XP OC'ing

[RedFury]

I'm not really informed enough to attempt to try to overclock anything, but I'm curious about it. Stability is my bread and butter with this computer ( if it starts crashing a lot, my wife will start asking questions, like why we spent all this money to build this new computer and it crashes like the old one ), so I don't want to incur risk if I can avoid it.

I've got an Abit Kr7a Motherboard and an XP1600+ with a Visiontek Xtasy 5864 GF2Ti. Anyone have a similar setup that is running stable? I'd like to try changing settings in the bios just to see what this thing is capable of, just for curiosities sake, and for the fact that I bought this mobo for it's OC'ing ability.

I've got a TT 6Cu+ with AS3 and it runs about 53C at 76F ambient.

What should I start tinkering with first?

[KenKun]

53C at the default speed while idle i wouldn't recommend OCing your CPU at all .. you will suffer instability in many occasions ..
If you have a better cooling (Ex. Tt V7+), better air-flow in the case and a reliable power supply that can keep up with OCing .. then you can safely OC your CPU with minimum fears of instability ..

BTW, my XP1900+ (FSB 140) runs at 45C Full load and 40 Idle these days ... so you should consider serious cooling before going ahead with OCing if you don't want your wife to be angry

Regards

[Ultima]

Well,

if it is already running 53C in idle mode, then I'd say get some better case cooling and check if yer heatsink is mounted right.

How much is 76 F in C?? That's like 25-26C right??

My XP1900+ runs at 43C in an ambient temp of 77F.

So if ya wanna start clocking, better get that idle temp down, cause when yer at 53C already, you don't have much headroom.

Ohh yeah, might wanna check in yer bios that ya ain't running 1.85V through yer cpu, 1.75V is it's default.

Ultima

[RedFury]

I suppose I should have included that it is currently running ECCp like a good cow. My case temp is 28C. Usually it is running 43C idle. I do plan on Adding an additional (2) 80mm intake fans to complement the 2 exhaust fans before doing anything.

[Skywalker[TSG]]

My XP1800 has the same temp at default as it has @1667mhz
so you should be able to get it up higher


I see now that your running ECCp
try and set the FSB a bit higher

you shouldn't have a problem and if you do you can always take it back down to default

[RedFury]

Any suggestions as to a stopping point for my FSB? Other than an old ESS sound card, most of my slots are filled with quality ( 3com modem, Visiontek GF2ti ). I'm only worried about the ram as I have one stick of Micron and the other is Samsung.

[Skywalker[TSG]]

You stop when it gets unstable or overheats

[KenKun]

Don`t worry about RAM .. you have two high quality sticks ..

I have Three 256MB sticks (2 Crucial and 1 Elexior) .. they OC to 145FSB without a problem .. i just need to increase the voltage to keep them stable (from 2.5v to 2.8v)

As a first step bump your FSB to 136MHz then 140MHz and see if your PC is stable during benches (3DM2001 or SiSoft Burn-in ...etc) .. if not stable, increase the voltage a little for RAM and/or CPU then test again. (go in a very small step when tweaking voltage, and test .. better safe than sorry)

Good luck

[Ultima]

Redfury,

I know for sure that Micron ram will do 145Mhz fsb, that is, if you have the ram I think you have.
It could be the 7.5ns ram, and then it would be a little harder to reach that speed stable.

As for the Samsung ram, I'm not so sure that it'll go as high as the Micron ram, so.......

Take slow small steps indeed, better safe then sorry as everybody says.

Ultima

[Skywalker[TSG]]

If you look at your ram it should say something like -7 or -7.5 on the chip

that way you would be able to find out how high it can go
there is a formula for that but unfortunatly i dont remember it
but i'm sure someone else does.