Yeah, your XP-90 will do fine. Grab Speedfan to read out your temps. It probably won't even reach 50C (depending on your fan) on load. (and depending on weather of course) I assume your 3500+ is a winchester? anyway, since you have the mp 11x it shouldn't be too hard to achieve a nice OC without having to run excessive FSB speeds. even though a 3000+ could achieve the same if not higher OC easily, it depends on luck, batch etc. so your 3500+ runs at 11x200 stock, at 1.4v. first raise your vcore to 1.5v (yeah I know you could raise in smaller steps, but 1.5v is fine for now (I know plenty people running on 1.6v using air), you can alway increase/decrease later - watch your temps - did it go up?) then try increase your FSB to 11x210 = 2310mhz, run pifast, superpi 1m for quick tests. If it does run fine raise your FSB once more etc, I'd say try it out. for a more serious stability testing run superpi 32m or OCCT (both of these take about 30mins - but it gives you a fast indication of stability) and so on. Ofcourse the final test, when you think you got your higest OC and satisfied with it, run Prime95 for 24hours. oh yeah, I'll have to mention memory, not sure whether your Corsair are valueselect or regular sticks, on stock speeds 200Mhz you could easily run low latency, some may even do 2-2-2-5, or 2-3-3-6, when looking for highest OC: screw latency because it will only hold you back. Relax your timings, tweak it later. so 2.5-3-3-7 is a good start. Also I have to mention overclocking with two 512mb sticks is harder than with 2x256mb. just play around and find out the joys/frustration of overclocking
If you dont have Pci lock dont push it too high because when I did my firxt OC'ing my windows got corrupted...I had to buy a new windows...just a precaution...goodluck Ocing
my temp is around 43'c now. I'm using a ClawHammer. i've set the BIOS AI OVERCLOCK to 10%, getting a 220FSB so now running at 2.42Ghz with no problem. it auto set my 512MB CORSAIR VS CL.2.5 RAMS to 220 frequency as well. however, its still running at 2.5-3-3-8. that must suck, but i don't know where to start with OC'ing RAMS. i don't dare to up the FSB manually as i'm not sure how to sync it with the RAMS? the chip is running at 1.5v by default. i thought raising vcore is the most dangerous thing to be doing right away? also, how do i know when to stop raising the FSB? do i leave the RAM settings alone when i up the FSB? what indication should i be expecting when the FSB hits it limit? crash? won't boot? corrupt OS? on memory, would it be a good idea to set it straight to 2-2-2-5? how to change the RAM frequency? thanks for all the info...i'm still trying to figure out the things about dividers? its suppose to involve some calculation to know what is the max setting i should avoid?
Leave the RAM at 2.5-3-3-8 for now. Make things simple for yourself - do one thing at a time. The first thing to do is to find your CPU's maximum stable overclock. What I suggest you do is set your RAM frequency to 166MHz in your BIOS. This is the same thing as using a divider. What this does is it puts a ratio in place between your FSB and your RAM, so that the RAM runs at a lower frequency. This is important when trying to max out your CPU and with RAM that may not overclock very well - it's just making sure that the RAM does not limit your overclock. So test out the CPU. Don't bother with AI overclocking - but since you've already started using it, go with the settings that it's been using. Set your FSB to 220, but don't forget to set the RAM divider to 166. Stress test it with one of the following: Super Pi (do at least 8M to test for stability) Prime95 torture test StressCPU OCCT Whichever you choose, make sure it goes for at least an hour. If the tests do not report errors, then you can keep pushing the FSB up. When it gets unstable, then you have the option of either backing off or increasing the CPU voltage. It's not dangerous as long as you do it in small increments and don't run at insane voltages 24/7. Sounds tedious, doesn't it? That's overclocking for you. But it can be quite addictive and you feel great when it's all over and you get a nice performance boost.
if your ram runs 2.5-3-3-8 default, they definitely won't run 2-2-2-5 overclocked. So keep it at 2.5-3-3-8 Didn't you read my previous post? as I said timings is the last thing you worry about when you start OC'ing and 2.5-3-3-8 doesn't suck at all. your ram runs 200Mhz stock, at 220 you already OC'ed it. don't worry, ram won't die from overclocking. I expect your ram to be able to do 230-240Mhz 1:1. If not you can always try the divider, I don't know where that option is since I never had your Asus mobo. 43C idle seems ok with hot weather, check your load temps, it shouldn't get higher than 50C. IMO 60C is max temp, and like I said it's safe to run 939chips at 1.6v, for 754 it should be 1.7v, but you probably won't need to. Raise vcore when needed (in small increments)
i don't understand this part. what's the purpose of setting it to 166 rather than 200 for testing? also, isn't the end purpose suppose to be getting the ram freq to sync with FSB? i can't find the ram freq setting in BIOS. i found this thought :- Max Memclock (Mhz) but the options available is AUTO, DDR200, DDR266, DDR333 ... DDR600. no 166? is the RAM frequency and divider same thing?
Not really, especially since you have value RAM. Which would you rather have - RAM synced with FSB at 230MHz, or your FSB at 270MHz and the RAM frequency set to 225MHz using a divider? (theoretical situation) Ultimately, using a divider will give you better overall performance because it enables you to get a higher CPU clock. As I said, the idea of setting it to 166 is so that it does not limit your CPU overclock. I hope this is clearer now Yep that's the one. DDR333 = 166MHz. DDR is double data rate RAM. It runs at X MHz but it does twice the amount of work in 1 cycle, so it's called DDR(X*2). Sort of. At the end of the day it's performing the same function.
ok, i think i got an idea now. so i set ram freq to ddr333 and up the fsb/htt to 220...and keep going until the stress test programs report errors ya? or do i down the ram freq everytime i up the fsb/htt a notch?
Why when I asked about o/c last time, nobody answered me? Anyway, if I'm using a 512MB PC3200 Corsair VS and a 256MB normal PC3200 Kingston RAM, how do you think it will affect my RAM overclocking? If I set my RAM speed to auto, they will follow the speed of the FSB right?
Yep You can keep the RAM at DDR333 until the FSB/HTT starts going beyond 240MHz. LOL! I can't speak for the others, but at that time I was also quite n00b so I didn't dare to say anything. Hard to say...value RAM is very unpredictable in terms of overclocking. I think it depends on your mobo and CPU.
Now a bit pro already huh... So far... when I up my FSB/HTT, the speed of the RAM goes up hand in hand. Here's my specs.. Has been using Prime95 which takes too long. Will try the pi thing when I get home. And thanks for the links.
ya..from my testing so far, setting RAM frequency to auto will make it follow the FSB, unless if it goes above 220. then it will use the divider fsb:ram ratio. i've notice on my 512 CORSAIR VS, it can go 220 MHZ no problem at the moment... still trying different things...
I'm afraid of data corruption, if not, I'll go further. Going to drop my RAM to 166 and see how much my CPU can go.
Try ClockGen...if I'm not wrong, it reduces the risk of corrupting your hard drive. Boot up with stable settings, then use ClockGen to push it.
lol, I probably didn't sign up yet. You can only go to so many forums at the same time if you find running prime a few hours too long and want to have an quick indication of stability I suggest running OCCT and Superpi 32m, both run about 30mins so that's a nice alternative. oftenly I see people posting screenies of Superpi 1m, (which takes about 1minute to complete) that barely puts your system to a test
Yeah but I still think it's best to use a combination that includes Prime, like what ahko is doing. I recently tried to push my system a bit further and it passed Super Pi 32M but failed Prime within minutes.
Just wondering... why the vcore in clockgen and in my bios/cpuz are different. In clockgen, it registers at 1.50 (default) when it should be 1.55v. Sometimes really lazy to o/c, rather watch drama. It's not as if I'll gain much coz still using Radeon 9100.