Need overclocking advice.. HELP!

[FlyingHamster]

My 2 x 256mb of Twinmos pc3700 43D ram came in today. I tried everything I could to reach my goal (240 fsb) but could not even get close. Im having trouble getting to even 11x220.

I have done no mods to my board, Im using the 10b bios (I think, it says 6A61BA1BC-10 in bios), and have a Zalman NB32J on my nb and a copper heatsink on my sb. My mobo is about 2 months old and has a plastic lever on the cpu socket. if anyone could do the vmem mod for me I would love them 4ever.

My question is simple, what do I need to do to hit 240 fsb? should I flash my bios? reformat perhaps? and most importantly, what should my settings be in my bios? Im not sure what to set in the SoftMenu, nor in Advanced chipset features. what should be enabled and disabled?

I was hoping that with this new setup I would be able to hit at least 240x10. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated..

[Sovereignty]

How new is that NF7?

[FlyingHamster]

got it about 2 months ago.

[Shroomalistic]

What multi where you running, try the 8 mutli if you havent yet.

[FlyingHamster]

I was using 10. I tried 10.5 and 11 too. didnt try anything lower.

would 8 KILL my mem bandwidth though?

i'll be back in sec to talk to u on MSN shroom.

[Gogeta]

It depends on what memory divider you use, otherwise, there would be no change to your bandwidth, since the dual channel on 333fsb AMD systems more than fills up the processor bandwidth. So as long as you use 1:1 or something close (can't remember what the other dividers for NF2s are) you'll be fine.

[FlyingHamster]

I hear that using 1.5vdd can yield better results for some ppl. what do u think?

and which one of the beta bioses should I give a try Shroom? I'll be on MSN all day today.

[BigDov]

I'm not even able to boot anywhere above 200fsb with 1.5vdd. I can't get above 211fsb with my setup, no matter what the voltage or multiplier......... I think next time I tear the comp apart, I need to do the L12 and some vmods though.

Here's to getting some help for you!!!!

[Shroomalistic]

Hey FlyingHampster, post some results of what your geting so far.

[Shroomalistic]

BigDov, L12 is definitly needed for that 1700.

[FlyingHamster]

Originally posted by Shroomalistic
Hey FlyingHampster, post some results of what your geting so far.

with A LOT of help from shroom.. this is what I was able to pull off. soon after I ran this it rebooted.. so Im gonna reformat later and disable APIC b4 install and see what happens:

250x10:

[FlyingHamster]

ok well I just reformatted.

what should my virtual memory settings be? I have 2x256mb of ram and a 120gb hdd. and what are some other performance tweaks I should do to XP?

[FlyingHamster]

got it stable right now at 230 x 9.5 with 1.85vcore. 2.9vdimm, 1.7vdd, 11-3-3-2.5. im getting 50 C at full load though.

any suggestions to go higher? I really want to get the 10 and 10.5 multipliers..

[FlyingHamster]

Ok well now my board is vmodded, vdd modded, and I have a heatsink on my northbridge. The thing is, Im still having trouble getting a decent overclock.

I got stable at 220x10 at 1.8vcore (1.76 actual), 3.2vdimm, and 1.84 vdd. when I try 230x10 I cant get it stable. even at 1.9vcore, Prime95 fails. whats the deal? what are some settings I should try? I have apic and my serial ports disabled in bios.

anyone got any ideas of what I should try? Is my 2500+ a bad chip?

[Shroomalistic]

I think heat is your biggest issue now, at high overclocks my system gets unstable at 45c and higher.

[Techmasta]

It could be your chip. I had a 2500 that wouldn't do over 200x11 no matter what I tried. And that was watercooled.

[Crankster]

I agree on that the chip could be a bad egg... If ur not having any luck try to swap processors with a non-extreme friend. Heat should not be an issue, the chip ought to be stable at 55+... Mine is at least.

Good Luck, nice to see some t-bred action my friend

[Hell-Fire]

Hey Hamster.

Can you provide the entire stepping code to your 2500+ please?

Also, I would consider going to the new TicTac D22 Alpha1. It is great for the 10x and 10.5x multipliers. Even though you can run them now, it may help stability.

At this point, it could be several things. Could be the ram, could be the cpu, could be heat. I dont think the heat is doing it as they can stand upwards of 60C before becoming unstable. That doenst mean running them between 50-60C is ideal, and that can cause system instability.

Did you lap your new heatsink? When I was using copper sinks, I lapped a p.o.s. Volcano7 and it lowered my temps by 10C. Something to think about.

I would make sure that the AGP is locked at 66mhz to keep it from floating. Also, set the divider to 6:6..sometimes that helps with these boards.

What you need to do first, is find out the memory max. Set the multi to something like 8.0 to 9.5x and then start pushing the fsb up and up and up..increasing Vdimm as high as 3.35-3.4v until you hit the wall. No sense pushing more Vdimm than that as you would only gain a few mhz. Dont forget the Vdd as you start to get unstable as well.

After finding the max fsb, start working that multi upwards adjusting the Vcore as you go.

This method is generally a good way to find out what is holding you back. It is how I found the max fsb for my sticks.

Also, be aware that if you are running 2.5CAS, and then 2-2-*, the last value should be an 8 and not a 7 to insure its not a timing issue.

Damn, if only you lived closer man.