Author Topic: Overclocking an AMD SocketA.. (Read 939 times)

detch01 · « **Reply #15 on:** January 16, 2008, 01:06:21 AM »

The bios won't let me change the multiplier so I'm bumping up the CPU frequency a bit at a time - I have it running at ~1380MHz right now - seems to be stable at 47C. I'll give it a few more minutes, recheck the temp and then see how much it increases by running AH offline.
My video card is overclockable also - I'm not sure it's worth doing tho as I figure it's already outstripping my system (ATI 128MB 9250).

Cheers,
asw

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #16 on:** January 16, 2008, 11:07:15 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by detch01
The bios won't let me change the multiplier so I'm bumping up the CPU frequency a bit at a time - I have it running at ~1380MHz right now - seems to be stable at 47C. I'll give it a few more minutes, recheck the temp and then see how much it increases by running AH offline.
My video card is overclockable also - I'm not sure it's worth doing tho as I figure it's already outstripping my system (ATI 128MB 9250).

Cheers,
asw

Invest $120-180 to a graphics card and you'll get double speed without any overclock.

detch01 · « **Reply #17 on:** January 16, 2008, 11:40:46 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
Invest $120-180 to a graphics card and you'll get double speed without any overclock.

The bottleneck on this system is not the video card, it is the processor so throwing a bigger and faster video card at it right now wouldn't do much but make my wallet lighter.

Shamus · « **Reply #18 on:** January 16, 2008, 12:56:07 PM »

I have one of these sitting around..axda2100dut3c. Its a thbred and was a good overclocker when I was using it.

Give me your addy and I will send it to you, have not used it in years and all I can tell you is that it worked when I retired the system.

shamus

detch01 · « **Reply #19 on:** January 16, 2008, 04:45:16 PM »

Shamus - many thanks, I greatly appreciate the offer. I'll pm you the details.

Cheers,
asw

TequilaChaser · « **Reply #20 on:** January 16, 2008, 05:50:14 PM »

ASW,
use the ATI Cat 4.12 driver ( don't install CCC ( catalyic Control Center ) ( some people do use this, but it is extra software not really needed running in background )

use 512 textures , with 1 gig memory , I suggest preload textures to help ya

also try tinkering with the AGP apature ( my old PC is set to 256 meg Apature , and no assigned IRQ for PCI - checked for AGP use ( kinda going from memory here with out physically looking at BIOS on the PC )

you migt see an improvement running 1280 x1024 res over using 1024 x 768 Res ( I saw a noticeable improvement anyway )......higher res gave me roughly 8 to 12 more FPS.....

don't max out your refresh rate ..stay around 65 to 75 ( 70 is good choice ) ( might even want to lock it at 60 FPS in AH video setup )

run your detail sliders in AH around 1/2 way between performance/Detail to start off..then tinker with them each way to see how far you can go for detail without taking major FPS hit......

others might have some other tips for ya......

also, might help ya even more, if you can use a smaller HD ( 80 GIG or smaller )..less space to sift thru to access...... just another thought.....

good luck

detch01 · « **Reply #21 on:** January 16, 2008, 06:30:02 PM »

Thx TC - great info

. I checked my AGP aperture and it was set to 64 MB (ouch), I've bumped that up to the memory on the card (128MB). Also, I've found the same performance increase by running at 1280X1024 - dunno why it works. You'd think pushing more pixels would slow things down...
Re: the hard drive - this system had an 80gig in it but I have a 200gig HDD that is faster so I've popped that in and only installed what software I use regularly so most of it is free space. I figure if I keep it defragged I'll get the benefit of the extra speed. I might put the 80gig back in if I'm not happy with how this is performing and see if I get a bit more oomph out of the system.

Cheers & thx again,
asw

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #22 on:** January 16, 2008, 08:35:06 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by detch01
The bottleneck on this system is not the video card, it is the processor so throwing a bigger and faster video card at it right now wouldn't do much but make my wallet lighter.

Lol right you had a _duron_ 1.2ghz lolz. Id forget about overclocking and spend $50 to a new CPU that's double performance. Having said that, ATI9250 is about 6 years behind current tech and will definately hold your system back if you have anything above Duron 1.4.

detch01 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 16, 2008, 09:22:39 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
Having said that, ATI9250 is about 6 years behind current tech and will definately hold your system back if you have anything above Duron 1.4.

LOL yup- that's next month's project

hubsonfire · « **Reply #24 on:** January 17, 2008, 04:33:30 PM »

Out of curiousity, could I do anything with this dinosaur? I've been trying to get a better system built for a few years now, but it just hasn't happened yet.

(html dump from CPUZ)

CPU-Z 1.40 report file

Processor(s)

Number of processors 1
Number of cores 1 per processor
Number of threads 1 (max 1) per processor
Name AMD Athlon XP
Code Name Thoroughbred
Specification AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+
Package Socket A (462)
Family/Model/Stepping 6.8.1
Extended Family/Model 7.8
Core Stepping B0
Technology 0.13 um
Core Speed 2004.7 MHz
Multiplier x Bus speed 15.0 x 133.6 MHz
Rated Bus speed 267.3 MHz
Instruction sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE
L1 Data cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 256 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size

Chipset & Memory

Northbridge NVIDIA nForce2 400 rev. C1
Southbridge NVIDIA nForce2 MCP rev. A4
Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Revision 3.0
AGP Transfer Rate 8x
AGP Side Band Addressing supported, not enabled
Memory Type DDR
Memory Size 1024 MBytes
Memory Frequency 167.1 MHz (4:5)
CAS# Latency (tCL) 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# (tRDC) 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 3 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) 7 clocks

System

System Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
System Name A7N8X-X
System S/N xxxxxxxxxxx
Mainboard Vendor ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Mainboard Model A7N8X-X
BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Version ASUS A7N8X-X ACPI BIOS Rev 1009
BIOS Date 02/03/2004

Memory SPD

Module 1 DDR, PC2700 (166 MHz), 512 MBytes, Micron Technology
Module 2 DDR, PC2700 (166 MHz), 512 MBytes, Micron Technology

Software

Windows Version Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
DirectX Version 9.0c

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #25 on:** January 17, 2008, 09:42:45 PM »

Hubsonfire with a graphics card update that box should run older games. That Geforce2 400 is probably the weakest part of your system. It also looks like your cpu is stock clocked at the moment. Overclocking straight-out-of-the-box rarely gets you anything above 10% increase with AMD chips but it's worth trying if you want to try to revive the box.

detch01 · « **Reply #26 on:** January 17, 2008, 09:58:14 PM »

Hub what you might try is swapping out the PC2700 ram for PC3200 (DDR400). Your mainboard will run that (at least from what I found with google). After that, then I'd give the instructions Roo gave me for overclocking a try - bump it up a bit at a time and keep checking the temperatures until you've found the stable limit for you system. Just be very careful and take it slowly and you should (YMMV) be ok.

Cheers & GL

asw

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #27 on:** January 18, 2008, 12:07:46 AM »

Instead of shelling money for new ram I'd get a faster CPU for the same money. Raiding that PC rating just to get a marginal overclock is the least cost-effective way imaginable to upgrade.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #28 on:** January 18, 2008, 10:51:41 AM »

hub can bump that 2400+ to 2.1 - 2.2 ghz if it has the cooling .

depends of his video card if it will be a perfomance gain .

hubsonfire · « **Reply #29 on:** January 18, 2008, 05:28:11 PM »

Stock cooling on it at the moment, and the vid card is an EVGA GF 7600GS. Have an SB Live Value soundcard, and a PCI modem, so I'm not using onboard sound, graphics, or the ethernet port.

In the past, I'd tried increasing my memory and CPU speeds, and couldn't get any higher % on the RAM, or higher multiplier on the CPU to boot up.
I read somewhere that some AMD chips in this line couldn't be overclocked, due to something in the physical construction of the chip, IIRC. Couldn't verify that, and the guy who helped me build the system, I haven't been able to get ahold of in quite some time. He was my only non-AH techgeek type, so I haven't messed with it lately, at least since the last upgrade of the vid card and the second stick of ram.

I've got XP sp2 of course, and have 17 processes with my stick software, MFD stuff, and AH running. I don't really play many other games, nothing current, and nothing that this rig doesn't run well anyway, but I would like to get a little more out of it for AH if I can. Shelling out another grand for some dental surgery in the near future, which makes a new build unlikely, at least for a while.

Appreciate the info, always good to learn more, (especially if it helps extend the life of this box, which I built back during AH2's beta) and overclocking is something I have practically zero experience with, aside from running my old vid cards a little harder.