Max 4600 x2 Overclocks

[bctaaka]

alright so kinda new to but already addicted to the whole overclocking thing (nothing beats free upgrades)
got my 1st custom build that i just finished about 4-5 months ago and finally decided to overclock my 4600 x2 windsor after it burnt in a little bit
got it to 2.75 Ghz at stock voltage.....think i have seen higher just wondering what some of you other guys have accomplished with this cpu??? highest??

I am using a Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 (rev. 1.0) mobo
2x2gb G.Skill ddr2 800
sapphire hd 3650 ddr3 @ (837/999)
Antec Performance One P180 Silver Case
amd 4600 x2 windsor 90 nm @ 2.75 Ghz with x11 multi and 250 fsb or htt with stock cooler( yeh i know ) actually not that bad b/c i turned off the smart fan control and "cool and quiet" (which i'm pretty sure that i read on here that you are supposed to do with overclocking right?) and my idle temp is 29- 32 C

....any tips on how to get higher for right now?

 

[B-Unit]

You can try feeding it a bit more voltage. Dont add more than .2V and you should be fine. Remember to start low (+.05 is ideal if your motherboard has steps that small)and work up, see if it will give you more MHz.

 

[big_joro]

my athlon 4000+ x2 is overcloked form 2.1Ghz to 2.93Ghz.http://img.tomshardware.com/forum/uk/icones/message/icon6.gif

 

[bctaaka]

on stock hsf and voltage?

 

[big_joro]

on 1.35

 

[ixnemesisca]

hey bctaaka i have the same cpu as u and i'm also using the stock hsf. i was looking to OC also but hadn't really found anyone that had seriously done it b4 so i'm glad i found your thread. the lowest temps that i've seen my cpu at are around 33-39C idle they go up to about 45C+ wen under full load. (133F while running Prime95's torture test). i think my idle temps are higher than urs because of the ambient temp in my house. i think i'm going to try your settings soon and see if it's stable. but anyhow thank you. i'll let you know if i can get it any higher than the 2.75ghz.

specs:
AMD Athlon 64x2 4600+ @ 2.4ghz
MSI K9N Platinum mobo
eVGA GeForce 8800gtx
GEIL 2 x 1gb DDR2 800
OCZ StealthXStream 600W psu
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1
500gb Seagate Barracuda hdd
SAMSUNG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner
Raidmax Smilodon Case
3 80mm fans & 2 120mm fans
Samsung 19" LCD monitor

 

[bctaaka]

hey ixnemesisca : yah nice to finally find someone with the same goal on here for this cpu but yah get back to me and let me know how your initial overclock goes with the settings i used and we'll take it from there...note: my idle temps have gone up a bit b/c of ambient temp as well (A/C bill was killing me here in LA : louisiana) but you still have very good idle and load temps (aka some room to mess around with for some o/c)....i'm almost positive you can hit the 2.75 ive currently managed and probably higher..

good luck

 

[ixnemesisca]

yea i was overclocking just like 2 hrs ago again and i have the cpu freq at 208.5, multiplier at 12. so i'm at a 2.5ghz now... i tried slowly pushing it up by setting the cpu freq to 215mhz but then my comp wud boot and then windows would give me a message saying some system32/config file was missing/corrupt... but wen i lower the cpu freq again it boots up fine. so idk. i tried your settings a few days ago it didn't work. but that was b4 i did some other stuff i will try it again soon. right now i'm too hungry =[ haha

 

[bctaaka]

the only thing i think that MAYBE affecting your oc.....
i have 4 gb of ram and a different mobo

make sure you have the laest bios for your mobo and then
try lowering your multi and increasing fsb
or try same settings and kick up the voltage a bit

with my settings did you have it @ 1.35 v-1.4 v

 

[ixnemesisca]

i think it might be the mobo, don't think the ram is too big of a factor...is it?

i'll check to make sure my bios are the latest ones. but i think they shud be because i just built my pc like 3 weeks ago.

i'm going to try at it again hopefully till i get it. have u stress tested ur pc? using prime95 or something to make sure it's stable?

also, i read that for my mobo if i'm overclocking from 200-250 i should lower my HT link from 1000mhz down to 800mhz... wondering if you did the same?

 

[ixnemesisca]

so i've been working on the OC since my last post and i seem to have reached a plateau at 2.6525ghz with my multiplier at 12 bus speed at 221mhz and HT link at 800 but cpuz shows it as 884.2, cpu voltage is 1.35(the stock voltage), i had to amp up my ram voltage to like 2.0 or 2.1V i forget.

i just fan prime95 for not even 30seconds and it gave me "fatal error: rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4" gotta look up how to fix that and do my best to make it stable =[

i haven't tried your settings because i think having the multiplier higher and bus speed lower will reduce heat. but i will try it now since i've reached a plateau using the x12 multiplier.

btw. would you have any idea why cpuz shows my ram as single channel rather than dual? it's ddr2 800 shud be dual. i tried looking for something in the bios to fix it but i haven't found anything. so maybe u cud enlighten me?

 

[ixnemesisca]

after slowly stepping up the speed to give it some break in time i've gotten it to the 2.75ghz at 1.45V core and 1.9V for the memory. HTT link is at 800 (showing 1000 in cpuz). however... i run prime95 and it won't go past the 1st or second test without giving me an error. at first it was the rounding one that i had in the previous post. i fixed it by adding a little more voltage to both the cpu and ram, and then ran prime95 again and instead of that fatal error it gave me "FATAL ERROR: Final result was 3773ABAF, expected: 86B106EB" been looking up stuff on google but haven't found anything yet. running at 2.75ghz heats up the cpu a lot more than it was at stock while running prime95. stock it was at 133F max. with the OC it was running 145-147F. let me know wat you think.

 

[bctaaka]

ok man...

forgot to tell you this earlier but i read on here that when oc x2 cpus you need to turn of cool and quiet (look for in BIOS) and I have smart fan control turned off as well (that way fan runs 80-100% at all times) I can not hear my fan at all at those speeds through my case (Antec P180)

as far as the voltage i have mine set at stock but cpu-z shows it fluctuating between that and 1.39 sometimes 1.4 guess - ability of mobo i guess

try that and get back to me ( we gotta get you a good voltage as i think that's whats proportional to the jumps in heat )

 

[ixnemesisca]

cool n quiet has always been disabled. i knew about that a long time ago. i also disabled the spreaders. i'll try upping the voltage again. i have speedfan also but i think i have the automatic controller on. i'll turn it off later but i don't think it will make much of a difference. the fans on my case are very audible. but i think it's because i have a total of like 7 fans in the case. 3 80mm's, 2 120's and then the cpu/hsf, and the 8800gtx has it's own fan as well. so it all adds up. doesn't bother me so much except wen i'm watching movies and on vent i have to crank up the volume.

if i can't reach the 2.75 stable maybe i'll just stop at 2.7 if it's stable there.

 

[bctaaka]

update on my ht link....cpu-z shows it at 1200-1250

so try putting ht link on auto maybe instead of 800 and see what it comes up as in cpu-z

your mobo might just be holding you back
this is it right?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130168

 

[ixnemesisca]

nah that's not it. this is the one i got

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K9N_Platinum&class=mb

i dun think the mobo is that bad but idk.

 

[bctaaka]

hows it going man...whats the status?

check this tutorial out pretty basic but informative for oc

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2287804,00.asp

 

[ixnemesisca]

i don't think my cpu is going to be stable at 2.75 or even 2.7 at least from wat i've been doing to try to get it to stablize. so i'm going to try and just keep it at a stable 2.6ghz for the time being until i get some new ram or something. i think my single channel ram might be holding me back but not sure. i stress tested it last night wen i went to bed but core#2 failed with the rounding error in prime95, so this morning i put the HT link back up to 1000 and i'm going to see how that works out. i'm stress testing it right now as we speak. hopefully it'll be stable. i'm going to test it for 8 hrs if it's fine in the 8hrs i'll keep it otherwise idk.

and can u believe like a paper bug went into my screen and died?!?!? it's sitting there dead right in my freakin taskbar!!! it couldn't have died at the bottom where i can't see it? stupid freakin bugs!

 

[ixnemesisca]

YAHOOOO!!! so i upgraded my ram from 2gb up to 4gb. i got the ocz sli-ready 2x2gb ram. after getting that and putting that in i started overclocking again and after a whole night's stress testing using prime95's blend test it passed with no errors for 9 hrs at 2.6ghz over the stock 2.4 =D i dunno if i wanna push anymore without a better hsf, or until i lap my cpu at least which i plan to do in the near future =D

 

[bctaaka]

congrats nice job glad to hear that man...

what are your temps(load and idle) and what voltage did you use for that?

 

[ixnemesisca]

thx man. i'm at stock voltages for both the ram and the cpu (1.35V cpu and 2.0V for ram). my temps are the same as before the OC. around 90-100F idle (with some usage of firefox), and 115-125F load (COD4), and under prime95 it usually hovers at 130-133F.

 

[bctaaka]

nice...
seems you can still take it higher if you want ....temps seem fine

 

[ixnemesisca]

yea i might go higher after i lap it. 133 is still a bit high for me while running prime95. i want to make sure it's as cool as possible while using the stock cooler. i really want to get the zalman CNPS9700 but i don't want to spend another $60 bucks. i just bought a snowboard, bindings, boots etc. I'll work on a higher OC once i lap the cpu which will hopefully be 2mr if i can get myself up off my lazy ass and doing it.

 

[bctaaka]

yeah i hear ya dont really understand the whole lapping thing though....

want to get that hsf or maybe this one (depending on results and $$ of course) limited as well my friend

http://www.machinesthatgobing.com/computers/danamics-cpu-cooler/

btw....u running vista 64?

 

[ixnemesisca]

ehh i just finished lapping the cpu about a half hour ago... start up temp was 81F =D significantly less then b4 where it was around 90-96...but then again today's temp is a few degrees cooler as well... but all said and done. the artic silver 5 hasn't even "burnt" in yet so it shud drop even more after a week or 2. (i had the hardest time getting the thermal paste the way i like it =[ took me a good 10mins to get it close to the way i wanted it... for some reason it was a lot easier the first time i built my pc).

anyhow i think i'm going to try OCing soon i think. i'd rather let the thermal paste burn in but if i wait 2 weeks i'll have started classes again so won't have time to monitor the stress testing temps and all. so i'll probably do it b4 the end of the week if not today...

sadly, i am running windows xp home. =[ i've been trying to get my friend to lend me his vista ultimate 64bit... but he lives on the west coast and i live on the east... so i'll probably install vista ult over winter break wen he comes back. i'll try and load some pics of the b4 and after of my lapping...