p3 800 o/c

[TweeKaGe]

Hi im new to these forums :)

p3 800EB (fpo/batch #: LO46A390); 512mb pc-133 sd-ram (cas3); gigabyte GA-60MM7E (intel 815E), leadtek gf2 ultra; standard p3 fan (with no intention of getting bigger one), winxp pro

I just went into my bios, and had a look and stuff at settings and everything, and came across an option cpu host/pci clock

Anyway, it was set at default, and by some quick calculations, those settings were 133/33. 133 becos 133 x 6 = ~800MHz, and because my motherboard utility sez that the cpu/pci clock is 133/33 :D

So, i thought it wouldnt hurt to change the setting by one from default to 137/34 so now according to wcpuid my cpu is now at 822 MHz and fsb at 137.

my question is, wat is it safe to turn up to? keep in mind i wish to keep the standard fan and dont wanna fry my bits. :) in the bios the following options left are these:

*low settings we dont care about
*133/33 (default)
*137/34 (current)
*140/35
*145/36
*150/38
*153/38

oh yea, temp at idle is currently 14 degree (mainboard monitor), ive seen it go as high as 37 degrees while at 100% load encoding a divx while at normal settings, so which setting do u guys think it is safe to go up to?

oh yea, and wats pci clock? ie the 34 out of 137/34?

cheers

[whetu]

go take a look at the overclocking faq (http://forums.overclockers.co.nz/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1096), it's incomplete but what's there should give you enough understanding to answer most if not all of your questions.

*plus i need a guinea pig ;)*

[whetu]

and direct answers:

go as high as you can, but try to keep your pci bus lower than 40ish.

the pci bus is where your devices such as sound cards, network cards, modems etc interface with other components. As you overclock your front side bus, you also overclock your pci bus.

PCI devices tend to be sensitive, so as you overclock, either you ram or your PCI devices will give out first...

Also judging by the age of your motherboard, you may be indirectly overclocking your IDE controller which runs your hard drive, cdrom etc,

Just keep that all in mind, as the higher you go, the more chance you have of damaging your pci components and your ide components....

As for your cooling question.. you should be ok.. just keep your full load temps under 45c - 50c

[/braindump]

[TweeKaGe]

well.. thanks for your replys whetu, i learnt alot :)

anyway, i tried raising it some more, now its at 870Mhz ~14 degrees idle (man is the gigabyte utility manager accurate?)

fsb = ah wat the heck see for urself :)

145/36

[whetu]

awesome :D now take a look see what you can get out of your ram.. it must be pretty decent stuff to get this far :)

[TweeKaGe]

Originally posted by whetu
awesome :D now take a look see what you can get out of your ram.. it must be pretty decent stuff to get this far :)

hehe wat would have happened if it wasnt good ram?? thats actaully wat im wondering rite now, is it safe to o/c fsb above the ram speeds??

and wat do u mean see wat i can get out of my ram? u mean o/c it some more?? hehe i will, maybe after a few days of use at the current clock, to see the temps and stuff, like is it stable etc :D

[whetu]

whoops sorry for my vagueness... umm by that i mean lowering the cas/ras latencies from 3 to 2, and also enabling 4 way memory interleaving (if these options are available)

done in the bios btw

[TweeKaGe]

hi whetu

yea i lowered the cas to 2, all good so far :D

hmm. .. interesting, when i booted up my pc b4, at 900Mhz (150fsb), the sound refused to work, ie windows didnt even detect the onboard sound (ac '97)

i lowered it to 145fsb (870MHz), still didnt work, so i lowered it again to 140fsb (840MHz) and it works now.

thats wierd can anyone explain? ta

[farns]

/me raises hand!

Its cos of the PCI bus being too much out of spec !

/me has been an attentive noob while browsing geek forums :D

[whetu]

well done young padawan :D

[Maverick]

If the rest of your system runs fine (apart from sound) then have a look out for a PCI soundcard from a decent manufacturer. It will most likely be able to handle the higher FSB better than the AC97 sound.

AC97 sound also is more CPU hungry than a dedicated sound DSP (SB Live! or Philips Rhythmic edge, Hercules Fortissimo2 etc) so upgrading will not only allow a higher overclock, but also give you more CPU horsepower for games, not to mention much better quality sound:)

Best way to test an overclock for stability in my experience is the Unreal Engine. Crank UT for a few games. If it locks up or creashes then you arent quite stable, and will have to back off on the FSB.

Good luck,

Mav

PS: 4 way memory interleave is essential for VIA chipsets only in order to get 'mostly decent' memory bandwidth. The classic Intel BX has really good SDRAM support and doesnt have this option in BIOS AFAIK.