Let me start off by saying I am completely new to the oc'ing thing. I've tried reading up on it as much as possible but I feel I need to have some input from other more experienced people. The reason I've started looking into oc'ing btw is due to my interest in playing the newly released mmo warhammer online, and I'm sorry to say so far it hasn't been running top notch on my computer.
So, not being completely satisfied with my war gaming experience I decided to overclock my cpu yesterday. I had never done it before so I just did a small test, increasing my FSB speed from 200 to 220MHz, pushing my cores up to about 2.4GHz. After that I ran war for a few hours without any problems at all and unless I was just imagining things, seeing as the OC was so small, it did feel like the game was running a a little smoother.
Anyway, I am really tempted to push it some more, I am thinking about going to 240 and reach 2.64GHz. Being a newbie at this though, and a little nervous, I am wondering if there is anything in particular I should look out for. I am thinking I'll keep an eye on CPU temperature, and maybe the cpu voltage (which is set to auto in bios, so I guess it will increase if necessary?), so that neither rises too high. Other than that, any instability issues is ofcourse an obvious heads up.
Anything else I should worry about? Btw I also believe that my memory speeds are set to auto in the bios. Oh, and I am doing this overclock asynched, so memories and pcie speeds are not touched, good or bad? ...
One more thing. I've read a bit about other people oc'ing this cpu and it seems some people have actually set the FSB to 237 or something like that. What would the reason for this be? I mean I see no reason setting it such an odd number, what am I missing?
EDIT:
Forgot to mention, my motherboard is an ASRock 939Dual-Sata2. So the cpu is a socket939 in case it matters.
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We need to know your computer hardware specs to help you more ram, gfx, PSU etc..
well andreas, u have to remember that all motherboards work differently when overclocking due to component quality manufacturing, chipset etc.. personally, Asrock aren't known for being an overclock board, but if ure lucky u might be able to push it...
first thing u have to think about is what kinda PSU (powersupply) you use? what brand, how many watts and what are the voltages measured as? u can always check that if u open up the side of ure computer..
well, people here have said that you can reach higher overclocks with synchronized memory and fsb, but i havent really noticed much of a difference, also, i dont really OC very heavily at the moment.. just make sure u set the divider so that the overclock will respectively reflect your memories capabilities.. for example i'd set my divider (ram specs are 667mhz), to 3:2 or something like that so when i began ocing the ram would land at for example 610mhz, then i'd increase the fsb in increments til i reached 667mhz..
you basically have to play around with the dividers to find whats right for you.. thats why when most people are into heavy oc:ing they buy the 800 or 1066mhz ram so they can push the dividers, ram and oc to a max...
Yes, Cpu temps are very important to monitor, and if you have a good PSU you can set the volt manually, but u need to find out what the stock volt is, and then increase just a tiny bit.. remember, baby steps here, i know it takes time (myself im a very impatient man) but you cant afford to fry ure rig...
That mobo isnt the greatest overclocker so dont expect much unless you have all the mods done to it for over clocking.Like the Vdimm and Vcore and Vdrop/Droop mods
We need to know your computer hardware specs to help you more ram, gfx, PSU etc..
well andreas, u have to remember that all motherboards work differently when overclocking due to component quality manufacturing, chipset etc.. personally, Asrock aren't known for being an overclock board, but if ure lucky u might be able to push it...
first thing u have to think about is what kinda PSU (powersupply) you use? what brand, how many watts and what are the voltages measured as? u can always check that if u open up the side of ure computer..
well, people here have said that you can reach higher overclocks with synchronized memory and fsb, but i havent really noticed much of a difference, also, i dont really OC very heavily at the moment.. just make sure u set the divider so that the overclock will respectively reflect your memories capabilities.. for example i'd set my divider (ram specs are 667mhz), to 3:2 or something like that so when i began ocing the ram would land at for example 610mhz, then i'd increase the fsb in increments til i reached 667mhz..
you basically have to play around with the dividers to find whats right for you.. thats why when most people are into heavy oc:ing they buy the 800 or 1066mhz ram so they can push the dividers, ram and oc to a max...
Yes, Cpu temps are very important to monitor, and if you have a good PSU you can set the volt manually, but u need to find out what the stock volt is, and then increase just a tiny bit.. remember, baby steps here, i know it takes time (myself im a very impatient man) but you cant afford to fry ure rig...
The PSU is relatively weak, I know, but from my research regarding my CPU it would appear that I can oc this CPU on stock voltages as long as I don't push the limit. And my goal here is really to reach 2.6GHz at best, I don't want to push it Regarding the voltages, with standard bios settings the cpu multiplier and voltage is set to "Auto", and the voltage is at 1.4 so I guess that's the stock value. Also, I read somewhere that you basically should up the CPU fsb first, til you're satisfied, and then maybe increase the voltage if you find the system to be too unstable. I have no idea how to know what voltage to set, was kinda hoping I wouldn't have to mess with that
I don't really know anything about psu's, other than to check their wattage... here's a link to the psu I am using though if you wanna have a look:
Anyway I feel like your post went a little over my head I don't know what you mean by setting the dividers I'm afraid. So far, what I know mainly about oc'ing is that the cpu "working speed" is calculated with
CPU Multiplier x FSB = clockspeed
And basically, to overclock one increases the fsb and hence receives a higher clockspeed. How the memory comes into play I don't know, but I'm guessing what you're getting at is that the memory speed should in some way be "compatible" with the speed of the cpu, which is where the divider comes in? I'm just guessing here so please fill me in.
From what I gather, it's pretty normal to actually lower the speed of the memories when you are overclocking your cpu? Or am I completely off course here?
Tack för svaret, hoppas du orkar ge mig lite mer insikt
Andreas,
That 237MHZ FSB number you saw is associated with the even odder number of 236.363636~, which is the actuall FSB necessary when used with the default multiplier of 11x to reach 2.6GHz Core speed.
You definately want something like CoreTemp running on startup to monitor your temps, especially if you are using STOCK cooling. The stock cooler that shipped with the 4400+ Toledo core AMDs is actually pretty good. If I recall the 4400+ had a Tcasemax of around 70 - 78 degrees C max, so you'd actually not want to exceed about 65 degrees C max over time, though a spike higher could probably be OK, you shouldn't run a OC that puts you consistently over about 65.
As you push the FSB/Multiplexer values above the shipped standard you will generate more heat, and as you may have to raise the Vcore higher to achieve stability, you will be producing even more heat.
You have a reasonable OC goal for the 4400+ in mind. I'd attempt to push the FSB values up to 220MHz, then slowly step up from there in 5Mhz or lower steps until I got to 235MHz - 240MHz. At any point that you have any instability you want to increase the CPU voltage (Vcore) in as low as possible increments as well.
Lots of folks have pushed this processor to 3.0GHz or higher, but usually with aftermarket cooling (see my sig), but in order to keep things managable for now, don't feel bad if you can't get the speed you want out of your particular processor. Anytime you OC you are working against the minimum standard that the manufacture supports for a run or revision of a particular component, so there will be some that will not work any higher, while some will work much higher.
Good luck.
Ad Astra Per Aspera
(A rough road leads to the Stars)
We all know what we know, and everyone else knows we are wrong.
System Specifications in BIO
Andreas,
That 237MHZ FSB number you saw is associated with the even odder number of 236.363636~, which is the actuall FSB necessary when used with the default multiplier of 11x to reach 2.6GHz Core speed.
You definately want something like CoreTemp running on startup to monitor your temps, especially if you are using STOCK cooling. The stock cooler that shipped with the 4400+ Toledo core AMDs is actually pretty good. If I recall the 4400+ had a Tcasemax of around 70 - 78 degrees C max, so you'd actually not want to exceed about 65 degrees C max over time, though a spike higher could probably be OK, you shouldn't run a OC that puts you consistently over about 65.
As you push the FSB/Multiplexer values above the shipped standard you will generate more heat, and as you may have to raise the Vcore higher to achieve stability, you will be producing even more heat.
You have a reasonable OC goal for the 4400+ in mind. I'd attempt to push the FSB values up to 220MHz, then slowly step up from there in 5Mhz or lower steps until I got to 235MHz - 240MHz. At any point that you have any instability you want to increase the CPU voltage (Vcore) in as low as possible increments as well.
Lots of folks have pushed this processor to 3.0GHz or higher, but usually with aftermarket cooling (see my sig), but in order to keep things managable for now, don't feel bad if you can't get the speed you want out of your particular processor. Anytime you OC you are working against the minimum standard that the manufacture supports for a run or revision of a particular component, so there will be some that will not work any higher, while some will work much higher.
Good luck.
Well, like I said I would prefer not touching the vcore settings... I already reached 220 with no problems, without increasing the voltage, and hopefully i can get up to 240 like that too. Otherwise maybe I'll stop earlier, I want to oc but not too much and I don't like the thought of increasing the voltage, especially with my current PSU which is kinda weak.
I get what you're saying though, and I will probably do it like that. Start at 220, increments by 5 up to (hopefully) 240. The only thing I'm unsure of atm is the divider. I don't really feel like I want to overclock my memory, cus I have no idea of it's oc capabilities. If I understand it correct, setting the divider to 3:2 and then increasing my FSB to 240, would mean my memory landing at 160mhz. While this is maybe somewhat less optimal in terms of speed increase, the way I sett it it will also mean one less thing that can go wrong with the overclock since I don't really know my memorys oc capabilities.
EDIT:
Just got home from work and had a look in the bios for this Divider I keep getting told about. Turns out I can't find any such setting in my bios :S Only thing I can find is under my advanced CPU settings, where there's a setting called Memory Clock that can be set to one of the following:
Auto / 133 / 166 / 200 Mhz
No surprise, it's on Auto right now. So unless I've completely misunderstood things, the divider is supposed to be a setting for manipulating the memory speed, so it's set to a relative value of your FSB speed right? Which means if I have the above settings available in the BIOS, there probably is no Divider setting? In that case, how bad is that? Right now I assume I'll just lock it at 166mhz when overclocking...
hi all from sunny Greece.
I have a old computer that has no problems running new games.i am just thinking of trying overclocking it a little bit before upgrading it to a new one.
My computer consists of the following:
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 4400+ toledo OC 2,5GHz 2MB L2
DDR416 KINGSTON 2,5-3-3-7 2GB
ZOTAC GF8800GT 512MB 700/2000Ghz
MOBO MSI K8N SLI PLATINUN NF4
PHILIPS 220EW 22'
PSU ENERMAX 485WATT
RAID 0 +WINXP
I have done a little oveclocking without changing any voltage.All voltages are default.I have done the following:
Ι have change the cpu speed from 200 to 250 mhz and the HT multiplier from 5X To 4X so its 250X4=1000MHZ HT.and i have changed the ram from 200mhz to 166mhz(due to cpu/ram multiplier it runs to 208mhz) and cache latency from 3-3-3-7 to 2.5-3-3-7 and my system is stable
Although i tried any attempt to go further fails and errors start.
What can i do to go further?What voltages can i change.RAM,NORTHBRIDGE,CPU VOLTAGES appear to be red over a limit(for example Ram at 2,75 is safe?)
For the CPU i have the cooler of amd athlon FX60,i have RAM COPPER COOLER AND FOR NORTHBRIDGE A COPPER PASSIVE ONE.
Please help me
Thank you
While you are experimenting with OCing your system...
In addition to the advice given above for the original poster, I advise disconnecting your hard drive and trying out every OC tweak using a bootable diagnostic CD like UBCD. Make a change, run the diagnostics for a few hours. Tweak, run diagnostics, tweak, run diagnostics, etc. When you get to what you believe is your maximum stable OC setting, run the diagnostics for at least 24 hours before connecting your hard drive again.
This will help keep your hard disk data from being corrupted due to system, CPU, and memory errors while you are experimenting on your system.
Hi
I took my 4400+ - Brisbane from 2300MHz to 2800MHz with a Asrock Alive-Xfire e-Sata2 R1 mobo,2GB Geil memory kit, an 450W PSU, PowerColor HD 2600xt gpu(if it matters)
ram, gfx, PSU etc..
I don't know what you mean by setting the dividers I'm afraid. So far, what I know mainly about oc'ing is that the cpu "working speed" is calculated with
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