AthlonXP overclocking?

[Ssexyman8404]

HI everyone. I have an AthlonXP 2400+, 133mhz fsb, 1gb pc2700,PNY 6800NU, 250w PSU. My question is, can you over clock an Athlon xp? I've tried to increase my FSB[my board supports up to 200mhz], I don't know if that would overclock my processor or not, but anyway when I set the jumpers to 200mhz my computer simply refuses to boot up. I can go lower than 133mhz, but not any higher. I just assumed that you couldn't overclock XPs, but now I've found others who have done it! I am sure I set the jumpers correctly, as its clearly illustrated in the manual and I've successfully lowered my FSB mhz, but who wants to do that lol? What am I doing wrong? I don't even really care about overclocking my processor, I just want a 166 or 200mhz FSB. I've asked the guys at the computer stores, where i frequently spend my money, and they can't figure it out either. Then again, I know more about computers than they do, and that's scary lol. I know that when I get the same frame rates with drastically different graphics setting[ ie; very high and very low] that I'm being limited by something. Anyone?

[Akirhol]

The first biggest problem that stands out to me is your PSU. 250W is extremely low, especially if you want to OC anything. Top that off with a power hungry GF6 and you are probably at your limit. I'll get to why this matters in a minute...

A number of reasons could be stopping your computer from posting with a 166MHz FSB.

If you are raising the FSB and not lowering the multiplier, you are likely pushing the chip past it's ability. Athlon XP 2800+ [same core near it's limit] runs at 13.5 x 166, 2.25GHz... Athlon XP 2400+ runs at 15 x 133. Moving just your FSB to 166 and leaving the multiplier at 15 comes out to ~2.5GHz. Honestly I don't know if anyone has ever posted that high with conventional cooling on an XP. A good first step to test your CPU at is the highest the same core carries, so look over you mobo manual and figure out how to set your multiplier to 13.5, then your FSB to 166. Chances are you will not only post, but the mobo will read the cpu as a 2800+.

Your RAM doesn't look like a problem for running your FSB at 166... PC2700 = DDR333, so your RAM is rated for it and should work fine. Getting that same RAM to DDR400 [FSB 200] might be questionable, depends on the quality of the RAM.

Now, about your PSU. It's weak... I can safely say that almost everyone on these forums runs with at least a 350W, and even that is considered low. I run a 450W, planning on getting a 550W soon... how much power you need depends on how many HDD/ATAPI drives you run as well as your video card and peripheral cards. While you might be running fine right now, the reason why this might hold you back is the fact that if you want to overclock your CPU, it's not unreasonable to believe that you will have to bump up the core voltage... that's where you run into your problem. If you are already peaking your PSU, you might not be able to get the extra voltage you need for stability.

A few things to remember... when/if you get it to post [boot up into the ... POST ... heh], you can't pat yourself on the back yet. Get all the way into windows, and stress test your config with Prime95 and/or SiSoft Sandra burn-in modules. SuperPi seems to be a good stress tester as well, haven't used it myself [yet].

Hope this answers your questions.

EDIT: Forgot to mention... if you want to get your FSB up to 200, and you think your RAM is up to the task, you will have to bring the multiplier even lower. As my sig indicates, I'm running a 2400+ @ 2800+ as well, but now that I think about it... gonna go home and bring my multiplier down to 11.5 and my FSB up to 200 [I have PC3200/DDR400 RAM, so no issues there]. 2.3GHz on decent air cooling shouldn't be a problem at all...

[fivefeet8]

It also helps if your motherboard has an AGP/PCI locking mechanism that allows you to safely Overclock your FSB without changing the AGP/PCI speeds as well.

[Akirhol]

It also helps if your motherboard has an AGP/PCI locking mechanism that allows you to safely Overclock your FSB without changing the AGP/PCI speeds as well.
Ahh yes, very important indeed. If you don't have a board that is AGP/PCI locked, you risk damaging your video and any PCI cards you have. You should look into whether or not your board is AGP/PCI locked, if not... hopefully there is a BIOS setting to manage the AGP/PCI MHz manually... AGP is meant to run at 66MHz, PCI up to 2.2 @ 33MHz and 2.3 @ 66MHz, if I'm not mistaken. You should scope the default settings before OCing, if the board isn't AGP/PCI locked.

[Akirhol]

Update:

Spent the EVE-Online downtime toying around with my settings, benchmarking here and there... brought my 2400+ up to [12.5 x 185], stable through Sandra benching. Gained almost 300MB/s bandwidth over the [13.5 x 166] 2800+ settings. I can't get Windows to boot with 200 FSB at all, even if I run [10 x 200]... CPU just won't do it. Gonna run at these settings for awhile, let a folding program pin it at 100% for ~20 hours and see how it fairs. Then I might try to take it up to ...

Nevermind, my computer just crashed... back to [12.5 x 180] for awhile, see if that keeps stable.

Morale of the story: You should be able to get at least 2800+ speeds out of your 2400+, and there is a small margin that you can take it further, tho I've yet to find that limit w/o instability. :P

[Woodelf]

The processor should be overclockable, but the rest of you system might be what is holing it back.

It could be memory wont reach speeds, or need more volt's, or cpu need's more volt's and maybe less multiplier.
better cpu cooling?. better powersupply for sure, I'd go with a 4oo watt (or higher if you ever plan to upgrade your video with your present case).
Depending on your motherboard and unlocking your processor, you should be able to find a good multiplier/ FSB ratio. Make sure the motherboard (in documentation) supports 200FSB, some don't even though bios say's it has the setting, such as early Nforce 2 boards.
I'm guessing that your mem, current multiplier, voltage and possibly cooling are holding you back from 200FSB.
You might try increasing your FSB in smaller increment's, like by 5's. experimenting with higher latencies/fsb and lower multipiers might help determine if it's a ram issue.

Here is a good site for unlocking athlons.
http://www.ocinside.de/html/workshop/socketa/tbred_painting.html
also
http://www.ocinside.de/html/workshop/socketa_bridges.html

[john19055]

Since you have 166 memory I would thik you could run it at 166Mhz with no problems,may have to drop your multipler some and in my case when I had my XP2400 and my Asus N-force 2 board and PC3200 I ran it at 200x11 from day one, but even running it at 10x200 2gig ,witch it the default for the CPU 15x133 2gig (1.995)I had to up the voltage on my CPU to 1.7 before it would run stable.I would say set your memory at 166mhz and your multipler to 12.5 and raise your CPU voltage to 1.7v-1.75v and your memory voltage to 2.7v and it should boot up and run fine ,also you may have to set your timming manually to to a higher lactecy.

[shoes]

you'll need one very good KT600, or one of many extremely good nforce2 boards with agp/pci lock to do it easily. i would get a better power supply though if you want to overclock and get yourself a better +12v rail. enlight 360w or 420w would be the cost efficient way to do that. great budget power supply. especially you need it with that 6800nu in there along with overclocking.

[ricercar]

[hot button]
All nForce2 boards have different timing crystals for AGP and PCI. I wrote the original nForce2 technical manual at NVIDIA 2001-2002. Unless a particular manufacturer changed the reference schematic, you don't change PCI timing when you change the AGP clock on nForce boards.
[/hot button]

[Woodelf]

I think that if he dumped that 250w ps along with getting a good cpu cooler, he'd have a better chance of running at 166FSB. We don't know what board he has or the memory make/model either. Good memory might hit 400MHZ, and that would sorta leave the power supply as the culprit too.

[shoes]

Wood, only boards I know that won't do 200x11 are XFX, Mach Speed, brands. They saw not to include open mulitplers 'or' voltages. Volts are crucial for clocks. They never put out one bios that allowed it for any of thier boards.

[Woodelf]

Wood, only boards I know that won't do 200x11 are XFX, Mach Speed, brands. They saw not to include open mulitplers 'or' voltages. Volts are crucial for clocks. They never put out one bios that allowed it for any of thier boards.
Early Nforce 2 board's didn't officially support 200FSB, some would run it and some wouldn't.
I'm writing on a A7n8x deluxe with no official support for it in it's box labeling and manual, and only managed it with a volt mod and chipset cooling. Nf7-s prior to ver 2.0 were the same (non-red pcb). So unless we know which board and revision he has, we can't suppose he'll be hitting 200fsb. Not to mention that we don't even know if he has an Nforce 2 board.

[anzak]

Im currently running at 193x13 (2.51Ghz) 1:1 with the memory. 200x13 (2.6Ghz) is stable, but only with my Volcano 12 cranked up to 5500RPM. I just wish the processor was unlocked so I could run 200x12.5 (2.5Ghz) and get that extra bandwidth.

[Woodelf]

Im currently running at 193x13 (2.51Ghz) 1:1 with the memory. 200x13 (2.6Ghz) is stable, but only with my Volcano 12 cranked up to 5500RPM. I just wish the processor was unlocked so I could run 200x12.5 (2.5Ghz) and get that extra bandwidth.

Unlock it?.

[anzak]

Unlock it?.

Meh, I have tried everything. It seems AMD has created a super lock that no one can get around.

[shoes]

Early Nforce 2 board's didn't officially support 200FSB, some would run it and some wouldn't.
I'm writing on a A7n8x deluxe with no official support for it in it's box labeling and manual, and only managed it with a volt mod and chipset cooling. Nf7-s prior to ver 2.0 were the same (non-red pcb). So unless we know which board and revision he has, we can't suppose he'll be hitting 200fsb. Not to mention that we don't even know if he has an Nforce 2 board.

yeah, i remember the epox early revision 8rda+ and abit, asus early revisions (i built several). they used the crush 18d chipset that i have on the biostar m7ncg 400 currently - i run 200/200 (400 ddr) with a slight voltage bump with vcore and vdimm because just like those boards it's not an ultra 400. out of box will support the xp3200@400 fsb but not memory at 400 fsb - though if you use voltage it get's there fine. Epox early revisions, as well as abit and asus put out a bios release for support as if it were an ultra but many still had to use voltage as native support was seemingly not there, but it mattered not because all three brands would go well past 400/400 with the better XP1700+ processors anayway as overclocked units. Not to mention that the early Asus boards had a batter DAC (not ALC650) to go with the MCP_T dolby digital encoding. ALC650 is truely horrendous for analog DAC.

So unless we know which board and revision he has, we can't suppose he'll be hitting 200fsb. Not to mention that we don't even know if he has an Nforce 2 board. yep- that would help alot. does the mod here require specs for peole posting help. guess i should read the FAQ here huh.

[Woodelf]

.

.does the mod here require specs for peole posting help. guess i should read the FAQ here huh.
I don't think it's required, but it sure would help, unfortunatly, I don't think Ssexyman8404 is too interested in this thread anymore.

[Ssexyman8404]

Thanks everyone, really nice responses. I have no idea what a mutiplier is, and my motherboard manual[km4000a] makes no mention of it. I'm gonna turn spread spectrum off and give it a try, though. Thanks agian everyone

[Ssexyman8404]

And yes, I had forgot I posted this, so sorry to everyone. I've just gotten so frustrated with it that I lost all hope, but you guys have incouraged me to press on. If I could find a AMD64 motherboard that would fit my system[ don't know what size it is, but its exactly square in shape and pretty small] I'd dump the peice of crap anyway lol.