overclocking question

[Guest]

I have a general question. If I do not have an unlocked AthlonXP, the only way to overclock it is to increase the system bus. Correct? Well, what are the side effects of increasing your system bys frequency?
Regards

 

[FatBurger]

Yes, the only way is to overclock the FSB (front side bus, or system bus as you said). That is of course assuming you are unable (or unwilling) to unlock the CPU yourself.

As for side effects: if you overclock your FSB, you're also overclocking your PCI and AGP busses. That stresses any cards in those slots. Some cards can handle significant increases (Netgear NICs can handle up to 40% increase, according to the link provided in a minute), and some not as much (3Com NICs would only go up 17MHz or so). There is a review at PCStats <A HREF="http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=937" target="_new">here</A> about overclocking NICs. It will most likely have some general information as well, although I have not read it yet.

In regards to that, most modern motherboards support dividers. If your FSB was at 100, then your PCI would have a 1/3 divider, placing it at 33 (which is what it's supposed to be at). If you raised the FSB to 133, you could (providing the motherboard supports it) change the divider to 1/4, placing it again at 33. Without the divider change, your PCI bus would be at 44. That would be handled ok by a good number of cards, but it's far easier to keep things in spec (at the speeds they're supposed to be at, in other words).

There is one motherboard (the Abit TH7-II; a socket 478 i850 board) that can "lock" the PCI and AGP, so that you may move the FSB freely and not affect the PCI and AGP speeds. Very nice.

If you have any questions about what I've said, you can reply here or (if you prefer) feel free to email/PM me.

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[Guest]

Like fatburger said, you'll overclock the other components too. AGP videocards can usually handle this with ease (>33% with most Geforce cards). PCI is another matter. Soundcards might fail, but even worse, your onboard IDE controller might not like overclocked PCI speeds. That might result in data corruption, or even in rare, extreme cases, kill your harddisk. Lastly, your memory might not be able to cope with higher speeds, or you'll have to reduce CAS latency (hmm.. well rather , increase them) degrading any performance gains from the overclock.

Its worth a shot, if you dont overdo it, it shouldnt kill any components, but you might have to reinstall everything if you get registry corruption errors in windowz..

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[AMD_Man]

Like fatburger said, you'll overclock the other components too. AGP videocards can usually handle this with ease (>33% with most Geforce cards). PCI is another matter. Soundcards might fail, but even worse, your onboard IDE controller might not like overclocked PCI speeds. That might result in data corruption, or even in rare, extreme cases, kill your harddisk. Lastly, your memory might not be able to cope with higher speeds, or you'll have to reduce CAS latency (hmm.. well rather , increase them) degrading any performance gains from the overclock.

Of course, none of this is the case with the IWIll XP333. Hmm, you can tell that I love that mobo! I'll purchase it as soon as I gather enough money for 512MB PC2700 or 2*256MB PC2700 and an IWill XP333-R.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[FatBurger]

Can the PCI/AGP be locked as with the TH7-II?

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[AMD_Man]

I don't remember, as I haven't dealt much with my friend's TH7-II (or was it the TH7, I can't remember) but according to Raystonn, yes.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[FatBurger]

Must have missed that post (by Raystonn, I mean). Let's see what I can dig up...

Well, Iwill's site is terrible, half the links don't work :frown:

Time for a Yahoo search on "MicroStepping" to find out exactly what that is. <A HREF="http://www.ocworkbench.com/hardware/iwill/xp333/xp333galleryp4.htm" target="_new">Here</A> is some info (sorry about the popups, but I guess that's not my fault). It appears that MicroStepping is merely to increase the FSB in increments of 1MHz, nothing to do with PCI/AGP clock speeds.

I'm not sure what the "auto" divider setting is. I would assume that it automatically bumps to the next multiplier when you reach the next stage (automatically goes from 3 to 4 when you go from 100 to 133, for instance).

The use of dividers would suggest that you can not lock the PCI/AGP clocks like on the TH7-II.

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[Guest]

Thanks all. This all is very informative (especially the devider stuff). Man, you guys (gals?) are good. Well, on the same lines, I do have PC2400 DDR (300 Mhz?) ram, netgear nic and radeon 8500. (I am not bothered about my sound yet, but FYI it is a hercules gaming XP). Now, given that netgear has a high tolerence to overclocking and that my memory can go upto 150MHz, only issue is my radeon 8500. I have overclocked the card to 294Mhz (where it is stable without any artifacts in 3Dmark2001). But when I overclock my FSB from 133 to 150 (or even 140), the 3Dmark aborts midway (I think it crashes). Can I do something to stabalize the radeon while overclocking my fsb? Aim is to get over 8000 in the 3Dmark2001. I am currently around 7750.

Thanks for all the good advise and info.

 

[Matisaro]

When you overclock the agp bus you put strain on the videocard, strain which may cause an otherwise stable overclock (at default bus speeds) to become unstable, try lowering your radeons gpu overclock and see if that brings stability.

Also going to agp2x is a good way to sacrifise a small amount of performance for a large amount of stability.

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No Overclock+stock hsf=GOOD!

 

[FatBurger]

Man, you guys (gals?) are good.

Regrettably, we're basically all guys.

Your sound card may be limiting your FSB overclocking. Or it could be your NIC or video card. Try pulling your NIC and sound card and see if it'll go higher. If not, then it's probably the video card or motherboard.

Also going to agp2x is a good way to sacrifise a small amount of performance for a large amount of stability.

Yes, I agree. That setting should be in your BIOS (if you have it, you should).

BTW, what motherboard do you have? I don't think you've said.

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[Guest]

Well, I have a shuttle ak31 rev 3.1 board. I wish I had started reading this community *before* I bought my stuff. Then I could have gotten something that was more suitable for overclocking. Oh well, life sucks .... and then you die. I think I need to make that my sign...... .
Regards