Newbie Overclocker with some qustions...

[gwballs]

Hello, I have come to a time with my comp that "it" could be faster. Before I put in 400 bucks to upgrade CPU, RAM,MOBO maby RAID, I would like to know how far I can push my machine with out frying. I have done some research on my MOBO, I have the lastest update for the BIOS and CHIPs but all I can do is the FBS, no mutiplier support what so ever( autodetect). Is there anyway I can somehow tweak the MOBO and if there are no other options, how high can I push the FSB.
Thank you
PS if i need anything let me know
Win2000professional
900mhz socketA, 384 PC-133 @Cas2 (stable), WD 30gig (7200) ATA-100, 4gig (30rpm) bigfoot
Gigabyte 7ZX (rev1) AMIBIOS-VIA KT133-686
Hercules GF2MX, SB live 5.1, Realmagic mepg2, NIC, Maxtor ATA100 card
TDK12X10X32, DVD
FBS=100mhz

 

[JuDgE_DrEaD]

youll have to unlock your cpu on its L1 bridges to be able to get teh multiplier change so you can tweak it yourself. There are parts on the front page and many other sites that tell you how to do this. Your FSB would probably be pushed up to 140 or 150 on your board. oull have to raise your vcore and have to have good cooling to do so. Your hard drive may be a limiting factor in your overclock. hope this helps

 

[YahooDave]

If that chipset that you are telling us is correct you will probably only be able to get to 110mhz or 112mhz FSB not 140 or 150. Do you know what kind of Motherboard it is? And like cerEEbro said, you will have to unlock your chip by connecting the L1 bridges on it. There are some "how to's" floating around on this site as well as many others but they won't do you any good if your Motherboard does not support changing it. The main thing is trying to find out what the Motherboard is and doing some more research on it and maybe even digging up a manual on it somewhere.

If it's some sort of OEM Mobo then you may be hosed, but the good news is a new Mobo wouldn't be that much and it looks like all of your other components would work just fine with maybe a ABIT KT7A or an Asus. They would run you somewhere on the order of $120 US.

 

[Staz]

That is a great MOBO for a web surfer but not for an overclocker. All you can do with that MOBO is up the FSB, and prob only to 110 or 112.

A new MOBO would be a good upgrade. You can pick up a KK266 for about $110 I think and It will give you great overclocking abilities.

Also a new 1GHz (266FSB) T-Bird is cheaper than ever, less than $100. You should be able to overclock it to 1.4GHz or higher (but you are gonna need another MOBO to do it)

 

[dozier768]

if you cant risk bunining it up dont do it, all it takes is one mistake and you got a high priced keychain, though i havent managed to let the magic smoke outof anything as of yet

 

[Wa11y]

I also have the GA-7ZX, and I've found other than the FSB, you can't really do crap with it. I've unlocked the L1 bridges on my Duron 800, and it doesn't do much. The motherboard came with a program called "EasyTuneIII" which is SUPPOSED to let you make changes to your system. Thus far, I've not been able to get it to work. Every time I try to use EasyTune to increase the speed, it locks up. Even when I tell it to auto configure. So I've pretty much given up trying to overclock the GA-7ZX. If you REALLY want to overclock it, get another motherboard. All you can do it up the FSB. And I couldn't get it over 110MHz stable, which only got me up to about 885MHz total. The reason I bought the 7ZX was it was cheap, and I needed a mobo right away, so I had no time to research it.

 

[gwballs]

I have tried to connect the L1 according to some picutures by using some conductive poxy but it didnt work at all. my computer won't even boot. The eazy tune needs some bios updates to work i think, I could go around like 107 but I have also heard bad things about software FBS programs.
As for the Mobo, I didn't know what I was doing.
there is got to be a crack for the AMIbios or the VIA that does the "autodetection" of CPU speed and votage. reprogram the BIOS?

 

[Mr B]

Moved thread to "AMD Motherboards".

Mr B