Overclocking

[DevilishTexan]

No, not overCOCKing but CLOCKing.

Overcocking is a gang bang. Overclocking is basically putting a nitrous tank on your computer.

Ever did it? Whats the easiest, safest way? I wanna try it before I just toss out this dinosaur and overhaul it.

 

[Weird Harold]

No, not overCOCKing but CLOCKing.

Overcocking is a gang bang. Overclocking is basically putting a nitrous tank on your computer.

Ever did it? Whats the easiest, safest way? I wanna try it before I just toss out this dinosaur and overhaul it.

I ran 486DX40 at 50 MHz for about five years with no noticeable problems. That overclocking was fairly simple: I just put the MB jumper at 50MHz instead of 40 MHz.

Modern motherboards do all of that kind of stuff through the Setup/CMOS routines, but I haven't played with any MB's newer than about '98 pr so.

I'm pretty sure that a 20% overclock won't require much addtional cooling or cause many problems -- I'd feel fairly confident of starting at that level.

 

[popcorn2721]

yeah, overclocking it relatively simple...you can over clock the bus speed (which makes the whole system run hotter) or over clock the core multiplier which is what we talk about when we say overclocking the CPU. Up until just recently the AMD's worked best for over clocking and you could really run the shit out of them without too much problem (think about upgrading your heat sink). Now I think you can even "oc" the IBMs...I say this cause they used to be "clock locked" and the only ones you could do were Celeron processors. Even OC'ed these celerons kinda lacked in performance because they did not have a "cach" for storing quickly accessed information.

Go to sysopt.com and search for a thread called Clocking is Good...This thread will give you an idea of what is out there in the world of over clocking, as well as give you more than a few things to laugh at as well.

 

[SweetErika]

My guy knows something about this. He said to ask the following:

What are the specs of your computer, processor, motherboard and RAM?

Did you build the computer, or did you buy it pre-built? If it's the latter, what kind of computer is it (DELL, HP, etc.)?

Be forewarned that if it's a namebrand computer, you may not be able to overclock it much, if at all, due to the stripped BIOS of most namebrand PC's.

 

[Weird Harold]

yeah, overclocking it relatively simple...you can over clock the bus speed (which makes the whole system run hotter) or over clock the core multiplier which is what we talk about when we say overclocking the CPU.

Good point. Overclocking just the CPU will add some performance, but the performance of a computer is determined by the slowest component so it's really necessary to overclock everything you can. (and you'll still wind up waiting on drive access.)

I can't see going to the extremes some people go to -- water cooled personal computers for example!

 

[alaskabibear]

Good point. Overclocking just the CPU will add some performance, but the performance of a computer is determined by the slowest component so it's really necessary to overclock everything you can. (and you'll still wind up waiting on drive access.)

I can't see going to the extremes some people go to -- water cooled personal computers for example!

What should I do? I'm the slowest component of my computer.... do you think water cooling will help?

 

[Weird Harold]

What should I do? I'm the slowest component of my computer.... do you think water cooling will help?

Depens on how badly you want to over-clock yourself -- performance enhancing supplements will get you banned from baseball or the NFL; is it worth the risk to gain a few miroseconds more performance out your computer?

Actually, your CD/DVD drive is the probably the slowest part of your computer -- unless you've got dial--up internet service like I do.

 

[DevilishTexan]

First off, to all who responded I want to say thanks and give a round of applause.
It's pretty pathetic that I get more responses and actually better ones on an adult board than I do on an overclocking board.

Mad props to Weird Harold, our resident sage who always has a good answer or least gives it a shot.

To SweetErica (of the one great tit fame), here are the stats: (And HELL NAH it ain't no pre-built. I know better than that baby. It's a CyberPower rig. Custom.)

AMD Athlon 64, 2000 MHz (10 x 200) 3000+

Gigabyte GA-K8NS (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN)

nVIDIA nForce3 250, AMD Hammer

DIMM1: GeIL Value CL25-4-4DDR 400 (512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (2.5-4-4-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.0-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz)
DIMM2: GeIL Value CL25-4-4DDR 400 (512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (2.5-4-4-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.0-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz)

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (128 MB)

2 case fans and Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 processor fan

I basically just want to increase computing speed me thinks. What happens is because I have so many background memory hogs running (antivirus, firewall, battery backup prog, spyware stoppers, etc) when I try to multi-task my machine just gets bogged down. I have a gig of ram but alas, it's the DX model of ram, not the SE-V6 model.

Now I could simply increase ram I'm sure. But Hell, on this older box just a 1G stick runs $60-70. You'd think older stuff they don't sell much would be cheaper but noooo, not in these backwards ass times.

I also would finally love to play "Oblivion". Or least come close. Paid $50 for the game now it's $29.00 a year later. And I can't even play it. Pisses me off.

 

[DevilishTexan]

Good point. Overclocking just the CPU will add some performance, but the performance of a computer is determined by the slowest component so it's really necessary to overclock everything you can. (and you'll still wind up waiting on drive access.)

I can't see going to the extremes some people go to -- water cooled personal computers for example!

I can't see the money some rigs cost. $5000 for a g'dam machine? I don't care if it'll play games not even conceived yet. Thats ridiculous when you consider the damn thing will be outdated in 6 mo. If ya wanna play games just drop 4-500 on a PS3 and be done with it ya know?

 

[DevilishTexan]

Athlon 64 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NS (nForce3 250)

Ain't she purty?

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l74/devlishtexan/gigabyte_nf3.jpg
The Athlon 64 3400+ did not require a change to our platform, but this time we're looking to upgrade motherboards to an nForce3 250 base. Retail prices have really come down over the past few months, and at only $69, the Gigabyte GA-K8NS offers a lot of value and performance for the Socket 754 market. The Gigabyte GA-K8NS motherboard offers a great combination of price and performance, and the presence of bus clock limiters makes it a better overclocking choice than the K8T800 we used last month. This motherboard is the little brother to the higher-end Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro, but keeps many of the same features and onboard options.

The Gigabyte GA-K8NS features the powerful nForce3 250 chipset, which is one of the best chipsets for Socket 754 systems, and the very top choice in our price range. This chipset offers a full 16-bit, 800 MHz HyperTransport up/down connection, which is a noted upgrade over the older nForce3 150 chipset, and easily on par with the K8T800. The System BIOS is also very nice for this range, and overclockers will be happy with the clock speed, voltage and bus speed/locking options.

The Gigabyte GA-K8NS is designed for Socket 754 AMD processors, and features single-channel DDR266/333/400 memory support (3x1-GB max) through the Athlon 64's integrated memory controller. Other onboard features include AGP 8X, 2 x PATA, 2 x SATA, SATA RAID 0/1, 6 x USB 2.0, 8-channel audio, and integrated 10/100 LAN. This board also supports NVIDIA Firewall, which protects your PC from intruders by filtering unauthorized traffic.

Gigabyte also hasn't skimped on the overclocking options, as the GA-K8NS includes a full range of FSB selections, along with CPU, DDR, AGP, and HT/chipset voltage options. This is supplemented with an AGP bus clock setting, which can either lock the bus at 66 MHz, or jack it up for faster game framerates. The Gigabyte GA-K8NS allows us to include a high-end nForce3 250 motherboard in the guide, without losing anything on the overclocking or performance ends.


I'm seeing that people don't recommend oc unless you have top notch ram, which I don't. Maybe a bios update then? Last time I attempted to update the bios I toasted the mb. So maybe a mb update and new ram?

 

[hersforever]

DevishTexan,

Well you appear to be in a good place to overclock this system. First, if you plan on upgrading to a new system, then don't buy new ram for this one. I have been able to successfully overclock value ram every time I have tried.

I would first start with your FSB. I am not sure about Gigabytes BIOS, but I think I have read that you may have to hunt to find the FSB settings in the BIOS (you may need to press a key combo, like Fn + F1 to enter the overclock options). Start by increasing your FSB from 200 to 210. Save and reboot, and reenter your BIOS.

As your chip has a multiplier of 10, this means you just increased the speed of your computer by 100 Mhz.

Hopefully, your computer has posted, and our CPU is now running at 2.1Ghz, and your ram running at 420Mhz. In your PC Health screen in the BIOS, watch the CPU temps for a few minutes. If they are below 45C, and stay there for 3-4 minutes, you can go and try to raise your FSB to 220. Again save and reboot.

You can repeat this process until your computer wont post. At that point you will need to clear the CMOS, and reset your previous settings. Here you have several options. You can:

1. Increase the voltage to the CPU and try to increase the FSB again. This may help you get faster as the CPU will need more energy to clock at the speed you are asking it to.

2. Decrease your clock multiplier by 1 to 9 and keep raising your FSB.

3. Increase your clock multiplier by 1 to 11 and drop your FSB significantly. This last option my really increase your CPU speed, but you will lose performance in the rest of the computer, as most of the components speed is based on the FSB.

Once you have a speed you like, say 2.45 Ghz, try to reboot into windows. You now need to see if you have a stable machine, and you also need to monitor the temp of your CPU. So download Prime95, a mathematical stress test program which will let you run all of your components at 100% for as long as you want or until the computer crashes. My rule of thumb, is that if my system can run Prime95 for 24 hours straight it is stable enough for me. Also, download Motherboard Monitor or some other free system monitoring software, so you can keep an eye on your CPU temps. What temps you feel comfortable at are up to you, but try to keep your computer below 70C during load. The thermal failure point of AMD CPUs depends on the model and some will fry at 80C , but I think they all can handle up to 70C. To be safe you can tell the BIOS to shutdown your system if it reaches 72C.

You can also try to overclock your FX5200, but I don't think that you will get it to play Obliviion. To overclock this card, you will need to to use coolbits to enable some registry tweaks. You can download it from http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=815
Using Coolbits you can change the GPU core speed and the memory speed of your graphics card. I think it even has a "Find the best speed for me" button if you don't want to mess with it too much. I am sure you can get some more speed out of your GPU, but it may only be a 10-20% increase, and this will not be enough to run Oblivion well IMHO.

So, go ahead, and see how far you can push your system. As long as you go slow and don't make huge jumps in speed, you should be fine. But remember, you do run the risk of frying a component or two. If you are find with the risk, then it can be a lot of fun to see how far you can push it.

Hersforever

 

[Weird Harold]

I'm seeing that people don't recommend oc unless you have top notch ram, which I don't. Maybe a bios update then? Last time I attempted to update the bios I toasted the mb. So maybe a mb update and new ram?

One concern I have is hat you're planning to overclock a sysem that has been running at design clockspeed for some time -- a year or more?

In my limited experience with over-clocking computers I've noticed that over-clocking anything but a new system is statistically a VERY bad idea. At the time I ran an overclocked sysem, I was working part-time in a computer shop as an assembler/repairer -- I repaired a LOT of sysems that were over-clocked after they'd "burned in" at the design clock speed, but almost none that were over-clocked from initial assembly.

RAM especially is very sensitive to clock-speed and with lower quality RAM, you can get a mismatch between physical memory sticks' tolerances that over-clocking can exacerbate to the point of failure. (look at the lot numbers on your memory sticks; if they're from the same lot, you can probably over-clock them moderately without much risk.

... What happens is because I have so many background memory hogs running ... I have a gig of ram but alas, it's the DX model of ram, not the SE-V6 model.

Now I could simply increase ram I'm sure. ...

I suspect that your limiting factor is not clock speed but virtual memory swap file (hard-drive) access time. Increasing the swap file size might help some -- on Win 98SE, just occasionally forcing the creation of a new swap file by changing the size or moving it to a differnt drive/partition makes a big (if ultimately temporary) difference in virtual memory performance.

I tend to be a generation or three behind cutting edge technology with my computer, so I can sympathize with getting program that designed for newer, faster hardware.

One thing I've found that alleviates the problem with that kind of program is to establish an alternat user on the computer that doesn't have internet access or all of the background programs that load each time someone logs in -- something between the normal background load and "Safe Mode" in terms of the background load.

Norton Utilites includes a test of available drives for space and speed to recommend the best place and size for your virtual memory swap file.

If you don't have a second hard-drive, get one. A newer (faster) Hard-drive (even as a second drive) just used for the swap file can double your apparent perfromance simply by providing faster virtual memory access. It isn't just the better access times of newer drives, but the reduction in "Drive Multi-tasking" that improves virtual memory performance; in a single drive system, the drive has to constantly access the swap file and access all of the other locations that normal system operations require. With a second drive for the swap file, the drive caching can concentrate on the swap file and not have to commit any caching to log files and registry file access/updates, etc.

 

[DevilishTexan]

W Harold,

I do have two hard drives on board but the new Master drive is a WD Sata 250 and the other is an older MAXTOR 6E040L0 DiamondMax Plus 8 ATA-133 40GB 7200RPM. I also have most of my crap on a Maxtor 160GB One Touch 7200 external.

But as far as age yeah, been running with this for over 3 years now at base model speed.

 

[Calvin]

W Harold,

I do have two hard drives on board but the new Master drive is a WD Sata 250 and the other is an older MAXTOR 6E040L0 DiamondMax Plus 8 ATA-133 40GB 7200RPM. I also have most of my crap on a Maxtor 160GB One Touch 7200 external.

But as far as age yeah, been running with this for over 3 years now at base model speed.

DT -

Lots of good advice here...

and the only thing that I would add is that while the ram is more costly, add it. Max the board out on RAM. Secondly, run msconfig from the run command and setup a selective start where you unload a lot of the background processes (TSR's) that hog your resources. If you are running XP, the you should be able to get the processes down to 27 or so. Think about a hardware firewall (much better) versus a software one and if by chance you are running either Norton or McAffee, get rid of them. Huge memory hogs. Try something like NOD32 (nod32.com) which is much more modular.
And if by chance you do overclock, be carefully with the voltages on that chip. I have one myself on an old system and it can go pretty unstable quickly.
Check your BIO's and MB documentation to see if there is a CPU temp monitoring selection - and turn it on. As for the water cooling - ok for some extreme systems but a good custom 80mm CPU fan will work just fine for you.

Good luck.

 

[mjl2010]

Holy Man.

The days when I removed the 6Mhz crystals from the IBM AT's and replaced them with 8Mhz crystals are long long gone aren't they? And I was such a hero back then. Sheesh!!!

MJL

 

[Weird Harold]

I do have two hard drives on board but the new Master drive is a WD Sata 250 and the other is an older MAXTOR 6E040L0 DiamondMax Plus 8 ATA-133 40GB 7200RPM.

Try moving your virtual memory swap file to the maxtor. I suspect that the loss of actual access times will be offset by the reduction in number of head movements and you will see a noticeable improvement -- not necessarily a BIG improvement, but just a noticeable one.

One other suggestion that might improve performance -- move the Maxtor to a different drive controller than the WD; having two different types of drives on one controller can limit both drives to the performance of the slower drive. It doesn't always happen, but it happens more often than not.

 

[Weird Harold]

Holy Man.

The days when I removed the 6Mhz crystals from the IBM AT's and replaced them with 8Mhz crystals are long long gone aren't they? And I was such a hero back then. Sheesh!!!

MJL

God, that makes me feel old. At least we aren't talking about patching the C/PM files to make a drive work better.

 

[kindashy]

For what it is worth I am running 2.4 GHz E6600 at 3.19 GHz. Multiplier is locked so none of that business. Just straight bus increase, though RAM had to be turn down to work. I have not touched voltages, too scared

Next will be Q6600.

 

[mjl2010]

God, that makes me feel old. At least we aren't talking about patching the C/PM files to make a drive work better.

You had to do that too?

Small world Harold.

MJL

 

[Weird Harold]

You had to do that too?

Small world Harold.

MJL

(re: patching C/PM files)

Anyone who owned an 8080 or Z80 based computer had to do that at some point; it's what computing WAS in the early 80's.

Most people didn't get to the point that they could read Z80 machine/assembler from a hexidecimal dump, but most C.PM users could at least read annotated assembler code and unerstand what was going on.

 

[DevilishTexan]

Holy Man.

The days when I removed the 6Mhz crystals from the IBM AT's and replaced them with 8Mhz crystals are long long gone aren't they? And I was such a hero back then. Sheesh!!!

MJL

Haha man I remember those days. I was in an Electronics Voc class in 1983-84 when we got the first Apple 2 E's, remember those? That was in '83. Then the Macs came out with Windows and we thought holy shit.

If I knew then......


well, I'd have a house overlooking Lake Travis.

 

[DevilishTexan]

(re: patching C/PM files)

Anyone who owned an 8080 or Z80 based computer had to do that at some point; it's what computing WAS in the early 80's.

Most people didn't get to the point that they could read Z80 machine/assembler from a hexidecimal dump, but most C.PM users could at least read annotated assembler code and unerstand what was going on.

All I see here is ほとんどの人々はポイントに起こっていた何がhexidecimalダンプからのZ80機械かアセンブラーを読むことができるがほとんどのC.PMのユーザーは少なくとも注釈されたアセンブラーコードおよびを読むことができることに得なかった

 

[Weird Harold]

All I see here is ほとんどの人々はポイントに起こっていた何がhexidecimalダンプからのZ80機械かアセンブラーを読むことができるがほとんどのC.PMのユーザーは少なくとも注釈されたアセンブラーコードおよびを読むことができることに得なかった

Yep, that's pretty much what assembler code looks like

 

[sutherngent985]

When I was in college (late 70s) I remember what a big deal it was when they got some desktops for the library...Commodore PETs. They were 1 piece, the tower (for lack of a better term) and monitor (monochrome) all in one case. Those things didnt have any HDs...they used a cassette tape for storage. Once people started getting games for them, you literally had to wait hours for one to free up.

The school had an IBM System 3 and a 360 both in the computer lab, and yes we still used punch cards. I was required to take a class in FORTRAN..man I had a blast. Ah, the good old days LOL.

 

[Denae]

Suggestion for a new Lit Forum

First off, to all who responded I want to say thanks and give a round of applause.
It's pretty pathetic that I get more responses and actually better ones on an adult board than I do on an overclocking board.
Mad props to Weird Harold, our resident sage who always has a good answer or least gives it a shot.

I know nothing about computers, so when I have a question I search on the Lit site and I know Weird Harold will ALWAYS come through. Not meaning to slight any others who post information in respose to questions, because there are so many knowledgeable folks here.

I'm surprised that Lit doesn't have it's own computer Q & A forum.....perhaps a suggestion needs to be made to Manu & Laurel?