HELP! Overclocking AM2 X2 3800 / GA-M59SLI MOBO

[BrockSampson]

I need advice on overclocking this system:

AM2 AThlon X2 3800
Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5
Patriot DDR2 - 800 1 gig cas. 4
7900 GT
600 watt PSU
blah blah blah...

First Question:
Should I use EasyTune5?
It only allows me to change FSB, CPU voltage, Multiplier, memory Freq, mem voltage...this doesnt seem like all the settings im going to need to tweak...

Second Question:
When tweaking in the BIOS under the M.I.T. catagory I can not find where to modify the HT. I can only modify the CPU HT - Link Voltage and HT-Link Voltage... they are two seperate things. Whats wrong here"

Third Question:
I want to take my 3800 X2 from 2.0 to 2.4 ghz and here are the settings I am trying to use:
CPU Freq : 240
Multiplier ratio : 10
CPU Voltage: 1.5

What else do I need to change? Will I have to clock down my DDR2? If so.. to what? Right now I plan on staying at 2.1 - 2.2 ghz and wait to take it to 2.4 until I get more advice from you guys. Thanks a lot guys!

 

[BrockSampson]

How come nobody has any answers / suggestions for me?

 

[w00ten]

well, with a 20% jump to processor speed its possible you will need to up voltage for stability or change the memory timings. Don't use easytune. its a piece of crap IMO and I don't think it even works to be honest. Also might wanna make sure that the DDR speed hasn't skyrocketed cause of the high CPU freq. Noone can tell you what to do though. It is different for every system. My X2 3800+ will not OC the same as yours. Thats why noone has answers for you. Try it out and seen what happens. If it doesnt work, change the settings, all this is trial and error which is why it is risky if you aren't sure what you are doing and do something stupid like pump the voltage too high.

 

[BrockSampson]

So what your saying is that I should be doing all of my overclocking in the BIOS? I should be keeping my DDR2 to around 800 right? Because if I increase to 2.4ghz the memory should be at 960 right? In that case how do I get it down to a resonable speed? How do I change the timings?

 

[w00ten]

yes, do all your OC'ing in the BIOS. Those tools are generally crap IMO and Easytune is only a one time thing. once you restart everything goes back to normal. I can't answer BIOS specific questions because I do not have that board. Try changing the divider for the memory to bring it back down to a reasonable speed.

 

[BrockSampson]

Well I figured out what my problem was and it was because my motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-M59SLI-S5 did not show the memory settins and HT multiplier by default. I remembered that you needed to unlock the menu for it. Well after 15 minutes trying a million different button presses it turns out that
ALT + SHIFT + F1 -or- CTRL + SHIFT + F1 honestly i forget which opened the menu. So i dropped my DDR2-800 down to DDR2-667 speeds increased its voltage +.02, increased my CPU voltage to 1.4 locked my pci-X to 100, and im doing 220 x 10 on my CPU. So I am getting a stable 2.2 on stock cooling. I am getting that awesome Zalman AM2 heatsink and headsinks for my SLI setup right now from newegg, should be here soon. After I get proper cooling im going to overclock to 2.4 and call it quits. Thank you for your help and suggestions!