Newbie seeks help with Athlon 800 and ASUS A7V

[uruglrep]

Hello everyone!
I am a recent entry into the world of modding and overclocking, while yet being a long time computer nerd, if you will.

I really want to try to overclock my machine, but don't understand exactly what I am reading in these forums and tutorials!

I have an Athlon T-Bird 800 and an ASUS A7V KT133 motherboard using the Award Bios. This motherboard is "jumperless", allowing all the settings to be tweaked directly from the BIOS.

Now, my question is - what things can I do to my processor from the BIOS? Would changing my FSB speed work?

I guess what I am asking is: what are all the tweaking options one has in my situation (I know the multiplier is locked and am not brave enough to attempt unlocking it)?

Thanks for all the help!
R.Joseph

 

[PDL]

Well, since your multiplier is locked on the CPU, there is not a lot of OCing you can do.
As I remember, when I first got my A7V and Duron700 I was able to bump the FSB in the bios by adjusting the FSB setting but I am unsure now how I did it. Maybe someone else remembers better. The performance boost wasn't that great, I think I got it to 790 or so but it was a bit unstable. Your best bet is to try the "pencil trick" and connect the L1 bridges. It isn't a permanent change and it is pretty easy with a really sharp pencil and a good magnifying glass. Later you may want to permanently connect them with a conductive pen.
Connecting these bridges is the best way to go by way of the jumper settings.
A word of caution, you must have a good HSF, better than the one shipped with the CPU, and preferably resetting the HSF with some thermal grease.
Right now I am using a FOP32-1 HSF and am running my 700 at 997(105x9.5) CPU temps are arround 46-49c.
You may not get this high without CL2 memory.
Hope this helps....

(997....so close to a gig...maybe with the new Taisol HSF...we'll see...)

 

[JimmyG]

My backup computer is an A7V with a 600 Duron running at 1000. I did that by using conductive ink to close the L1 bridges. I had to do it with jumpers and dip switches. It runs stable at 1.85 v core and the multiplier set at 10. I am using a Global Win WBK38 HSF and it runs at about 48 C loaded.

 

[anarki_gr]

increasing the fsb seems to be the only solution if you don't want to play with the bridges on the tbird. but it's not that difficult and using a conductive pen is as easy as writing on the cpu. umm, is your tbird slot a?

 

[Goldwing]

anarki_gr (Jun 16, 2001 06:34 p.m.):
increasing the fsb seems to be the only solution if you don't want to play with the bridges on the tbird. but it's not that difficult and using a conductive pen is as easy as writing on the cpu. umm, is your tbird slot a?

A7V is a socket A mb and the T-bird designation is only for socket A Athlons.

The A7V is only able to go to a fsb of about 110 before it chokes. So without unlocking the L1 bridges the best you can hope for is about 880Mhz. By unlocking chip an 800 should be able to do close to 900 depending upon your cooling.

 

[FRANK]

Go to the "CPU DATABASE" on the front page of this site and see what others are getting from the 800. That will give you something to shoot for.

If you have the original A7V with the KT133 chipset, you will be limited to how high you can go with the FSB, generaly in the 105 to 110MHz range. But if you have the later A7V133 with the KT133a chipset, you will have much more flexibility with the FSB. You would then be limited by your cards and RAM. Some have reportedly gotten to 150 FSB and beyond with this board.

My experience with a couple of DURON 600's on the A7V have netted 1130MHz (10.5*108 ) without much problem. On an A7V 133, the same CPU's will hit 1170MHz (8.5*138 ).

Make sure that you have adequate cooling, I use Global Win WBK 38's plus additional case fans. Then take it one step at a time, upping the voltage as neccessary, and once again, make sure that you have adequate cooling!

From what I've seen I would expect you to be able to hit 1G with little effort.

And once again, make sure that you have adequate cooling!

Overclocking the socket A AMD CPU's follow the same proceedures as with any other. Watch your heat, increase the voltage as neccessary, make sure that you have good RAM etc.

It has been reported by others that you can sometimes have better luck by using the jumpers rather than the BIOS for the FSB and multiplier adjustments, I would recomend that you go as far as you can with the BIOS then try to tweak it a bit more with the jumpers.

One other thing to watch for is some of the hsf's out there, particularly the "ORB's". They have very stiff retaining clips. You have to make sure that the hsf is seated squarely on the CPU die or you risk chipping / cracking the core.


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