The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

SUP, I’m using an ECS P4M800PRO-M478 mobo, this one (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1862445&CatId=182) I went into the bios and enabled the overclocking feature, it automatically set my frequency to 300 MHz, and I’m guessing my multiplier is locked at 11. And I get 3375 MHz, I round it to 3.4, lol. Any way to unlock the multiplier? And if not, what about voltages; the highest voltage increase available is 0.05v. I doubt that will make a difference. Thanks

 

i have ran that test twice(the s+m one) once with the ram set to ddr440 and once with the cpu @240 (ddr402) and both passed(took some time to do all the tests tho). i have not done the boot tests yet because i have no blank disks but i can get some tommorrow and try that then.

those charts are cool and it says my psu was rock solid only changing by .04v on both, 12v and 5v which ran @ 12.42v and 5.34 averages under a 98% load

 

BugCharb,

Sorry, it took me a little time to do some research. You are pretty much limited by your motherboard to around 3.4GHz. It lacks the adjustability of a higher end board. The VIA chipset is a known dog as far as performance goes! Because of the DDR/DDR2 slots it's also limited memory wise as well. I would recomend an Asus P4P800-SE but the prices on them have gone way up, mainly because it's the only really good MB available for the 478 Prescott! You can find them on the net for about $125 (USD). Like I said, I had no problems running at 3.84GHz with this MB and good memory. It uses the Intel P865PE/ICH5R chipset which is about the best around for a socket 478 Prescott.

For about the same money you can get a socket 939 MB/Combo with an Athlon 64 3200+ that uses your DDR400 (PC3200) memory and comes with outstanding on-board video.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1964565&CatId=0

Here's the specs from Newegg, which are more complete than Tigerdirect.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138264

Something like this would be a better move as it will allow you to go dual-core in the future. It has excellent on-board video and a PCIe 16x slot to upgrade to say an X850GT PCIe 16x for about $120. I just built one recently for a customer and was very happy with the performance. It has all the necessary bells and whistles for overclocking. It runs rings around the performance of my Prescot!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

I'm very much like you there, I'll listen to almost anything except rap!
Marsey99, nanya have proven very bad RAM chips, about the worst you get in my experience. They're under the hood of Elixir RAM which is known to have a lifetime of about a year max. If it is the actual board these chips are placed on, I'd be surprised.
Yeah sorry bugCharb, still being in downermode, ECS boards are poor at overclocking, and VIA chipsets don't help much either. A better board is recommended.

 

sammorris,

That's why I gave him the BioStar TForce/A64 3200+ Combo. If he has to spend the same money, it might as well be to get something with a future that you can upgrade. The TForce 6100 is about as good as you can get for overclocking socket 939 CPUs on a budget. Good solid motherboard that has all the necessary adjustments, and it will smoke the Prescott!

If it was me , I would buy the TForce/A64 combo and make a back up computer out of the Prescott/ECS!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

Yeah. On a side note, I can thoroughly recommend the use of Rheostat fan controllers. Infinitely better than the naff Aerocool panel I got before it, fans go slower (and therefore quieter) and my system runs cool enough with the CPU fan speed half-way and the others at minimum during gaming. This renders the system fans utterly inaudible behind the Hiper power supply, which is supposed to be quiet! I'm now wishing I got a Seasonic lol. Nah, the Hiper is a good unit, but since I'm quite high up in its power draw bracket, it obviously gets warm, and hence fan noise, although I'm sure it could be quieter than it is. When I first start up, all I can hear is the hard disks (seriously). That's not bad, when you consider there are 3 120mm case fans, a Zalman 7000 heatsink, a 40mm chipset fan, and a damned stock-cooled X1900 in the system! To give my system a bit better cooling, the stock NZXT fans are being swapped out for some Nexus ones later this week I hope. NZXT ones will probably be mildly quieter, but the Nexus fans will push a fair bit more air, and them being white, they'll react to UV. It also sees off the blue LEDs, which while nice, destroy the effect of Ultra-Violet Lighting, especially when it's sound sensitive.

 

SUP,LOL,BugCharb...anyways thanks for the input, i'm selling my comp to my bro for 800 dollars next month and i'm go'n to buy a nice system for around 14 to 16hundred dollars. untill then i will have to stick with my poor setup, when i do go and build my baby i will have some questions; but until then thanks alot.

 

im sure this house is bugged, first it was crowey now its sam.

i wanted to have a good look at the ram so, i removed the heatsink because the fan overhangs the ram(great design, should cool the ram aswel ahem) and i took them out. i peeled back the stickers that say warrenty viod if removed and low and behold there was another sticker underneath, sam have a guess who makes them....got it one elixer.

lying 2 faced cheeky fer at the pc rair must of printed them and just stuck them over the top because now the stickers are off, if i rub them the ink/writing rubs away, wereas the real ones that were underneath have a more silky feel.

i had always thought they were too good to be true, thing is they are nearly 12 months old and i have just started to oc them. 0-o.

to tell you the truth tho sam they ran fine this morning when i ran that ram test, and i did the long(4 hours total)test on the ram, that was with them oced to ddr440 and it got a pass. heyho only time will tell.

 

sammorris,

Sam, I need the Invisibility Cloak back. Took me forever to get it back from Crowy! LOL!!!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

All I will say is that I know Elixir use Nanya chips from personal experience, and don't know of any other memory manufacturer to use them (or at least to tell you such), and the only two people who have them (me and my friend) have both had them fail. They're pretty naff at overclocking, I'm amazed you got the results you did. Swap for some Corsair pronto!

 

sam,
he has got corsair ram modules,but they are Nanya chips.

 

Seriously? Ouch, he got burned. Unless somebody had a laugh by putting Corsair stickers on Elixir mods... If it was a Corsair module with Nanya chips there'd be no Elixir badge.

 

sam,
Nanya and Elixir are the same.Elixir is owned by Nanya.

 

No wonder they try and blag that Nanya chips are "high performance" then! There will undoubtedly be some good and bad experiences with Elixir, but on the whole they seem bad. Interestingly, Elixir-Nanya was also used in Radeon 9600 Pros...

 

the thing is that at the price i paid i would of got them anyway regardless of the make as at that time as was, shall we say less enlightened.

does anyone know much about riva tuner? lets start at the beggining, last night i was using 3dmark03 and i was trying to get higher than the 12500mark but the coolbits overclocking option had vanished, it was in the regedit but not in the control panel, any way i downloaded rivatuner after reading some good things about it but i cant seem to find any guides on how to use it. i have had a look at what it does/says and apparently there is 4 pixle pipes not being used (nice) but can/how do i activate them? the other thing is it is saying that the gpu/mem is still running at the overclocked timings, now if i change things will it over ride them or just add to them?

i know thats a few questions but if you have any ideas that would be great.

 

Typically unused pipelines are unlocked by BIOS flashing.

 

thanks sam i will look into that now.

fixed the coolbits with system restore, seems that something to do with installing Fahrenheit(the game) had done it. ????????????? your guess is as good as mine.

 

marsey99,
open riva tuner.
Below where it shows your graphics card/monitor hit customize.
6 boxes will appear,hit the first one(low level system settings).
Go down to graphics processor configuration and tick allow enabling hardware masked units,then hit customize.Highlight any pixel unit that is disabled by left clicking on it.Then you will see at the top a heap of zero's and ones.One of them will be a zero highlighted in blue.
Change it's value to 1 by hitting 1 on your keyboard.
Then click apply.Then click ok.Now restart your system and re-open riva tuner and have a look to see if the extra pipes are enabled.

 

wont enable it but it is there.

when i go into the low-level system tweaks, were it says graphics proc config, it says custom (16pp,5vp) but on the front page under the name of my card it says {A2,12pp,5vp} any ideas what the a2 is for?

i think it might have to wait, as the only bios's i have found have been for other makes of card, none that have been hacked or fixxed or whatever you will call it.

g80s, 128 pp's adam and eve it?

 

marsey99,
A2 is your bios revision.
Sounds like it's locked,(mine is too).
Powerstrip is a good o/clocking program if you want to squeeze a bit more out of it.
Go here:
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm