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bwillsher

New Member
Joined
May 31, 2003
Location
Hong Kong
I'm pretty new to overclocking and basically all I've done so far is up my CPU clock speed.

I managed to get up to 160 * 18 = 2880MHz with my 2.40b GHz P4, but without changing anything apart from the fsb. Anything higher than that and the O/S wont boot. I've seen people with the same board and CPU getting past the 3ghz mark.

I didnt change the core voltage for fear of causing damage.
I also want to know how to properly configure my memory to get the best out of my CPU. I currently have one stick of Kingston DDR333 (512MB) at all the default settings.

Can anyone explain to me how to get a decent overclock.

Thanks
 
No problem, and welcome to the forums!

The first step I'd make is bumping the vcore to 1.65. The Northwood-B P4's do need a little more juice to run at higher FSB speeds. Too much can cause damage, as you fear. But 1.65v is safe for sustained use.

That will open up your overclocking options. Your next concerns will probably involve your memory timing and speeds, and your processor temperatures. If you're running the stock Intel HSF with the adhesive thermal pad, your temps will almost certainly encounter temps over 52c under load as you get close to three gig. A replacement HSF is in order. I like the Swiftech MCX4000 if you can afford it, or the Cooler Master IHC-H71 if you're on a budget. With either, use a quality themal compound like Artic Silver 3.

Relaxing your memory timings might also help as you explore the top end. But when you get to this point you are trading off memory performance for clock cycles, and the performance gains in your applications will drop off.

If this doesn't work, your CPU might not have a good overclock in it. Though hitting 2.9 gig at stock voltage seems a sign that you got a good 'un and the P4/2.4B has a great history for overclocking, nothing is guaranteed above the advertised default speed.

Hope this helped and good luck.



BHD
 
Thanks BHD for the info.

I'm going for a liquid cooling system (w/ maze 3) pretty soon so I think the cooling should be taken care of.

Anyway, I always hear people saying 'more aggressive memory timings' when they are talking about overclocking. According to what you said, wouldn't that make it harder to overclock the CPU?

Also, In my BIOS there seem to be a lot of settings for the memory and I'm not exactly sure which ones to change and by how much. (e.g. DRR reference voltage, SDRAM CAS latency, RAS to CAS delay, burst length, refresh rate ....). How do I find out?

Last thing - how would overclocking my GPU affect the rest of my system, would I have to change CPU, memory and GPU all in relation to each other?

Maybe someone should point me to an idiots guide :p
 
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