About to Overclock......need advice and patience.

[MADWAD]

OK, i've been reading about O.C for months now or for how long i've been a member of this board. I really don't wanna screw my computer up so i've been putting off overclocking for quite a while. I just took of the stock heatsink and installed a Zalman 7000B-AlCu and it decreased my temps by about 6-7 degrees when idle. Below are my system specs for overclocking

--------[ Overclock ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU Properties:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4A
CPU Alias Northwood, A80532
CPU Stepping C1
Engineering Sample No
CPUID CPU Name Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
CPUID Revision 00000F27h

CPU Speed:
CPU Clock 2405.39 MHz (original: 2400 MHz)
CPU Multiplier 18.0x
CPU FSB 133.63 MHz (original: 133 MHz)
Memory Bus 167.04 MHz

CPU Cache:
L1 Trace Cache 12K Instructions
L1 Data Cache 8 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB (On-Die, ECC, ATC, Full-Speed)

Motherboard Properties:
Motherboard ID 10/28/2002-I845PE/ICH4/IT8708-P4PE
Motherboard Name Asus P4PE (6 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DIMM)

Chipset Properties:
Motherboard Chipset Intel Brookdale i845PE
Memory Timings 2.5-3-3-7 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)

SPD Memory Modules:
DIMM1: Kingston K 512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-2-2-6 @ 133 MHz)
DIMM2 512 MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-3-3-6 @ 133 MHz)

BIOS Properties:
System BIOS Date 10/28/02
Video BIOS Date 11/09/04
Award BIOS Type Award Modular BIOS v6.0
Award BIOS Message ASUS P4PE ACPI BIOS Revision 1002
DMI BIOS Version ASUS P4PE ACPI BIOS Revision 1002

Graphics Processor Properties:
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)

Sensor Properties:
Tsystem 29 °C (84 °F)
Tcpu 41 °C (106 °F)
Fcpu 2220 RPM
Fcase 3169 RPM
Fpowersupply 1940 RPM
Vcore 1.62 V
Vaux 1.62 V
Vio 3.33 V

So i'm taking it that i start with the FSB (because my multiplier is locked) by raising it up by small increments and the test the stability of the system by running Prime 95 after each small increments. I hear alot of talk about locking the APG??? Whats this all about? and how can you lock it? After i've O.C the the cpu to as fast as i can i then need to look at the Ram. Now concerning the Ram i Have 512 Kingston DDR400 PC3200 and 512 generic DDR333 PC2700. I know i have to O.C my Ram but i have no clue especially about Ram Timings, can anyone give me some advice on this? Any other information on O.C your computer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help......

 

[diabloII]

you have low end ram, so don't think about OCing

also, your ram is running at ddr333, so it'll be more beneficial to replace that ddr333 stick with a ddr400 stick (if your mobo supports ddr400)

 

[emeraldice]

Is there any way to make it so the FSB/HTT to CPU can be anything but 1:1? What will happen if it's not 1:1?

 

[diabloII]

then the ram and cpu run at different frequencies

 

[emeraldice]

And why is that bad?

 

[Nubius]

because one will have to wait on the other in terms of them 'talking' to each other, it's a bottleneck...that's why it's bad.

You HAVE to lock the AGP bus because when you raise the FSB the AGP raises with it, you'd simply need that option in your BIOS and if you don't have it then, well you're screwed to say the least....AGP needs to stay at 66MHz and going beyond that will cause system lockups and possibly ruin your video card or PCI based components or even a hard drive since raising the AGP also raises PCI.

 

[emeraldice]

Ohh...I see...Thanks

It makes Ocing very motherboard dependant.

 

[Wayniac]

Since you don't necessarily want your RAM running at a different speed, any recommendations on which RAM can overclock well? I mean, my RAM will a very SMALL amount, but what is some RAM that can do some hardcore overclocking? Also, how much can you overclock it?

 

[diabloII]

well you're gonna need a good OCing mobo as well (if your current one good? i don't know)

there's no point in buying another 478 mobo, since 478 is already outdated

if you want good OCing ram, be prepared to spend anywhere from $200 to $300

 

[Wayniac]

My mobo is an NVIDIA nForce 3 Ultra K8N Neo2. I got it so that I could run an AMD Athlon 3000+ socket 939. But anyway, are you saying that I only want to OC a lot if my RAM can't keep up, or are you just saying that it'd be faster if I OC, but even better if my RAM could keep up and I could keep the ratio 1:1?