Athlon 64 Overclock question

[doox00]

Just built an athlon 64 3500 system, 2 gigs ram, 6800 gt 2 x 200gb hdd's in raid 0, msi neo2 platinum mb, problem is I am not getting how to overclock it in the bios. I try adjusting the fsb up but its not doing anything, there is a multiplier.. only options are 4x to 11x although the manual shows its suppose to go up to 20x. what am I missing? anyone here have experience with overclocking a64's with this mainboard? this is my first athlon 64 system, and first non gigabyte/asus board as well.

 

[nightelf84]

Socket 939s does not let you increase the multi. You will only have the option of decreasing it. Socket 940 CPU opens up upper and lower multis. When you say you try adjusting the fsb up and its not doing anything, what does it not do? Is you fsb/dram ratio at 1:1? How much have you increased the fsb?

 

[doox00]

well, I put it at 220, it reboot after saving and would not post.. so I tried 205, it reboot and posted... but was still at 3500 and default frequencies.. did not go up at all. I figure I could get at least 2.4ghz outta it. I am just adjusting the fsb, it was at 200 by default. I would assume this is what I should be adjusting.. anything else?

 

[nightelf84]

you put it straight up to 220 without knowing it can handle that speed? bad bad boy =P The number one rule in overclocking is 'go slow'. And no, with overclocking, you would need to adjust quite a few things, namely fsb, voltages, and if your memory is running in-sync with your fsb, then you may need to adjust its voltage as well and maybe even timings.
ok, having said that, i think you really need to do some reading on this. There are lots of overclocking guides out there. The setup may not be 100% the same as yours but they provide a general 'How To'. Just google 'overclocking guide' .
Finally, don't ever ever increase your fsb by 20 in one go, you risk damaging your components. Anywho, read the guides out there and come back here if you encounter more problems.

 

[doox00]

okies, I will do a little more reading (overclocked multiple p4's I have owned.. this is my first a64) I did not do 220 first of all.. I did 210 first (modest overclock I would say), that rebooted, showed nothing at all, as far as clock speeds.. they were still at default.. so then tried 220.. would not post.. did 205 etc.. seems something is missing since when I did do 205, 210 etc clock speeds were the same. I do some reading on it though. thanks for the help.

 

[nightelf84]

it would seem that the fsb may have resetted itself. there must be an option in your BIOS that's doing this. I've done some reading on your board's bios, it seems that most of the overclocking options are in your 'cell' menu. Double check the options and see if any is causing this reset in fsb

 

[doox00]

yeah, thats where I have been doing the overclocking at, in the cell menu. unfortunetly the box is at work on the bench so I cannot mess with it now more. I will play around with it more tomorrow.

Do you have any good, recent urls on overclocking guides? I did a google.. but most the stuff I was finding was older stuff. Would rather find something more recent dealing with todays cpu's and video cards.

 

[nightelf84]

There are quite a few good ones. This one is from AnandTech Forums:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1441072&enterthread=y

This one is from nForcersHQ forum, even though its not your mobo or cpu, it serves as a great general guide:
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23939

 

[doox00]

thanks for the links, appreciate it.

 

[GoLLuM4444]

On this subject, is it always better to keep lowering the multiplier? I'm running my fx55 on 280x11.5 (=3220) under my mach2. Is 11.5 a sensible multiplier to achieve the best overclock?

 

[elixxx]

the half multi dosent work on A64 eg 0.5 multis goes down a step like 11.5 gets 11. use only whole multi settings.

 

[nightelf84]

Its always best to achieve a balance. Usually, the multiplier is lowered to around 9 or 10 in order to find the highest FSB you can achieve. Once you've found the limit of your FSB, you can start increasing the multiplier. Of course the higher the multi, you get more raw Mhz, which increases performance.

 

[GoLLuM4444]

What's this about half multipliers?

 

[fr33ze]

@ GoLLuM4444
it's best not to run 939 a64's on half multipliers as it affects the memory devider and your ram will be running slower than you think. nice oc btw though....I want phase change

 

[XooM]

make sure dynamic OCing is off first (its in cell menu). make sure you're in manual mode.

 

[GoLLuM4444]

@ GoLLuM4444
it's best not to run 939 a64's on half multipliers as it affects the memory devider and your ram will be running slower than you think. nice oc btw though....I want phase change

Yeah and that was in the few hours I had it running before my hdd blew up. I should be able to get some more out of it when I get a new one.
Also I was using an old 478 mounting kit which I drilled holes in to fit on 939.
Also I just found some pc4800 (not ddr2) which I didn't even know existed so hopefully I'll get that and get an even better overclock.

 

[fr33ze]

how much money you got, give me some. and just cuz memory is rated highly doesn't mean it'll overclock better, fairly certain you could get some OCZ 3200 EB ram that'll oc just as well as that 4800 stuff

 

[GoLLuM4444]

I already have OCZ pc4000 but the point is that with pc4800 you don't have to overclock it at all, you just set it to run at 300 htt and smile . Also I get the money from selling my brother the old RAM. Duh.