New to OC'ing and want to pump up my new rig

[Chris41279]

I just got a new system. My spec's are as follows,

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600 AM2 processor
M2N4-SLI Motherboard AM2 Socket
EVGA 8800 GTS 640 MB (not OC'd)
4 GB DDR2-667
250 GB WD 7200 rpm SATA-II 16 mb
Samsung 18 X Dual Layer, Lightscribe DVD multi recorder
2 x 36.7 gb WD Raptor (not yet installed, need splitter for sata power)
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Samsung 19" 913T LCD (Upgrading to Samsung 22" 226BW "S" Panel)
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Speakers 505 watt's RMS 1000w peak(had these forever)
Cooling = 1 x 250mm side case fan, 2 x 120mm front(intake) and rear(exhaust) fans
600 Watt SLI ready PS (Upgrading to something better soon, this one just doesnt have all the cables i need)

I want to OC this system some, i received an 8174 on my 3Dmark06 score. But it said i wasnt using approved drivers. So im wondering if i have to upgrade my Forceware or something. This is the first Nvidia card i've ever owned. I previously had an ATI Radeon X1650 pro 512 card. So now im trying to get the best out of what i have. Any input or direction would be GREAT!!

Thanks!

 

[Chris41279]

Wow, well apparently you guys are ANTI-Noob or something.. Almost 80 views and not one response. If im too much of a noob to help out, someone just say so and i'll cancel my account here and go somewhere else. Kinda making me wonder if this is one of those forums full of know-it-all's that think they're better than everyone. If you dont know what they know, then you aint good enough.

 

[morerevs]

Maybe if you yourself put in a little research and come up with more specific questions other than: "here's my specs, make me a template" that would show you are actually willing to learn something about OC-ing. There are some guides stickied at the top of the page filled with info on FSB, memory, voltage and chipset settings that basically work for any system so read those first and have a look around in your BIOS to see if you can make any sense of it.
Then, if you have some questions about certain settings you can always post them here. As for many people reading your post and not replying, I've seen some people here write complete essays on how to OC or explaining basic ideas to someone only for the OP to go M.I.A as soon as it got a little difficult. There is some hessitation towards new posters to really get invested in only to find out they've posted there questions in a dozen other forums and never return here. Have some patience, show you're serious, and you will be helped.

Don't give up so easily

 

[turpit]

What morerevs said.
2 things. First you said you want to overclock without specifying. Your talking about your video card at the end of your post...is that what you to OC? If so, you'd be better of posting in the overclocking section rather than the CPU section. Or did you want to OC the CPU/RAM?

Second, your running a 5600...it runs at 2.8GHz stock. Youre really not going to get that much more out of it. The 5600 is a 90nm CPU, and the highest factory clocked AMD 90nm is the 6000 @ 3.0 GHz. If you want to pursue OCing the CPU to any significant amount, you're going to have to go to liquid cooling.

 

[Chris41279]

I have a bad feeling my friend done messed things up as it is. I wanted to OC the CPU/RAM and the vid card actually. I have gotten the blue screen of death like 20 x's over the last few days.

I was posting in another forum too. This is what i've said so far in the other forum. If anyone can check this out and tell me if somethings permanently messed up i'd be greatly appreciative. Also if you can tell me what you think it is thats messed up so i can look for replacement parts.

"I have a bad feeling my MB is limiting my OC'ing abilities. First i tried using the AI overclocking. I tried 3%, that worked, 5%, that worked, 8% it locks up and wont run stable. A buddy of mine came over and adjusted some stuff, and it ran stable for a bit, then started locking up again. But we could only OC my CPU to 2960. I was wanting badly to get it over 3ghz, but apparently its not happening. Unless there's something im missing, 2960 looks to be the highest im reaching with this CPU/MB combo. Im thinking i may have to go ahead and try and go for the M2N32-SLI Deluxe MB in order to get better OC'ing.

If there's any hints and tips someone can help me out with i'd be greatly appreciative."

"I've received the blue screen of death many many times since yesterday. Finally it stopped long enough for me to write down the STOP ERROR.

Does anyone recall what this stop error is about and what its associated with?\

0x0000003B (0x0000000080000003, 0xFFFFF80001026D90, 0XFFFFFADF81883080, 0X0000000000000)

That is the stop error i received. My system has recovered from MULTIPLE serious errors. My friend came over a few weeks ago and manually adjusted some settings in my BIOS one day. Well since im not very well versed in OC'ing, and he's a PC repair tech also, i trusted him to mess around with things. Well since then, things have locked up here and there, and every time i try and adjust this or that things get worse it seems like. I've tried opening multiple programs today and got the blue screen. But i've never been able to read them. The system just reboots back into windows again.

Any and ALL help will be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Right now CPU-Z says voltage is fluctuating from 1.296 to 1.312v. But i keep trying to open things and get the blue screen flash and then the PC reboots, such as control panel, Security Center and other things. It boots up fast though, just as it always has. I've never done anything when it comes to OC'ing really. Except messing with ATITool for my X1650 and messing with Ntune some over the past few days. So upping the voltages is not something i just want to go messing with, without knowing some exact info from someone. Please!?!?!?!?!?"

"The thing is, everything is at default right now. My clocks are all at default settings and im having this problem now. Now im getting scared, since im thinking you guys thought i was still OC'd.. "

"So does it sound as if something may be fried? Permanently? And if so, what is it so i know what to replace. I dont know what programs i can use to test and figure out whats the problem. Figured the stop error code would help someone with some superior knowledge figure out whats going on.

As i said, all my settings are default at the moment. I did just update my BIOS also, so dont know if the update could've messed me up or not. Im so confused over what to do about this."


Thats what i've posted on the other forum already. IF that information gives anyone any better idea, please let me know.

Im wondering if i may have to reformat, or switch back to 32 bit windows. I've been running 64 bit on this PC since i installed the OS. I was receiving 8174 on 3Dmark06 but now im scared to open anything with the way the blue screen has been flashing lately.

Im sorry guys, im just not well versed into this stuff, and now i think my rig's messed up and its my friends fault. If im wrong someone let me know before i toss away his friendship and beat his face in.... Nothing acted funny till he started tweaking this or that setting. He showed me what to do in Ntune, and i only followed those directions and let the program do its own thing with the tuning option.

 

[morerevs]

Firstly, what version of windows are you using ? Also does the BSOD error give you a file name or other text besides the number. You mention it flashing by swiftly. Set your windows to not auto reboot in case of errors. It's in Control panel->System->Advanced-> Start and recovery options-> untick Automatic reboot (rough translation) Now if you get an error it will pause and you can write the complete error message down. From just the first numbers it gave me a Microsoft error page for windows 200 and 2003 so I don't know if they are of help.
However it seems to have something to do with memory so you might try downloading memtest86+ and test yours. It could be that not your mobo or CPU are holding you back, but your mem is. Also AI tuning.... meh, it's great for seeing if your system can handle a little extra but manual settings are far more stable (if you know what you're doing )

Are you sure all your BIOS settings are back to normal/correct values? You mention flashing it to the latest version, did you put in all the correct values for your system after that or leave it at default. If all eelse fails (like setting them manually) try a CMOS reset to jolt the bios.

I'm not up on AMD CPU's but what Turpit says sounds reasonable and seems to be supported by your AI results. It could very well have been the upper limit for this particular CPU, and as far as deluxe boards go, they usually only have more options but not so much better chipsets or OC capabilities so don't rush out to buy one and be dissappointed.

Make sure bios settings are OK, run memtest for a few hours or even try running only two gigs as some boards are picky with mem brands/size/number of sticks and to be sure check your CPU temps. It could be as simple as that.

Let us know when you find out more.

end essay

 

[Chris41279]

Ok i can't get it to work. First i downloaded the precompiled version thats supposed to be able to install via windows. But it says it doesnt support 64 bit. So then i downloaded the ISO version and tried to burn it on CD and it just keeps popping up saying what would you like to open this type of file with. I tried using Nero 7 to burn the files to disc, i guess it didnt work. Can anyone assist?

 

[morerevs]

I take it you're referring to memtest? Make sure you use nero Disk Image burner and have it set to CD not DVD. It only works on a CD-rom. Make sure you download the correct ISO file and extract it before burning (it comes as a ZIP file) You can download winrar for this here:
http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

GL.

 

[Chris41279]

Going to try that now. Bbiab

 

[Chris41279]

I dont see Nero Disk Image Burner. Is it called something else? I have Nero 7 Ultra Edition. It gives me quite a few options of programs to open. Such as Nero Burning ROM, Nero Express, Nero Soundtrax, wave editor, coverdesigner, etc... Which is it?

 

[morerevs]

When you open Nero Express it should be listed at the bottom as disk image or saved project.

 

[Chris41279]

Still not working for some odd reason. I dont know what the heck is wrong. But when i toss the CD in, try and let it autoplay it doesnt work. I then open the CD drive, open the folder and try clicking on either boot.cat or memtest.img but neither do anything. Image and ISO's are weird to me, i always seem to have issues trying to get them working.

 

[morerevs]

You need to reboot the computer, enter BIOS and set it to boot from cdrom. Then when it says press a key to boot from cd do so and it should automatically start memtest. The best thing to do is let it run 2 or 3 times to see if there are any errors, if not, mem is probably good. Remember that sometimes your keyboard will not respond during memtest, however this only happens if you have no support for USB keyboards. When memtest is done you can just reboot, enter BIOS again and set it to boot from harddisk.

GL.

 

[Chris41279]

I let memtest run for about an hour last night, got through about 8 or 9 tests i think. Passed 5%, or something like that. I had other things to do on the PC last night so i exited it early, didnt realize it took forever and a day to complete one pass. So i'll let it run overnight tonight and see how it does.