The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

Hi Russ, Just a quick question, what difference does setting it to manual make in the timing?.

 

Ok,I more or less figured out what the MCH Overvolt Control is but would anyone be kind enough to explain what the "Northbridge" / "Southbridge" is?, all I know is that theyre towns in England!lol

 

Are they? I had no idea, never thought to look them up!
The Northbridge (a.k.a. Chipset) and Southbridge are two CPUs on the motherboard itself that connect your hardware to the CPU and Memory. They are the motherboard's own processors, if you like.

 

Lol, I didnt either but they sound like UK towns!.Thanks for the info anyway Sammorris, much appreciated. I need to cool my northbridge down I think...

 

As do I, the modern northbridges get hot. As it so happens, there is a Northbridge in england, but there's no southbridge, the only southbridge I could find was in New Zealand.

 

In my Bios under memory timings I have this option:

Refresh To ACT Delay.............48................0

My quetion is, do I leave this on 0 or do I change it to 48 along with the rest of the timings:
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) [Auto]
x CAS Latency.................................................5........................5
x DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay....................5........................5
x DRAM RAS# Precharge ............................5........................5
xPrecharge Delay (tRAS) ............................18........................18
xACT To ACT Delay (tRRD)........................3...........change to 3 or leave on AUTO?
xRANK Write to Delay..................................3......change to 3 or leave on AUTO?
xWrite To Precharge Delay...........................6........change to 6 or leave on AUTO?
xRefresh To ACT Delay...............................48........................0 ?
xRead To Precharge Delay............................3........................Auto?

 

5-5-5-18 timings are quite slack, what memory do you use?

 

Kingston, its not great ram I'm affraid, check my signature at the bottom.

Its not running at 830 its now at 833.

 

sammorris, As you can see from my specs, I have a Netcomm 56k v92 Internal Modem. My question is, do you recon I should pull the modem because I have an external ADSL one now and dont use the dial up any longer. Ive also got that Kouwell Firewire Card 3 External Ports which ive never used!,not even sure what its for!, guess you can tell I'm a newbie!. thanks for your replies and help Sammorris.

 

There is no point iin keeping any thing you don't use. Just take 'em out. BTW can you try to tighten those timings? That would benifit you more than a 30 Mhz overclock I think. You can probably up the memory voltage to 2.1v, but I'm not exactly familiar with the quality of Kingston sticks.

 

sheeny33,

It allows you to set the timings manually to spec and better, if the memory can handle better timings. On Auto it usually sets the memory to stock timings. With mine I had to go to cas5, but was able to leave the sub timings at 4-4-12. This allows my memory to run at 890MHz with the 2.66 multiplier and it performs better. I can raise the DIMM voltage to 2.2v and run timings of 4-4-4-12, but the memory gets a bit hotter than I like. I settled for 2.1v and timings of 5-4-4-12 and I'm more than satisfied with the performance running my air turbine simulations with AutoCad 2004 as it's both memory and CPU intensive. I'm still a week or two away from getting the E6750 and I'm very curious as to how it will perform in this MB. I hope to be able to move up to the P35-DS3L MB as I know I won't have any problems getting to 3.5-3.6GHz with it!

Clock On,
theone :>)

 

I'm not quite sure how I improve the memory timings, I'm a virtual newbie, FSB speed is all I've done so far, if you can get me started I would much appreciate it.

A few newbie questions to do with my Timings:-

DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) [Manual]
x CAS Latency.................................................5........................5
x DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay....................5........................5
x DRAM RAS# Precharge ............................5........................5
xPrecharge Delay (tRAS) ............................18........................18
xACT To ACT Delay (tRRD)........................3........................3 - Do I leave on Auto? or 3
xRANK Write to Delay..................................3........................3 - Do I leave on Auto? or 3
xWrite To Precharge Delay...........................6........................6 - Do I leave on Auto? or 6
xRefresh To ACT Delay...............................48........................0 - Do I leave on 0? or 48?
xRead To Precharge Delay............................3........................3 - Do I leave on Auto? or 3?

 

sheeny33,

Just copy over the auto settings for now! What is your memory multiplier set at now, 2.0, 2.50 or 2.66? You might try 2.66 with those settings. If it refuses to boot or resets while booting up just lower it to 2.50 and try again! I don't know what the specs on your memory are so I'm just guessing. Can you give me the rated timings from the memory manufacturer? I'm guessing that it's 5-5-5-18 judging by the auto settings. Also what speed is the memory, 800, 667 or 533? Get back to me with this and I'll have a better idea on what advice to give you!

EDIT:
I just happened to look at you sig and see that the memory speed is 800MHz, so try the 2.66 memory multiplier and see what happens. You can't blow anything up so don't worry about it. I would also set the DIMM OverVoltage control to +1 if you don't have it set there already!

Best Regards,
Russ :>)

 

sheeny33, RE: Overvoltages,

During overclocking beyond a certain FSB the various cips on the mobo need a tad more volts just like the CPU and RAM if you want it all to stable out. The MCH (memory controller hum) is in the Intel Northbridge (chipset, the larger chip closer to CPU, ie; P35) wich directly works with your memory, PEG Link, and PCI BUS. This is exactly why you are gonna get better frames if upping the NB or MCH voltage. Now the GigaBit LAN and RAID/AHCI & more is also integrated into the SB (southbridge, the smaller chip closer to SATA ports at bottom, ie; ICH9R). So on mobos that allow it to be tweaked, you can gain a little more stability by upping this too (on the Gigabyte you only get to up the PCI-E). Otherwise, if the NB & SB cant keep up with eachother, one bridge is gonna' fall down. The FSB is the path the CPU memory and all other periffials communicate w/ eachother so it can gain a little from a overvolt if the CPU and mobo FSB is upped a bit to keep the traffic flowing smoothly, and mobo more stable. Try to up as little as needed. If you do need to move closer to the max overvolt, then by all means, add better aftermarket cooling to each NB and SB as well as PWR mosfets if possible. Although, the PWR regulator of the Gigabyte appears to run quite cool for not having any kind of heat sink. but the NB will get hot @ the +0.3v.

Edite: I just found this to use as a guide:

Hope that helped! There's more to tweak, but not on these mobos so if others who know this mobo better can add their experience. Good luck and go get you clock on!

 

Not much more to be said, Russ pretty much covered it. See what happens and let us know.

BTW I got my X1900 GT! I'm on my old gay Compaq right now since I didn't have a working video card or HDD in the other PC. Oh yeah I am upgrading to a nice SATA HDD. So I'm gonna head to the store right now and let you guys know how far I can OC my card.

 

Gamers, Your Attention Please!!!

I need your help finding a replacement socket 939 AMD mobo for a HTPC micro ATX box. We don't wanna replace anything other then mobo so it need to be DDR1 and PCI-E x16 supportive. Since most of these high end units had integrated graphics and audio it should have HD audio and DVI and S or component video out.

I was hoping some of you may have or have friends using one when the AMD socket 939 was new. I had the A8N-VM micro version and it did nice but a Gigabyte would nice to try. What was their "FlagShip" micro ATX of the AMD 939 socket for X2, FX and Opteron?

Thankx in advance!

 

NuckNFuts,
Not to dash your hopes, but Newegg only lists 17 socket 939 MBs! The ones from Asus are out because of the Via chipset (they suck!), Then there's a couple from Foxconn, a couple from Jetway (LOL!) and the best of the bunch is this one from Biostar.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138269

I've used a lot of these for customer builds but they are nowhere what you are looking for. They OC pretty decent but it has OB Graphics. It does have a PCIex16 and 2xSata 3.0 but no HD sound. Unfortunately there very slim pickings with socket 939 and it's not going to get any better. I've used the T-Force version of this MB as well and it's a good board for overclocking, but again no HD audio and has OB graphics. No problems with the 16x PCIe and a decent vid card. You might have to hunt around a bit and see what you can find that's leftover as I don't think there will be any more socket 939s coming!

Best Regards,
Russ :>(

 

Here were the Gigabyte boards in Micro ATX...and a couple others...
The Gigabyte boards will be hard to find...

NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Based Boards
GA-K8N51GMF-9
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1939
Here is one on E-Bay $0.99 right now with HD Audio and PCI-E x16***NEW***
http://cgi.ebay.com/GIGABYTE-i-DNA-...ryZ99245QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

GA-K8N51GMF-9-RH
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Mot...d&ProductID=2294&ProductName=GA-K8N51GMF-9-RH

BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M9 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $59.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138269


NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Based Boards
GA-K8N51PVM9-RH
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Mot...rd&ProductID=2214&ProductName=GA-K8N51PVM9-RH

GA-K8N51PVMT-9
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Mot...ard&ProductID=1938&ProductName=GA-K8N51PVMT-9

NVIDIA nForce4 based boards
Foxconn NF4K8MC-EKRS 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $59.95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186066

I have never used any of them...I like the Foxconn Nforce 4 the best...going by chipsets...

 

LP531,

I put Foxconn right in there with Jetway. I wouldn't use either one, not even for a customer build! I use Biostar for my AMDs and GigaByte for my Intels for office use and to run the processor at stock speed.

I had one today, my customer's computer had 1200 viruses on it! It had none!!! Someone went into the setup and didn't know what they were doing trying to OC it! It's an A64 4000+ 2.4GHz and the newer 4000+s were dynamite. FX-53s most of them and towards the very end FX-56s! Someone had messed up a setting and didn't remember where it was and went "Bad" the wrong way! A 4000+ well capable of hitting 20,000 MIPS! Someone had made the CPU multiplier x5 instead of x12. It throws the timing off on AVIs and Mpegs and it reads them like a "Trojan", so Kaspersky and Zone Alarm go nuts. It's only happened twice all the time I've been building computers and they had nothing in common with one another as the other one was a 3.4GHz P4 Prescott! Hit the reset button and you'll never see it again. Click on Kaspersky after the reset and everything will have been dealt with before you even open it. Click OK and it's done! No more alarms and pop-ups and everything works fine! The CA did pretty good with it to! It caught everything but some of it you had to delete manually. My license is good until 01/03/08 and I haven't used it since March. Kaspersky is worth every penny of the $50 I spent for it. And free upgrades for life to boot! In the last week or so it started picking up "Root Kits"! I have to read up on that one, but I know it's bad! As far as I'm concerned anything thats detecting Root Kits this fast The people who run the company know their stuff. I heard Leo Laport on the radio Sat, and he said something about them being very hard if not impossible to detect. The software speaks for itself. A "Must Have" (No, I don't own stock. I wish I did), on my list! OH! Vista's not on that list! LOL!!

Best Regards,
theone :>)

 

@theonejrs
Man..Don't get me started on Vista...been pulling my hair out all week over my brother's HTCP Media Server running Vista...Got a Blue Ray drive...have 3 movies..."Pirates of the Caribbean"...try playing it with Power DVD...says its the wrong region code...won't play...WinDVD it plays fine...

Throw in "Are we there yet"...both player say...Wrong Region Code...so it will not play...

Throw in the Guardian...WinDVD says Wrong Region Code...won't play...PowerDVD will play then randomly the Vista Hourglass comes on Player Freezes...I got a feeling it is Vista and its Wonderful DRM that is causing the problem...

I Hate Vista...

Does anyone have a Blue Ray Drive in a computer Running Vista?..
I need to pick your Brain...