[Viper62382]

Hello all, been reading on this site for the past 12 hours straight now LOL, and been messing with the BIOS for the past 6 hours

Anywho, wanted to thank you all for the great info, but I must say there are something I still do not understand.

I have an ASUS P4PE Motherboard with an Intel 2.4ghz CPU, 512 DDR PC2700 Ram ,Nvida FX 5700LE 256DDR Card. BIOS version 1.7 (latest)

I have my comp. overclock to 3204mghz with the CPU Frequency at 178. MEM frequency at 356mhz. I have included screenshots so you can help me out possibly and tell me if I'm doing the right thing. My temps in the BIOS at idle are around 50 degrees Celcius. Having an issue while playing CS; Source with it closing on its own, the random rebooting, and fluctuatin FPS rates. I just want to have my system running at its optimal settings. I have the standard fans on the CPU with that silver thermal compound I recently put on, and standard fan on the video card, and 1 exhuast fan. I have no other place for an intake fan. I have some bay slots removed for a better air flow.

My main concern is what to set the frequencies to, and do I adjust the voltage for the memory or AGP?

This is what I have:

CPU Multiplier -18X
CPU Freq - 178
MEM freq - 356
AGP/PCI freq - 90.66/45.33 (This one I don't understand at all or why i choose this setting)
Vcore - 1.575v
DDR Voltage - Auto ??
AGP VDDQ Voltage - Auto ??

All your inputs are greatly appreciated, you all are honestly the greatest community around. Thanx!

 

[flipflop]

first of all, change your PCI/AGP bus setting to locked, so it stays at 33/66. anything else is a baddd idea. after that you might find things looking up. you could set the ram timing a bit different if the PCI/AGP bus doesnt help, but doubt itll be a problem cause you are only OCing the ram 23 mhz. I dont know what kinda ram it is, just see if there is a setting for set ram latency for speed, or try to get the settings like 3-6-6-8 (not always in that order, but you'll figure it out) and slowly increase from there. that should be a good place to start, and do it in that order cause you might not have to set the RAM any different.

 

[Viper62382]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flipflop first of all, change your PCI/AGP bus setting to locked, so it stays at 33/66. anything else is a baddd idea. after that you might find things looking up. you could set the ram timing a bit different if the PCI/AGP bus doesnt help, but doubt itll be a problem cause you are only OCing the ram 23 mhz. I dont know what kinda ram it is, just see if there is a setting for set ram latency for speed, or try to get the settings like 3-6-6-8 (not always in that order, but you'll figure it out) and slowly increase from there. that should be a good place to start, and do it in that order cause you might not have to set the RAM any different.

Cool, I went ahead and changed the PCI/AGP back to 33/66.

Then for the latency this is what I have, let me know if it is correct:

SDRAM CAS LATENCY - 3T
SDRAM RAS TO CAS DELAY - 3T
SDRAM RAS PRECHARGE DELAY - 3T
SDRAM ACTIVE PRECHARGE DELAY - 8T
SDRAM IDLE TIMER - AUTO
SDRAM BURST LENGTH - AUTO

Does that sound right, or do I need to adjust any of those?

 

[flipflop]

those arent very fast settings, but if your RAM isnt ment for low latency settings, then that should be fine. did changing the AGP/PCI synch help any, cause it should have.

 

[hexogenn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper62382 AGP/PCI freq - 90.66/45.33 (This one I don't understand at all or why i choose this setting)

With such a frequencies you're killing your agp/pci cards(66/33 lock then everything is OK now)
And you NEED A NEW COOLING SYSTEM/HSF or whatever...These 50c are not healthy for your northwood.

 

[Sloth_Boy]

50C is fine for a northwood. My 2.8Ghz northy goes over 60C at full load at defualt clocks. At idle the temps are at 42C. There is like a 20C deference between idle and full load. Does that sound like a motherboard reading error or real temps.

 

[YiffyGriffy]

Really, for any CPU the lower the better, and 50C is pushing it. I once again recall horror stories of "Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome"...

 

[Viper62382]

So what about my latency times? Are they OK at what they are now? Or should I increase or decrease?

 

[flipflop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper62382 So what about my latency times? Are they OK at what they are now? Or should I increase or decrease?

If thats what they are set at in the BIOS for your RAM speed, dont worry about it, you should be fine. Id find out about a new CPU heatsink and fan or some better cooling so you can get those temps down.

 

[Viper62382]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flipflop If thats what they are set at in the BIOS for your RAM speed, dont worry about it, you should be fine. Id find out about a new CPU heatsink and fan or some better cooling so you can get those temps down.

Actually those are the settings I set the latencys to. I just bought a new case that has 8 fans and a 450watt power supply. CPU temps still around the same, guess the CPU needs the new high power fan. We'll see what happens.

As far as MEM Frequency what do I set it to, half the CPU Frequency, or higher?

 

[Sloth_Boy]

higher the better, but only if you can get it higher. Once again 50C isn't that hot. 60C is hot. You'll see bairly no increase in performance with ram timings. you'll see the difference in numbers with benchmarks but not will your working

 

[YiffyGriffy]

I still say much over 50C, for a Northwood at least, is playing the "make a really expensive papaer weight" game...

 

[Sloth_Boy]

well i stick to 60C is hot 50C is normal for stock HSF. anything over 60C is making the CPU take it's clothes off

 

[Viper62382]

Interesting, with this new case and PSU only the motherboard temps have gone down. CPU is hitting 60C while playing CS: Source. Auto reboots. I'm about to go and get a nice big fan and heatsink for the CPU. Im still using the stock one while OCing it to 3.2 ghz. See how far I can push it after I can cool it down a bit.

 

[OzziKing]

How do you take screen shots of your normal desktop, I have tryed so many things such as ctrl+printscreen, printscreen. Nothing seems to work, and if I do hit these buttons where are these screenshots going? Lol, im lost. Thx

 

[flipflop]

Viper, I dont know about those random re-boots, unless your board has a thermal protection device on it, and decides to shutdown randomly, but Id think about getting a new fan one way or the other considering your hefty OC. The only other thing I can think is benchmark you comp, if you havent already, a good run of 3Dmark01 SE should knock your comp out just like source, and you might be over extending your OCing ablities just a bit, maybe try turning down the clock speed and upping the RAM speed a bit and find a happy middle place where its more stable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OzziKing How do you take screen shots of your normal desktop, I have tryed so many things such as ctrl+printscreen, printscreen. Nothing seems to work, and if I do hit these buttons where are these screenshots going? Lol, im lost. Thx

hit the printscreen key, open your favorite MS Paint application, and hit control-V, or paste, and you should get a fat screen shot in Paint.

 

[Viper62382]

I've stabilized my system at 3.15ghz. Got a nice 9cm fan with big heatsink for the CPU. 3 exhuast fans and 3 intake fans on the case.

Only thing is I have the FSB at 175mhz VCORE at 1.575 and DDR Frequency at 350mhz. My latencys are 2-2-2-6. I had the SDRAM burst length at infinite, but changed it back to auto. What do you guys think about these settings? Anything i should adjust higher or lower? right now in WINXP at idle im 41C CPU and 32C MB. Everything seems ok. I'm just addicted at raising the FSB, but then i have the rebooting issue which is a built in protection feature in the ASUS P4PE motherboard (thank God!!). would have prolly burned my system out long ago if it wasnt for this built in protection. WOuld rasing the DDR frequency help me or hurt my setup? ITS PC2700 DDR btw.

 

[flipflop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper62382 I've stabilized my system at 3.15ghz. Got a nice 9cm fan with big heatsink for the CPU. 3 exhuast fans and 3 intake fans on the case. Only thing is I have the FSB at 175mhz VCORE at 1.575 and DDR Frequency at 350mhz. My latencys are 2-2-2-6. I had the SDRAM burst length at infinite, but changed it back to auto. What do you guys think about these settings? Anything i should adjust higher or lower? right now in WINXP at idle im 41C CPU and 32C MB. Everything seems ok. I'm just addicted at raising the FSB, but then i have the rebooting issue which is a built in protection feature in the ASUS P4PE motherboard (thank God!!). would have prolly burned my system out long ago if it wasnt for this built in protection. WOuld rasing the DDR frequency help me or hurt my setup? ITS PC2700 DDR btw.

If it runs good, Id say keep everything there, your RAM is at a real tight latency setting, Id watch that for being a problem if its too tight, my XMS only runs 2-3-3-6. the temp seems good, and thats a healthy overclock, congrats!

:shades2:

 

[Viper62382]

I really do appreciate all the help all of you have given me. Its been a great learning experience. I purchased today a GeForce 6800 Video Card. It was a huge improvement over the FX5700 256 I had. I was benching 21,XXX with AquaMark3D and now with this card im benching 52,XXX. Tomorrow I'll be upgrading to Kingston PC3200 1GIG RAM. I'll post my new results. MY GPU Core Temp is 59C and Ambient is 37C idle. Sound about right to you guys?