A7n8x Barton 2800 Help

[broooooooce]

Ok, I have a radeon 9800 pro all in wonder, an athlon 2800 barton processor, and 2 sticks of 512 corsair xms pc2700 ram. I have some general questions that I would very much appreciate some guidance on.

 

I've read in a couple of places that the best way to OC is to drop the multiplier by about 20 percent (I'm at 12.5 atm, should I drop down to 11) and then slowly increase the FSB and run benchmarks with each increase to check stability and performance gain. Once I find the stable/fast solution, then proceed to trying to raise the multiplier back up. Is this correct? Also, going up from a 166 fsb, what interval should I use, go up like 3 at a time and then drop down to 1 or 2 as I get higher? And what is probably the most painless way to check stability? I have Sandra and 3dmark03...

 

Here are some of my issues:

 

I'm not sure what memory timings I should use. I should have gone ahead and got faster memory, but I'm just going to work with the 2700s that I have. They are corsair ll xms matched pair. I would deeply love to have some opinions or examples of good memory timings, and perhaps someone could explain to me how these 4 numbers (currently 5, 2, 2, and 2t) relate in a more technical sense.

 

Also, I don't want to fry this expensive . video card, I have the a7n8x running phoenix award bios (1005 I think). I want to lock my agp frequency so it isn't affected by the changes to the fsb. I see a place where it has AGP Frequency, and it is set to auto. Should i change this to a manual value?

 

I have been reading over this forum for a bit, but haven't really registered until today. Please pardon any uneducated questions I've asked, I really did try and read over everything. I've been online for a long time, but this will be my first serious attempt at properly overclocking a PC.

 

Thanks!

Bruce

[howie b]

Okay...I had a somewhat similar setup as you. I have an A7N8X Deluxe...is yours the non deluxe? And ill assume that you have PCB 2.0 when I answer this. I had the same Corsair XMS 2700 Memory at first, but i ended up ebaying mine to get XMS 3200 because the highest FSB i could get was like 180. Okay, on to the OC....

 

 

 

1) Lock the AGP bus. Change it from auto to 66 Mhz.

2) ALWAYS WATCH YOUR TEMPS AND BE SURE TO HAVE GOOD COOLING!!!!!!

 

 

METHOD 1:

 

When i went to OC mine, I went straight for 200 FSB. If you want to give this a try (from what i hear, people have been getting better luck than me with the 2700 memory, and 200 FSB is quite possible) i would recommend upping your FSB to 200, and dropping your multi to 10. This should be extremely easy for your procesor, so if you get a lockup or it wont boot, you will know it's *probably* due to your memory, but this may still require a voltage hike. If it doesn't boot at first, try upping the voltage slowly to max 1.75 (provided you have good cooling, and are getting decent temps). If it doesnt boot, try relaxing your memory timings to 11-3-3-2.5T. These are very lax timings. If it still doesnt boot, try upping your DIMM voltage from 2.6 to 2.7, then 2.8. This is pretty much all that you can do (uless you change your timing to 3T which will cost you in memory performance). If you dont care about 200 FSB, or it still wont boot, then you can try......

 

 

METHOD 2:

 

Do as you suggested yourself, and drop the multi (although i would suggest 11.5), and slowly up the FSB from 166 till it wont boot. When it stops booting or locks up, try upping the voltage to about 1.75 max (provided you have good cooling, and are getting decent temps). If it still doesnt boot, relax your memory timings. Still doesnt boot, up DIMM to 2.7 or 2.8. Once you find the max FSB to multi that you can achieve, prime95 it Here and check it for stability. BE SURE TO WATCH TEMPS ALL THIS TIME!!!! If you get lockup/reboots, drop your FSB a bit until you get stability.

 

Some people will disagree wth this method because it is a bit aggressive. It goes right for the high(er) voltages, but I find that this is how i've gotten my best FSB x multi combo. May not be for everyone.

 

 

Right now, im running a Barton 2500+ @ 200 x 11.5 with 1.75v. My temps are like 52C idle, ~59C load, until i get my new Thermalright SK-7 (to replace my sh8tty TT Xaser 11+....I DO NOT recommend this heatsink :-( ), so expect high temps....be sure to have good cooling.

 

 

 

HB

Edited September 29, 2003 by howie b

[broooooooce]

yeah, it's the deluxe 2.0 I downloaded prime 95, Thanks for the link I'll be sure and tell you how my OC goes

 

Bruce

[broooooooce]

By the way, in my bios, there are these Spread Spectrum settings, I really don't know what these are for but would like to!

[broooooooce]

Ok, with dimm at 2.8v and vcore at 1.75v and 11-3-3-2.5 and 200fsb at 12.0 i am ALMOST stable...

 

almost...

 

Also, is there a special advantage to 200 fsb? You said "but if you don't care about 200 fsb..."

Edited September 29, 2003 by caxis0

[broooooooce]

Alright... best I can get stable is 12.5 x 185 fsb for about 2311mhz. 2.8v dimm, 1.75vcore, 11-3-3-2.5. Good for 300mhz I guess, the memory just isn't quite enough. I think that with different ram, I may be able to go to 2500mhz.

 

Anyways, Thankyou so much for your help!

 

bruce

[howie b]

what are your temps in all this??? idle? with prime running? That is probably the most imporatnt part, especially if you expect any sort of longevity out of your processor....not a bad OC tho Gotta love AMD

 

 

12.5 x 185....geez not to crap bad, but that is not 300, thats 370!!! i wouldn't be dissapointed by that at all!!!!

Edited September 29, 2003 by howie b

[howie b]

also...no special advantage to 200 FSB. It's just a matter of syncing with your processor. Since you have 166DDR memory, take whatever FSB is most stable for you....i only mentioned 200 FSB because my memory is 200DDR, and 200 FSB is *around* the range at which Barton's max out at for stability.

 

 

 

*added*

 

You should also be able to tighted your memory timings....try 11-3-3-2 first, then move the first number down successively until you aren't stable anymore. Put those Corsair XMS heatspreaders to good use

 

Right now, mine is at 5-3-2-2, but it is not OC'd, running at 200 DDR (XMS 3200)

Make sure you have dual channel enabled (slots 1 & 3, or 1 & 2) lets see some 3dmark scores from that puppy!!

To ensure it is 100% stable, i would reccomend running prime95 at least 12-20 hours...run it overnight and check it in the morning...that should let you know if there is any stability problems.

 

 

ANy more q's dont hesitate to post

Edited September 29, 2003 by howie b

[blippy]

12.5 x 185....geez not to crap bad, but that is not 300, thats 370!!! i wouldn't be dissapointed by that at all!!!!

 

he was right when he said about a 300mhz overclock. 12.5x185 is 2312.5, and the normal 2800+ runs about 2.08.

 

also, with your memory timings, you might want to keep that first number up at 11....there have a been a lot of people who find they get a faster response time with that number being up around 11 or so. Search these forums for anything like slower memory timmings. It's a weird thing that the nforce2 boards do.

 

gj on the OC

[howie b]

ahhhh when he said 300 Mhz, i thought he was refferring to his FSB (which IS 370 Mhz [185 x 2]). haha. In THAT case, he did OC 300 Mhz. As for the mem timings, I've personally done Sandra and PCMark2k2 testing, and gotten the best results with lower timings (5-3-2-2T), but that may be because mine is at stock frequency....hmm i havent seen anything about performance degredation with lower timings, but ill check that out.

Edited September 29, 2003 by howie b

[broooooooce]

temp idle is about 35-45 idle and about 51-60 when stressed. I ran prime95 all night last night and it stayed up around 58 and 59, so I gotta find a way to cool her down some more. I shoulda went with just standard antec fans instead of the 80mm smartfans that I got, they are quiet (this machine is very quiet--the hard drives are kinda loud though...) But the regular ones I have in my other box cool better and don't make THAT much more noise.

 

The temps really do vary by a lot, or at least they do on the diode on the mb, which is what I watch in mbm5. The grease may not be settled well yet.

 

I really appreciate the help, I'll try different memory settings and run benchmarks.

 

Bruce

[FanATIc205]

well its not the fans if the case is different you are going to get different temps . id say you cpu will probally only do around 2400mhz max the higher the fsb on athlons the better perfomance youll get. 2300mhz @185fsb will get beat in benchmarks compared to a cpu running 2300mhz with a 200fsb .

so cas 2.5 3-3-11 was not stable at 200fsb ?? that ram should be able to hit 200fsb at those timings with 2.8 vdimmbut theres a chance it wont also what rev is your asus if it says a7n8xdlx 2.0 at boot up its a rev2 if it doesnt say htat its a older rev that might not do 200fsb the temps you mentioned i wouldnt try for anymore mhz just get the fsb higher can you boot to weindows @200fsb ?? try a low multi of 10 or so and test it with prime that will tell you if the memory can handle 200 or not. also update you bios to the latest version that helps overclocking too sometimes just be sure you get the right bios ffor the right rev board you ahve

 

if the 10x200 works i think your pushing the multi to high to rule out the ram 11.5 x200fsb will net you 2300mhz id rather run cas2.5 2-2-11 @200fsb than cas2 -3-3-11 @185fsb .also if you have problems using lower multis and the comp wont boot set the fsb to 133 and boot to windows once then go up to fsb you want thats what i have to do with 12,12.5 and a few other multis also set your cpu interface to aggressive

 

excuse my broken up post as im pretty drunk right now lol

Edited September 30, 2003 by fanATIc1205