Disapointing overclock (first time)

[dave4900]

Ok this is my first ever attempt at overclocking.
My system:
Athlon 1333 (133)
Abit KT7A V1.3
512mb Cheap PC 133 Sdram
Radeon 64Mb DDR TIVO
Soundblaster 5.1 live
Lian Li Pc 60 case
Globwin Cak 88 HSF
300W PSU

So far I have managed 1466mhz by changing the multiplier to 11 (won't go any higher(won't post))
Or 1473mhz multiplyier @9.5 fsb @155mhz pci @38mhz.

First off which is better, secondly any tips to further increase this.

Ps I am using award bios and I have the latest version for my board

 

[Unolocogringo]

The higher fsb will be your best overclock. Cpu are fast enough. The real bottleneck is the cpu waiting on memory reads and hard drive reads. Increasing the FSB increases the rate omfmemory amd H/D reads and writes.

I aint signing nothing!!!

 

[phsstpok]

Which Athlon stepping do you have?

I have a Tbird 1000, AYHJAR-Y stepping overclocked to 1500 Mhz (150*10) on an Epox 8KTA3PRO mobo (KT133A). 1620 is the highest at which I have POSTed <b>and</b> run Windows (but for less than an hour). I've been able to POST at 1728 Mhz but I need to underclock the bus to 128Mhz and the system won't load Windows. I needed to set core voltage to 2.05 to get it to boot that high. Going to 2.25 volts didn't improve overclocking and with air cooling probably wasn't very healthy for the Tbird.

My power supply seems to be getting weaker and weaker. It used to maintain 4.78 volts for the 5 volt rail when overclocked at 1500 Mhz. Now I see the voltage drop to 4.52 volts at load and the system becomes a bit unstable. I think adding the Radeon 8500 over a Geforce2 GTS-V was just too much for my little Enermax (330 watts) power supply.

My tips for better overclocking.

- You could do the voltage MOD for the KT7A so that you can get higher core voltage. (The Epox 8KTA3PRO has a factory "MOD". There are jumpers that allow me to add 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 volt to the BIOS core voltage setting).

- You didn't mention your CPU temps. Max is different for each CPU/motherboard/level of overclock but you might be nearing your limit. Try experimenting with more cooling. A quick and dirty way to do this is to leave the case open and use a room fan to blow in extra air. If this helps you can give case fan and CPU fan upgrades a try.

For me, at 1500 Mhz, I need to keep CPU temp below about 48 degrees to maintain stability. When I use the Delta fan temp isn't too much of a problem and I can overclock the system to 1540 (154 * 10) and still keep peak temp to about 46 degrees. With the quieter (much quieter!) Y.S.Tech TMD fan (which I am currently using) peak temps exceed 50 degrees and I can't run at 1500 Mhz. I can run at 1425 (150 * 9.5) but I don't bother. At 1333 Mhz (133 * 10) I keep PCI and AGP at stock most of the time but when I need it, I can simply use SoftFSB or SetFSB to overclock the bus to 150 on the fly. I need to use the room fan trick.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[dave4900]

My cpu temps seem to be fine before overclocking just running win2k was a constant 40c. After, it ran happily at around 43/44c this included upping the voltage to 1.85. I did manage to get the clock speed to almost 1.6 but it kept crashing(this was through fsb overclocking and changing the multiplier to 9.5). I couldn't get it to post over 11x, and if I altered the fsb when it was at 10x it would also not post, any more ideas would be greatful, I'm sure I could get more out of this system.

Ps I don't want to upgrade anything that is why I have started overclocking.

 

[phsstpok]

Well, you might be stuck where you are.

I needed higher core voltage than 1.85 volt to go beyond 1.5 Ghz at all.

Check your +5 volt readings at load to be sure you are not having problems supply power to the CPU. You can use Motherboard Monitor 5 in the logging mode to do this.


<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[Lord_Goffery]

Pray.......

 

[The_Thing]

Through my experiences overclocking the front side bus is a more effective way. By overclocking the FSB you are increasing the external clock of the CPU simoltaneously.
As a fact, Athlon CPU's aren't meant for extreme clock speeds, there for if you want to overclock alot then you'd be better off with a P4, 2.5 or 2.8 GHZ for example, but it comes at a price, I personally don't have alot of money, I go with AMD because AMD's fastest CPU XP 2600 is about $375 where Intel's top model is $650, if you have the money, the fastest P4's are faster than the fastest XP's right now.