Overclocking an AMD SocketA..

[detch01]

Anyone in the community tried this?
I had my main system died on me and I've cobbled together a semi-playable system with spare parts I've had laying around. I'm running a K7 main board with an Athlon running at 1.2GHz and would like to bump the processor speed up without having to lay more than just a pumped up air cooling system.
Anyone have any advice, do's and don'ts in regard to this?



Cheers & thx

asw

[Fulmar]

As in the ECS K7S5A main board?  My buddy back in college had this motherboard, fried itself twice within a year.  That's an old board

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Rule of thumb in overclocking: Keep your temperatures down, do only small increment increases in FSB and test each one with 2-3 hours of prime95 torture test to see if it's stable. It takes work.

Once the OC starts to fail in the prime test you need to take it a step down and you found your sweet spot.

You can increase the OC level by setting a higher CPU and ram voltage in the bios however this will dramatically increase heat production and you need to make sure you have a good cooler and good ventilation in your box.

Older AMD chips are not that good with OC but not horrible either. Where as with Intel chips I could bump my E4500 speed from 2.2 to 2.9 Ghz on aircooling straight away with full confidence it will boot up.

[Roscoroo]

what board is it ? and what cpu ? and what ram ?


i need the exact specs befor i tell ya were to clock it too ... (or open up my spare parts stash for ya )

[TequilaChaser]

Need Info!

MB Brand  & Bios  Version

is the AMD processor a  1200    or true 1.2 ghz processor?

whats ya default clock and power/amp/volt settings?

whats ya FSB multiplier setting?  

what is the limitations of your settings ( set values or 1 step at a time increments?

I had in the past got  an actual 1150 mhz processor to bump up to 1.8 ghz  AMD Socket-A type   and had no issues...but trying to OC the ram caused all kinds of headaches.....and this was on  one of them  "ECS K7S5A PRO" MB's......

the  computer is still running, and it ran AH2 ok with a Ati 9000 Pro 128 meg vidcard AGP /  512 meg Pc133 Ram..... 300 watt PSU 80 gig WD IDE HD...


Roscoroo, you fast........   listen to him, ASW he does this stuff all the time......( tinkerer he is )

[detch01]

Wow  thx all .

Roo, TC, here are my system specs:

bios: American Megatrends V 07.00T (02/04/2001)
SMBios Version 2.3 (whateverthehell that is)
CPU: x86 Family 6, Model 7, Stepping 1 AMD running at ~1.2GHz
Mainboard: PC Chips K7 model M825G
FSB: 333 MHz (dunno what the multiplier is - find that in bios settings?)
System Ram: 1 gig  (333MHz DDR2700)
OS: XP Home (v 5.1.2600 SP2)
VC: ATI 9250 w/128MB ram on the card (AGP).
Anything I miss?


Cheers & thx again

asw

[Roscoroo]

"FSB: 333 MHz (dunno what the multiplier is - find that in bios settings?)"

now without knowing exactly what the cpu is (you need to pull the heatsink and get the number off of it) or just a sec cpuZ will do it ...(ill find it for ya )

example for clocking these .
cpu multiplyer  8 x 166 fbs speed= 1.3 ghz    (166 = 333 on these amd's)
10 x 133= 1.3 ghz
8.5 x 166 = 1.4 ghz
9 x 166 =1.5 ghz



brb .

[Roscoroo]

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/CPU-Z-Download-6980.html


download this and run the  cpu z .exe

then tell me  or screen shot it for me ... this will sort of give me a idea whats what .    but as in these amds they change there number to what they are clocked at .  IE a 2500+ clocked at 11x200  with show up as a 3200+

you could have alot larger cpu in there thats currently showing up at a 1.2 ghz because of its clocking ... but in reality it could be anything .

[detch01]

Will do - thx . gimme a mo and I'll fire you off a screenie.


Cheers,
asw

[detch01]

From CPUz:
Name: Mobile AMD Duron
Code Name Morgan
Package: Socket A
Tech: 0.18um Core voltage: ~1.5 v (seems to vary a tad over 1.5v)
Family 6, Model 7, Stepping 1
Ext Family 7, Ext Model 7, revision A1
Instructions MMX(+), 3DNOW!(+), SSE
Core speed 1200.2MHZ  L1 Data: 64Kbytes
Multiplier x12.0   L1 inst: 64Kbytes
Bus Speed 100.0MHz   Level 2: 64Kbytes
Rated FSB 200.0 MHZ

Need any of the other tabs (cache, mainboard, memory or sbd) ?

Cheers
asw

I just threw in another 256MB of 333MHz ram - figured it counhoit

[Roscoroo]

try 10 x 133 that will set it at 1.3 ghz  its a mobile morgan cpu they only went to 1300  so thats as fast as I would push it for now ... also check your cpu temp when your in the bios screen ... restart and check it again after 5-10 mins ...it should be 48c or less idle temp ... or under 54c after running a game . if its above this clock it back to were it was .



some of these morgans would clock to 1.5---- 1.6 ghz but you gotta have a good temp monitor program and keep them under 54c , they stutter when they get too hot.

[detch01]

Will do - thx again Roo Much appreciated. This should hold me until I find a better chip to put on this mainboard.



Cheers,
asw

[Roscoroo]

that board will only go to 2.0ghz (I believe its the same as my amptron 825)

so if you find a 2400+ thoroughbred or  even a 2500+ barton cpu  thats as much as it can handle .... Warning : stay away from Semprons and applebred cpu's there junk and ussually dont work on that board.


lets see if someone around here has one .... I'll ive got right now is a 1700+ athlon (1.5 ghz) , and a couple of 800- 1.3 athlon /morgans in my stash.

[detch01]

I'll be crawling the used computer stores in town tomorrow looking for one.


Cheers & thx again Roo

I took a crack at over-clocking - musta done something wrong so I had to reboot the bios. I'm off to the intardnet for info . When all else fails, follow instructions....

asw

[Roscoroo]

rgr .. it might be arguing with ya ... and 13 x 100 might work  or anouther combo
7.5 x 166 or 8.0 x 166  

that equals 1300 ... some times you have to try different multiplycations with them ...