I'm an absolute beginner.. and absolutely insane..

[EBuyGum]

Lets start with what I have :

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ CPU Skt 939 San Diego
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9
OCZ Premier Dual Channel Kit 2x512MB DDR400 PC3200 CL 2.5-3-3-7
Sapphire X800 GTO2 256

Overclocked the graphics card up to x850 XT PE levels no problem (luvvly!) but not having much luck elsewhere.

I don't wanna do anything too extreme.. but from all the reviews I read, the 3700 was o/c-able to around 2.6 on stock cooling just by hiking up the FSB to somewhere around 237-ish (stock 200). Can't get the thing past 218 though.. anything more and I don't get anywhere near Windows.. just reboots. (At 218, it runs at 28-31 degrees).

To save anyone the trouble of saying so, I put my hands up right now to being an o/c novice, stupid, naieve, annoying and not fit to own a computer.. never mind try to o/c one. That said.. I've got the bug.. so any help at all would be appreciated!!

Cheers

 

[survivor]

Possible reasons:

1- Cheap and unsufficient psu

2 - Your board is not much overclockable (not sure about it)

3- mOST probably you are doing something wrong it is impossible to get over 218 with those rams.

give some info about what have you done to reach 2.6 ..

 

[EBuyGum]

Many thanks for your reply - and sorry.. I meant to mention the PSU. Don't know much about it, other than its an X-Power 400w - and that it received some reasonable reviews.

As for the mobo.. again, the reviews suggested it was reasonably spec'd (spec http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_Spec_GA-K8NF-9.htm ). I guess the important bit is this :

Its an nForce4
CPU HT / Multiplier / Vcore Voltage adjustable via BIOS
PCI-ExpessX16 Voltage / Clock adjustable via BIOS
DIMM Voltage / Clock adjustable via BIOS

I haven't actually hit 2.6 - I've only hit 2.4 (218 x 11) and I've done this just by upping the FSB from 200 to 218. I've not touched anything else.. but various reviews suggested that I could push this up to around 236 or more without changing voltage etc. Just wondering why I only get to 218?

 

[EBuyGum]

Ok.. I'm all sorted!

First thing I did was upgrade the mb bios.. gave me a few more options and a bit more explanation too. I gave the "Auto" option too much credit I think.. believing it would calculate the correct HT/RAM settings (told you I was naieve!!). Now I've realised that aint the case, I've changed stuff manually and now got a moderate overclock from 200 to 240 (or 2.2 to 2.6GHz) - no voltage changes and it's running sweet so far!

Thats enough for me for now.. just gonna enjoy my newly built, slightly overclocked pc for a while.

Thanks for your help

 

[RichPLS]

That is a vanilla nForce board, isn't it?
Same features as nForce 3, still no SATA II support, no Active Armor, no Gigabit Lan.

 

[EBuyGum]

You're right about Active Armor and SATA II support.. but does have Gigabit Lan.

 

[survivor]

he is right ı have even hit from 2.0 to 2.4 with this cheap rams. the only thing ı have done to raise the cpu fsb from 200 to 240 and from auto to 4x the htt multiplier no voltage and ram settings change and is ok now so ı wish you had bought an epox 9npaJ or dfı lan party then it would have been a perfect rig but it is good anyway. if your ram settings 1:1 ı mean ram fsb is same with cpu fsb(260) right now it is the best you can do without doing the hard stuff you know voltage increases, using ram dividers so let it be as it is and enjoy at least for a year then a video card upgrade is needed.

ı almost forgot to say that psu is a VERY important factor for overclocking it your psu is a generic oem one or not much powerful as you need it might be your problem ı knew it becasue ı had a generic psu befor that one it cost me (90 $ in turkey) ı couldn't overclock my video card.

 

[survivor]

dude ı have just checked the link that you have given and I am really sorry for you because that shity mobo doesn't deserve that cpu and ram. here is my advice. if you have just bought it and can change it, buy an Epox http://www.epox.com.tw/eng/products_content.php?ps=369 or epox http://www.epox.com.tw/eng/products_content.php?ps=394 or DFI http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3471&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=US if it is possible.

 

[EBuyGum]

Thanks guys.. I guess I was bit impatient.. shoulda done a bit more reading up before I went for that mobo uh? I'll put it right come pay day!

 

[tylerthedruid]

So do you overlcok a processor by increasing the multiplier or the FSB? Does overclocking the processor automatically overclock the other computer parts?