Overclocking my 5 yr old System

[combssm]

Specs: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Venice

Zalman CNPS9700 LED

Gigabyte GA-k8NF-9 Rev 1.1x F3 BIOS

1 GB (2 x 512MB) DDR PC3200 Corsair VS512MB400

MSI Geforce 6600GT 128MB PCI-E

WD Caviar 80GB IDE

Rosewill 300W PSU

 

I started to notice my CPU temps. Under load...just playing TFC on Steam or Starcraft on Battle.net I would reach a temp of

82C. My Idle temp was usually around 55. So, I decided to get a new CPU cooler. The Zalman CNPS 9700 dropped my load temps

down to 25-29C and idle temps to 19-22C, amazing! Now, the stock cooler I had which has been running for 5 years and I'm lucky

because it had a hairball in it that could take down any cat.

 

So, with the awesome temperatures I wanted to get going with my OC. Here are the results I have tallied so far.

 

Stock Speeds: 9 x 201Mhz : 1809MHz, DRAM: CPU/09, Timings: 2.5-3-3-8 (Auto), Load Temp: 25-29C, Idle Temp: 19-22C, Super-Pi 32M: 42m 21.610s, 00% CPU Efficiency Increase

OC #1: 9 x 250MHz : 2256MHz, DRAM: CPU/11, Timings: 2.5-3-3-8 (Auto), Load Temp: 27-31C, Idle Temp: 20-22C, Super-Pi 32M: 36m 02.469s, 25% CPU Efficiency Increase

OC #2: 9 x 267MHz : 2403MHz, DRAM: CPU/12, Timings: 2.5-3-3-8 (Auto), Load Temp: 31-34C, Idle Temp: 21-24C, Super-Pi 32M: 34m 27.201s, 33% CPU Efficiency Increase

OC #3: 9 x 289MHz : 2601Mhz, DRAM: CPU/13, Timings: 2.5-3-3-8 (Auto), FAIL!

 

So, now I am stuck. I am so confused. When I have really low temps like this why can't I keep increasing the FSB speed? I made sure to lower the HTx, but its not showing up correctly in CPU-Z.

Do I need to increase vcore? I'd like to get this baby up to 300 x 9 = 2700Mhz.

[xly15]

You should run Prime 95 or OCCT to really test those overclocks.

[combssm]

An update with my old POS system. I hit 300 x 9 which is a 50% increase in CPU raw speed. This of course is with a bit of vcore increase to get into Windows and run Super-Pi. My load temps are still below 34. Got the HTTx to work correctly in CPU-Z by updating my bios.

 

You should run Prime 95 or OCCT to really test those overclocks.

 

Each one for how long?

[tazwegion]

If you're a true sadist, run them concurrently over 24 hours

[Scottike]

If I can run Prime 95 & OCCT each for 4hr + without errors I figure I'm good to go. But, longer is always better 6 - 8 hrs each of Prime 95 & OCCT and you can be sure your system is rock solid. Be sure to monitor your temps when your running Prime 95, as it doesn't have temp monitoring.

 

Edit: Yea, I'm a wuss, I don't run them concurrently!

Edited March 4, 2010 by Scottike

[Boinker]

Yes you will have to increase the v core for that type of overclock. Along with that you may need to increase the NB and HT voltage (cannot remember if you can adjust the NB) for it to have a prayer of keeping up. Also chances are you may need to increase the ram divider (I.E. 1/2 to 1/3 etc) to drop its speed and or increase its voltage to promote it stable. if I was you I would attempt to ge the chip 100% stable using prime 95 or occt as high as it will clock then figure out how well your ram will clock. The ram should be ok plus or minus 200 till then though. The only reason for this is to simply deal with an evil one at a time so your not juggleing errors between the cpu and Ram. Basicly how I did it when I overclocked my First Athlon 64X2 (basicly same thing) I stepped up the Front side Bus by ten, stability tested, rinse repeat until i got a fail, adjusted go again. if pass was had overclocked more until it failed and such on. I know you are likely looking for a Huge overclock on that chip but I would take it easy and make sure your stable before shooting the FSB to 50.

 

Good luck and god speed. let us KNow if you need more help of course.

(for somethig funny that relates to this situation see quote in red below)

[combssm]

I'm too tired to format my hard drive atm, but I created a registry error. So, I've been letting my ears blow out with my squaky old WD800 Caviar. Got this thing stable 2 hours OCCT and 5 hours Prime95. Oh yeah and the clock speed was like 300 x 9 2709Mhz from CPU-z. You were right boinker I needed to put the vcore from 1.40 to 1.55. The highest I can boot into is 2790MHz, and with the divider of 2/1.33 it puts my ram speed in the range of 412Mhz. I 'm pretty sure the Corsair Value Select i have won't go higher.

 

I'm open for a higher OC. Experience using Corsair DDR PC3200 value select?

 

Would it help to post a screenshot of my DRAM timings from BIOS? I'm kinda satisfied with the OC and I'd like to put the screws back on the case...but like I said, if I can work out the issue with the ram...I'll go higher! Thank you!

[slick2500]

I know this is gonna look like a silly question but when did they make a Venice core Athlon XP 3000+?

[Boinker]

CPU-World.com is the Bomb

 

I just looked it up. thi is where I uually go to ffind thermal specs and different chip specs when im helping people OC or just for my own curiosity...

 

You may get a little better performance if you could Tighten the ram timing and possibly increase there clock rate... But you will not see the same difference that you did by overclocking yor CPU. It will be noticable but just a little faster.

 

 

And yes I would (for my benifit ad your bragging rights) Post screen shot of The completed OCCT run and a Prime 95 run. Include core temp in there logged so we can see what the mx temprature was and a CPU-Z window in MEM and Processor page....

 

And by the way... that thing is fast now.

Edited March 4, 2010 by boinker

[DexRain]

nice...

 

I have the same cpu running in my moms computer, I might try and see how far I can push it next time she upgrades =]

[combssm]

This was a fun experiment, now that I have it all up and stable I really can't realize much speed improvements on anything...but with some benchmarking I know it is there. Anyone else able to confirm overclocking can't beat a better processor?

 

Also well, let's see.

 

MY next rig is going to be a core i3-530, zalman 9700 led, Gigabyte H55, G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333. can't wait!!

Edited March 9, 2010 by combssm