OC a Celeron 2.0GHz Northwood Socket 478 on GA-8IG1000MK?

[ChrisLee]

How far can I OC a Celeron 2.0GHz Northwood Socket 478 on a GA-8IG1000MK motherboard?

What would be the safe limits with the stock coolers?

This is on a pre-built Gigabyte PC with an upgraded Award BIOS F1.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Scout]

The 2 GHz. Celerons were very nice overclockers because I believe they were all from the "C" stepping or better of the P4 line. You can check that by downloading CPU-z and it will identify the stepping.

You should be able to get an easy 2.66 GHz. by putting the FSB to 133. Follow the P4 overclocking guide sticky note at the top of this forum for the methodology. And as always, watch your temps as you go...

I've never used that board of yours, so you'll just have to see what it'll give you. I have one of these 2.0 chips at 2.9 GHz. FSB 145 MHz. at 1.5 volts on an MSI 845 board.

 

[ChrisLee]

What would you say as normal temperatures? Is it alright if I keep my VCore normal? (There's no such function to change it in bios, the voltage isn't anywhere, all I can do is change FSB.

Currently, I can only go up to 131 -> 2.6GHz and then I ran the tests for Prime95. Any other efficient ways?

 

[Scout]

Mine runs between 50 and 55 C under load at 2.9 GHz. with stock cooling.

What's your board giving the CPU for voltage? You can check it with CPU-z. One of the later 2.0 Celeron steppings had a 1.25 - 1.525 volt rating and if you are at the bottom of that range you aren't going to get much more speed out of it unless you can get to 1.5 volts at least.

I believe there are some pin mods you can look into for VID changes on these Northwood based Celerons, but I have not tried it.

 

[ChrisLee]

That's my overclocked settings.

 

[Scout]

There are no guarantees with overclocking, but since you have a "D" stepping chip and have it at close to 1.6 volts, it should be good for somewhere closer to 3 GHz.

I'd bet something other than the CPU is limiting your overclock to 2.6 GHz. What are you running your memory at? Are your AGP and PCI locked at 66/33?

 

[ChrisLee]

Yeah, it's set to 66/33/100.

The memory frequency is either auto or can be set to 2.66.

 

[Scout]

Try the 266 memory setting which should keep your memory from limiting the overclock at least until you figure out what the chip will do.

 

[ChrisLee]

Is there any risk of burning out instantly if I set it to 2.66 and up the FSB?

 

[Scout]

Setting the memory to a different speed isn't going to hurt anything. Upping voltages, especially long term, can damage components, but you were talking memory speed, right?

The worst that can happen "instantly" with overclocking is you get into a "no boot" situation where you have to clear the BIOS in order to restore standard settings so it will boot again.