Kaliman

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Aug 1, 2001
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i'm just wondering what people thing is a good overclocking guide out there for athlons. All i've come across are guides that are over 2 years old.
 

Thanatos00

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Oct 7, 2001
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are you looking for a guide for the athlon4 or the polomino?


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lhgpoobaa

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Dec 31, 2007
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how about the IDIOTS GUIDE TO OVERCLOCKING

1. start with good components. this specifially includes a good quality PSU, mobo, ram, CPU and especially HSF (swiftech MCX462 reccommended). (unlocked CPU is much prefered) and i must reinforce the need for a QUALITY psu. overclocked/overvoltaged CPU's guzzle the juice.

2. make sure your system is rock stable before you do anything.

3. have a program at hand to monitor temps & voltages. also have a program to stress you CPU. i strongly suggest TOAST! or prime95 or seti@home.

4. TAKE YOUR TIME. small steps. jot down notes of speeds, temps and stability. this will help later if u forget what was stable or not.

5a. if you just want Mhz and dont want to touch the FSB then start by increasing the multiplier by its smallest increment, 0.5. at each increase, stress test the cpu to ensure its completely stable. TOAST! for 2-4 hours should do the trick very nicely. if its not stable, try increasing the core voltage by its smallest step and try again.
The quality and heatsucking power of the heatsink will determine how far u can get.
at some point it wont be stable. go down to the last stable speed. enjoy.

5b. fsb overclocking. increase the fsb by 5 or 10 mhz at a time while twiddling with the multiplier so the total mhz stays the same.
sould it become unstable, you can try removing network cards & setting the ram to more concertivative timings (cas3).
remember that FSB overclocking stresses alot of components. the northbridge, south, ram, pci cards, agp cards, and IDE drives.
when u can go no further. congrats. now using your newfound fsb knowledge, go to step 5a.

6. multiplier + FSB overclocking give best results. i.e. my 1200C can to 10.5x133=1400@1.90v.... but i get better all round performance and cooler running at 9x150=1350@1.86.

Why do i feel like the lone sane voice in the mental assylum?