation, imho, would be the interference of the South Bridge and the devices hooked up to it withthe MCP-T sound controller). If anyone came across these problems before, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Peace.
![]-[itman](/forums/data/avatars/s/9/9309.jpg?1650325391){kind=avatar}
