An A64 3200+ newcastle needs OC'ing

Shike

Okay, I tried this once but failed in utter dissapointment. I want my 3200+ socket 754 to reach 2.4 GHZ. I understand from lots of people this should not be a problem at 1.5V. I have Corsair Value DDR400 with 2.5/3/3/8 timings. I try and try to up my HTT speeds to 218Mhz but for some reason it gets a nasty BSOD complaining about nv*forgets rest*.sys, obviously it was my VNF3-250 throwing a scene. I bumped the voltage up to 1.55 and it became somewhat stable, although I'm not to excited about pumping higher voltages into it (let alone it still wasn't stable at those speeds). What would you all recommend?

bug77

It's a 3.33% overvolt. Anything up to 5% should be more than safe.

Shike

Okay, I raised the FSB up to 220mhz with the VCORE at 1.6 and the memory VDIMM at 2.9 with 3/3/3/8 timings. I benchmarded with 3Dmark05 and my score went from 5200 to 4900!? Any ideas what could have forced my score down and how to fix it?

dipstick

Here's a few things you should try.
-Set HT to x4
-Drop mem to DDR333(166)
-Raise cpu voltage to 1.6v
-Set AGP to 67MHz

My guess is that you are not giving the cpu enough voltage(i mean 1.5 is default) and you are pushing the mem too much in 1:1 mode(ddr400)

Shike

Well I did find out what happend later on. It turns out the latest VNF3-250 bios from Chaintech are duds. They took out the option to disable cool & quit so forth, so I had to go back to my old ver. Anyway I'll try again to see what this does to my scores...

Zardon

what mobo are you using dipstick?

eggs420

c&q doesnt even work on that board man, don't worry about that.

Shike

Umm, yeah it does. They didn't support it in the first bio release but in the second it did. In the third bios release they took out the option to disable it is what it looks like. Let's see, I downgraded one bios release and my benchmark goes up 300 points? I think that means something....

Also, I did get a chance to OC my CPU up to 2.4ghz...but it still did not improve my benchmark by as much as I would like.....

eggs420

The July bios had the option but it did _not_ work even when set to auto..The 9/21 bios looks like c&q is forced on if the amd driver is installed..I stand corrected. Woot, thanks.

refraction

try lowering your multiplier slightly altho this may report a lower speed the bus speed is what counts. Also play with the CAS latancy of your memory, its wierd sometimes its more stable on a lower setting (eg CAS 2) but sometimes it requires a higher setting like 3.

Shike

You're welcome ^_-

Anyway, when I OC'ed my CPU mark increased dramatically...sadly though 3dmark itself barely increased (~30 points).

Frankly I'm still debating whether it's worth overclocking or staying at stock.

bug77

Well 3DMark2003 is supposed to be more CPU/mem independent than 3DMark2001. So I wouldn't worry about that.

Shike

Who said anything about 03? This is 05 I'm talking about

bug77

Same thing, I guess... If you want to see an increase, try 3DM2001. Anyway, do you really see any differences, aside from the benches?

zerodamage

I've done something similar with my 3200 A64 and was able to easily get it to 2.4 Ghz. It helped enough to keep de_aztec on CS Source from getting stuttering and sound issues. I did not need to touch the CPU voltage at all. I did however need to move my Geil RAM up to 1.85 voltage even though it is rated at 433 (PC3500). The timings of the RAM are advertised 2-3-3-6 but the system demands 2.5-4-4-8 or it gives lots of errors and BSOD's.

I am using only stock cooling for now and the temps are fine. No higher than 46 celsius at load. MSI Neo Ultra 754-pin board.