What Can I Overclock My AMD Athlon XP 3000+ to That Will Be Stable...and How?

[OIDanTheManIO]

I have an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU. I need to know a safe speed to overclock it to and how, I have tried overclocking in the past and when I went to play Far Cry or Vice City, my computer would just FREEZE! I need to know things like voltages and stuff. I need to know how to adjust them and what I should use for cooling.

 

[Kangaroo]

Its a bit difficult to give you advice, you didn't provide motherboard information, temperature information or cooling information (heatsink/case). It would be nice to know BIOS information also.

 

[OIDanTheManIO]

cooler master heatsink/fan, Via mobo, cpu idle temp: 70 degrees celcius, case: the case is sum off-brand case i got cheap with 2 case fans

 

[aj2003]

70 is far too high it should cut out before you even get near a game. have you got thermal compound on that? if you have and its still that temperature you should buy a better heatsink and fan. do you know make/model of modo? i would recommend a sp-97 (do search ul find it)

 

[OIDanTheManIO]

i kno that is very high

 

[Aggdaddy]

To answer your question, its trial and error. Different setups yield different results, but you do want to have limits. Temperature wise on these AMD's you should stay below 55 - max 60c. So I'm guessing your motherboard is giving you false temp readings, unless you really did a whack job on your heatsink thermal grease application.

I have only been able to overclock my computer to a stable 212Mhz. I think I need more amps on the 12+ side to get more though. At 215Mhz it will work, but not stable. Browser crashes and 3dmark03 only gets halfway. 212Mhz rock solid.

 

[OIDanTheManIO]

there was a piece of the thermal paste already on the heatsink...woud u suggest ordering more of this compound?

 

[Aggdaddy]

If that's a brand new outta the box processor with some sort of thermal tape or grease already applied, then just leave it as is. You probably just need a bios upgrade.

 

[OIDanTheManIO]

how i upgrade bios, i heard thats a hard process, i already tried to do it once

 

[Aggdaddy]

Actually, I forgot that you are attempting to overclock. If you want to overclock, you will get better results from an afertmarket thermal grease like Arctic 5.

What's there now is just fine for stock applications. It isn't meant for overclocking.