overclocking from 133fsb to 166fsb. Hopefully?

[chrisguy]

Due to a drunken knee injury im stranded at home with nothing to do but compute all day. Im wanting to overclock the FSB of my machine to 166mhz.<BR>System Specs:<BR><BR>Athlon Xp 1700 with Volcano 7+ HSF<BR>Soyo Dragon KT333 Platinum <BR>512mb Apacer PC2700<BR>Gainward Ti4200 Golden Sample<BR>2-80gig Maxtor D740X<BR>Enermax 350w PSU<BR>Housed in a Lian-Li PC65B<BR><BR>I've never overclocked any systems before so any help, hints, do's and don'ts would be appreciated. What i'd idealy like to achive is as system running fairly cool, quite, and stable at 166fsb. Should my system be able do do this with a little help? I've tried changing the CPU multiplier to 9x and raising the FSB to 166mhz (9 x 166mhz = 1494mhz) but my system wouldnt post. I didnt change any of the voltage settings cause I didnt know what the default Vcore setting for an 1700+ was? or how much to bump them up? Any tips here would help.<BR><BR>As is this setup at 133mhz FSB runs at 41C (106F) and gets up to 46C under load. If overclocked to 166FSB how much hotter do CPU's get?<BR><BR>Any help, question, comments would be greatly appreciated<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[Colin]

Hey chrisguy welcome to PCStats! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>First are you using a locked or unlocked processor? If it's locked and you change the multiplier, it can cause your system to not POST. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif" border="0"> Instead of jumping directly to 166 MHz chrisguy you should raise your FSB slowly... Maybe 3-5 MHz at a time till you find your system is starting to lose stabiliy. Once that happens, you'll want to raise your CPU voltage. Your default voltage is most likely 1.75V raise it to 1.85V, don't worry you that won't kill your processor! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>Please keep in mind, without unlocking your processor there's no guarentee that you can hit 166 MHz FSB. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif" border="0"> I can see it happening, but overclocking is luck of the draw.<BR><BR>Good luck and let us know how you do! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[Avid6eek]

If you had a T-Bred Athlon XP 1700 (currently costing $46.99) you could most likely achive what your looking to do.

[IOU]

Hey I noticed that nobody answered your ? How much hotter will it run . Quite abit I imagine considering all the hype on cooling and OC. They go hand in hand make sure you get a better cooling system before OC'ing .<BR><BR>And as for me I will be laid up soon (monday) for knee surgey so I will Oc this puppy too (2700+) I can almost reach 1400 with software and bios tweaks . this system also runs on a network with FIle and print shareing > soon Iwill tear it down and leave stand alone with Fresh install . And one speaker like Colins <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

[Colin]

Haha... I missed that one IOU! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0"> <BR><BR>Actually it's a bit difficult to say how much hotter your CPU will get chrisguy... You got a good HSF combo so I think you'd be ok.

[bluegreenshxt]

well i want a Tbred 1700+ badly..hahaha...i hear they can easily clock to 2400+ levels...but o well..tahts just my dream..LOL...hahaha<BR><BR>after reading chrisguys post...should you lower the multiplier as much as you can and set the fsb to run syncronously (ignore the spelling) with the ram then up the multiplier bit by bit?? would that help or should we just up the fsb or just the multiplier?? or is there actually a good balance??

[chrisguy]

Ok i've successfully been able to raise the FSB to 159mhz and run stablely. 11 x 159mhz = 1749mhz<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0"> Vcore@1.85v AGP@1.6v<BR><BR>But any higher and windows will not boot properly: "Windows has recovered from and error blah blah blah" Is the any hard drive tweaks you must do to run at higher FSB speeds? I remember seeing something about this but cant find it any more? Something about PIO mode and DMA modes?<BR><BR>Are ALL athlon XP's multipliers locked to begin with?<BR><BR>How hot, is too hot, for an 1700+ to run stablely at?<BR><BR>And what how high can you safely raise the AGP voltage? The max in my bios is 1.8v.<BR><BR>Since im using PC2700 can the voltage settings stay at default because its not actually being oc'ed yet?

[Colin]

Nice chrisguy! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>Hmm, do you happen to know what stepping you have? If your XP 1700+ is an early model (like AGKGA) it won't go much higher on air. At 159 MHz FSB speed, your AGP and PCI's are running 79.5 MHz and 39.7 MHz which is quite high. Personally I have never had any problems running my devices at those frequencies but lower end peripherals <b>can</b> hold you back. Can you list your complete spec's (like soundcard and NIC/modem as well)? From my experience anyway I find that the Maxtor D740X's can handle high FSB's pretty well so you shouldn't have to wory about setting your HDD to PIO mode.<BR><BR>chrisguy, all Palomino based AthlonXP's are multiplier locked by default. Thoroughbred XP's are not, but it gets a bit complicated on which ones can access what multiplier.<BR><BR>In general I wouldn't want to run a Palomino chip above 60 degrees celsius. To let you know though AMD says the chips can run reliably till 90 degrees I believe.<BR><BR>I'm surprised you had to raise the AGP voltage to overclock chrisguy, AGP videocards especially name brand ones usually handle high AGP's pretty well.<BR><BR>Lastly yes you can leave your memory voltage at stock. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">