best way to UNDERclock? - Tech Support Forums

SoopaStar · February 18th, 2003, 06:13 PM

I've posted before about my horrible time with this soyo dragon and my ati 8500DV card. I underclocked the FSB to 100 from 133 and the machine runs fine. the 1.4ghz tbird allows me to change the clock multiplier in the bios and I can change the FSB in 1mhz increments. If I set teh core speed to 100mhz, what would be the safest and most stable mhz+clock multiplier you think I could go with? I tried a 125x11 (1375mhz) but that didn't work well at all. Ideas?

Thanks
Paul

jrock · February 18th, 2003, 06:38 PM

I don't mean to jump the gun (sounds like you've posted about this board before) but the last two times I had to underclock a chip (FSB) is because the chip was faulty. Sorry if this has already been touched on....just commenting on it all

SoopaStar · February 18th, 2003, 07:13 PM

thanks for the input. The PC works fine as long as I don't use the 8500DV. have a mean uptime of 22 days with my GeForce256 in there.

Target · February 18th, 2003, 08:03 PM

So this is just a matter of the video card acting up then when running at FSB speeds beyond 100Mhz?

It could be simply that the 8500 doesn't want to run too far out of the 66Mhz AGP spec.

What are the AGP/PCI bus dividers available with your board?

SoopaStar · February 18th, 2003, 08:14 PM

they are set at whatever the defaults are in the bios. I'm really not sure. I'm not overclocking the board at all. It actually ran stable for 5 days at 137mhz (instead of 133).

Target · February 19th, 2003, 05:23 AM

I guess what we/I need here is some clarification on exactly what CPU you have. Is it the Athlon 1.4 based on the 200Mhz FSB (2x100) or the 1.4 based on the 266Mhz FSB (2x133)?

You said "I underclocked the FSB to 100 from 133 and the machine runs fine" which leads me to believe that you think you have a Athlon Palamino (266Mhz FSB = 2x133Mhz) because of the underclock statement. This might not be the case. You might actually have a Athlon Thunderbird (200Mhz FSB = 2x100Mhz).

IF, that is the case, then running the FSB beyond 100Mhz will require additional changes in the bios. Things like changing the AGP divider so that the actual speed of the AGP bus more closely approximates the specification of 66Mhz, increasing the voltage supplied to the system components, etc., in order to achieve a successful over-clock.

The fact that you are able to get the system to operate at a higher FSB with one video card versus another really doesn't tell us much except that one card possibly is able to withstand a higher AGP speed than another, which is something we all recognize as a given.

What I suggest is the following:

(1) Lets verify exactly what CPU it is you have. The Thunderbird or the Palamino (100 FSB or 133).

(2) Get it to work using the default, and correct, settings for the CPU, voltage, RAM timings, etc., and all the components you wish to use (such at the ATI 8500).

One other thing that I am going to ask you to do is to list very specific detail about your system build and all its parts. Provide for us a complete list of all the components in your system, including parts, model numbers, known rated specifications (such as speed, CAS latency for RAM, voltage of the power supply, etc.)

From there we can go about trying to resolve your issues, or over-clock if that is what you want to do and see how far we are able to push your system and have it remain stable. Keep in mind this varies greatly from one system build to another. There is no magic formula that will allow everyone to achieve the same end result.

As jrock said, assuming that ALL settings are correct for default and specified operation of the system components, not being able to operate the computer with those settings may indicate a bad piece of hardware.

Amgis · February 19th, 2003, 06:12 AM

Quick suggestion, but do you have fastwrites disabled in bios? Radeons don't support this and love crashing when it's on...

SoopaStar · February 19th, 2003, 09:10 AM

athlon 1.4ghz, 266 model
ATI All-In-Wonder 8500DV, 64MB DDR, 4x AGP (fast writes disabled)
(2) Crucial PC2100 DDR ECC 256MB sticks cas 2.5
3com 3c905tx PC NIC
Linksys wireless network card
western digital wd300BB 30gb
western digital wd800bb 80GB
iomega zipCD 16x12x32x
Windows 2000 SP3, all recent updates

Also, one thing to note, almost all the Dragon series motherboards have had a bios update since January except mine. A few of them even had issues with Radeon cards, and one specifically with my card. They have not had a bios update for my K7v board for many many months.

Paul

J-Excel · February 19th, 2003, 09:19 AM

Have you tried tweaking the AGP port? I had to tweak the voltage and force 1x AGP to get GF2 to work on a mobo once. Might want to search Google groups and see if anyone else has had that problem too.

Target · February 19th, 2003, 01:50 PM

Ok, sorry to do this to you, but I'm still a bit confused about exactly what it is you have.

In an earlier related Techimo post you stated that you have a Soyo board based on the KT133 chipset. Post can be found here:

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t46848.html

Yet, above you make references to your board being a K7V Soyo Dragon which uses a different chipset, the KT266. To my knowledge, Soyo didn't make any motherboards based on the KT133 chipset and call them "Dragon".

If you could clear up which motherboard and chipset you have, I think it would help a lot in being able to provide you with advice.

If your motherboard uses the KT133 chipset, and you set the FSB speed to 100Mhz, you're underclocking the processor and ram, but not the motherboard FSB. Everything I have read and observed about the KT133 chipset is that its able to overclock only a slight amount from its default speed of 100Mhz (approximately 10% = 110Mhz FSB speed) regardless of the multiplier used.

If your motherboard uses the KT266 chipset, then given the components you have already listed you shouldn't be required to underclock the CPU and ram by using a FSB speed lower than 133Mhz. If you do in order to get the machine to run stable, it leads me to believe that there is a hardware problem. Perhaps a bad CPU, not a strong enough power supply, faulty ram, etc..

Make sense?