Overclocking

[ignus]

I have an Asus A7S333 mobo (i think), an Athlon XP 1800+, and an ATI Radeon 8500 64mb. i was wondering if i could be oc'ing these for significant increase in performance, and how exactly to do this, and what the risks are (my CPU runs at like 95°F normally, can get up to ~105° to 107°F during extended gaming sessions- and thats w/ a ThermalTake Volcano 7+ (http://thermaltake.com/coolers/volcano/rs/a1254.htm) fan on the chip + 7 case fans). i dont want to risk damage for a small amount of performance, nor do i want my pc to be any louder than it currently is, nor do i want to burn my new house down.

[Angry Kid]

NV - - that's your cue. :nod:

[NVmySTYLE]

7 case fans is overkill.1 to exhaust out the top (if there is an exhaust hole there), 2 to intake air near the front of the case and 2 to exhaust air out of the back of the case is all you need. 7 case fans sounds impressive but it's just pushing air and not really cooling. you want a steady airflow from front to back.

just with air cooling you should be able to get your chip to run at 1.827. my preferred method of oc'ing is running a higher fsb with a lower multiplier. if you're running pc3200 ram you could do 200 fsb with a multiplier of 9. as with any oc'ing START SLOW..........make an adjustment, game a little with it, and repeat. if you run into a wall adjust your cpu voltage (higher voltage=higher heat). i have an amd1700 default core is 1.47 and i have had it as high as 1.93 on aircooling. 136 fsb x 14 multiplier.

oc'ing your videocard is the same method. START SLOW and overclock a LITTLE, play some, overclock some more. check out rage3d.com for recommendations on how far you can push your 8500, also download their overclocking tool for ati videocards. my suggestion on video card oc'ing is oc the core as far as you can, then write down the last stabe number. set core to default speed and do the same thing with memory. once you have both maximums you then have to trade off between higher memory frequencies or higher core frequencies.

as with any overclocking, the higher you go the higher the temps get. what is a stable overclock now probably won't be a stable overclock come summer time.

you'll see the biggest performance gains in higher fsb's over higher core frequencies. just remember to take it SLOW!!!!! read as much as you can online about your mobo, proc, and videocard before you attempt anything. overclockers.com is a good place to start but there are literally thousands of web sites that deal with overclocking. find someone that has the same setup (mobo/cpu) and chat with them. learn from their experience and find out what not to do. the chances of burning anything up is slight since most current mobos automatically shutdown before frying the cpu.

hope this helps and if i hadn't mentioned this TAKE IT SLOW!!!

[ignus]

i dont have a top fan (no hole for it), there is 2 rear, 1 side, 4 front, plus my ps has 1 rear and 1 top i think. i put all 4 in front cuz they are nicely blocked by my hard drives so i figured that they could use the help.

looking at my BIOS setup, my cpu has 2 options for speed, one is 1500mhz, which is what its at, and then like 1100mhz. there isnt anything for higher speed. how do i oc it then? there arent any physical jumpers on the board, you are supposed to do everything through the software

[NVmySTYLE]

your bios will have an option for multiplier and front side bus.

[YellowDog]

ASUS forums for you to browse also.


http://www.abxzone.com/forums/index.php?s=

YD
NV's Got you going in the right direction

a quick search on your MB got these results

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=728506&s ortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

[CMontyBurns]

... TAKE IT SLOW!!!
and this will probably be one of the few times NV says this...

:roll:

(especially if your mom is hot)

[ignus]

ok playing around w/ this tonight, there are 2 settings for CPU, one is multiplier, which normally was on 11.5 and i have it on 12.5 right now (that is the max). that raised my 1.5 ghz to 1.67. still running fine, temps ok. the other setting is the clock timing im guessing, which is set to 133/33. i tried raising it one step to 134/44, and the system didnt seem to run well. there is a huge list of settings for this, is there anyway to tell which would work best? if this has anything to do w/ ram, i dont know what speed mine is, its DDR, 1- 512 stick, 2- 256 sticks, thats all i know.

[NVmySTYLE]

the 133/33 is your ddr clock and your pci clock. the reason it didn't run well is the pci bus doesn't liked to be ran overspec. if you played around you would have found that you could have gone 134/33. keep agp and pci clocks at default, at least initially.

[ignus]

the 133/33 is your ddr clock and your pci clock. the reason it didn't run well is the pci bus doesn't liked to be ran overspec. if you played around you would have found that you could have gone 134/33. keep agp and pci clocks at default, at least initially.

roger that, gonna mess w/ it some more and keep ya posted

[ignus]

hmmm, the list only has 2 options for a XXX/33, and that is 100/33 and 133/33. the rest are /34-45 or so. :(

how do i oc my video card?

[ignus]

ok i went to rage3d and found the Powerstrip program that allows me to oc my video card and tried that. i cant really get any performance increase without having it go kinda buggy, so im not gonna bother w/ video. more cpu/ram power would be nice though.