Hi guys. Just built a new rig about 2 weeks ago. Here are the specs.
ASUS M2N-X Board
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2 GHZ
OCZ Gold Edition PC5400 Dual Channel 2 x 1024 MB
Ultra X-Finity 600W PSU
EVGA Geforce 7300GT 512 MB PCI-E x 16 GPU
WD Caviar 250 GB IDE drive
Ive never overclocked a computer before and I think with the components I have put together, I think they should play nice with each other in my attempt to overclock it.
I was digging around my BIOS settings and found an "automatic" overclock feature that lets me set it at 3%, 5%, and 7%. Currently, I have it set at 3% and everything else including all the voltages and memory timing are at default levels (Memory timing is 5-5-5-15).
How can I get more performance out of it without sacrificing stability? Currently, while bumped up to 2.26 GHZ, My cpu temp is 30*C and my Board temp is 31*C so heat is absolutely not a problem yet.
Thanks for the help

"I think they should play nice with each other in my attempt to overclock it"

Yes & no. You bought the wrong RAM & a crappy video card...hopefully this isn't primarily a gaming rig?

Whatever you do, do NOT use the auto-overclock settings. For best performance, you should overclock manually. Here's what you gotta do:

- lower the HT multi to 4x (800MHz)
- lower the RAM speed to DDR533
- lock the PCI-e at 100MHz
- disable Cool 'n Quiet
- disable all Spread Spectrum settings
- raise the CPU freq from 200MHz to 250MHz

This will put the CPU at 2.75GHz, the HT bus at 1000MHz & the RAM at approx 325MHz (DDR650). You *may* have to raise the CPU voltage to stabilize the overclock.

so using the auto overclock is bad?

I do play alot of games on here, primarily the orange box, tried the crysis demo and on medium settings, had no freezing or choppiness and that was with everything stock.

I'm showing you how to overclock by 25%. The auto settings don't take the HT, RAM & PCI-e buses into account.

oh ok....but why would i turn down the speed of the memory? Im running dual channel 667 mhz DDR2. I will try what you said above as son as im done downloading 3dmark.

"but why would i turn down the speed of the memory?"

Because when you overclock the CPU, you automatically overclock the RAM. If you keep the RAM setting on Auto or DDR667 & jack the CPU freq up to 250MHz, the RAM will jump up to DDR800 speed (or thereabouts) & your DDR667 RAM can't handle that. By lowering it to DDR533, it will jump up close to DDR667 again.

You should have gotten DDR2-800 in the 1st place.

Well I did what you said and it crashed hard.
Wouldnt even post. Ended up going back to defaults and starting over by raising the cpu frequency little by little. So far, I am at 216 for frequency.

Are you running the CPU at the default voltage? Last line in response # 1:

You *may* have to raise the CPU voltage to stabilize the overclock.

"Ended up going back to defaults and starting over by raising the cpu frequency little by little"

If you don't change the HT, RAM, PCI-e & Spread Spectrum settings, you're not gonna get very far by just raising the CPU freq.

BTW, if it wouldnt even post, it certainly didn't "crash hard".

its actually a nice built-in feature of my board. if the overclock fails for whatever reason it automatically powers down.
I have adjusted the cpu voltage to the highest setting of 1.3V even with raising the cpu frequency. So far I am at 2.4 GHz with the freq set at 221. Memory timed at 3-3-3-10.
Still get rather low 3dmarks though, must be that junk card I bought.

Why do you have the memory timed at 3-3-3-10 if the default is 5-5-5-15? Leave the timings alone & concentrate on overclocking.

Also, 1.30v is the standard voltage for many X2's...I don't know if you have a Brisbane, Windsor or what, but you're gonna have to jack the voltage up higher than that...possibly as high as 1.50v

Check this article:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article...

Its not possible for me to up the voltage. It only lets me set it at 1.30 or lower.

"Its not possible for me to up the voltage. It only lets me set it at 1.30 or lower"

Are you sure you're adjusting the Processor voltage & not the Chipset voltage?? According to the manual, the Processor voltage goes as high at 1.40v.

I'll compile a list of BIOS settings & post them in a few minutes.

OK Thanks. It's really starting to annoy me.
I have checked and rechecked that I'm looking at the correct setting and yes - it is CPU voltage, not chipset voltage. They are in 2 different menus so it would be really hard to confuse them.

"it is CPU voltage, not chipset voltage"

According to the manual I just downloaded from ASUS, it's labeled as "Processor Voltage" not CPU Voltage...though I suppose that may have been changed?

OK, have a look at these:

Under JumperFree Config:

AI Overclocking = Manual
Chipset Voltage = Auto
Memory Voltage = Auto
CPU Freq = 250MHz
PCI-E Freq = 100MHz

Under CPU Config:

GART Error Reporting = Disabled
Microcode Updation = Enabled
Secure Virtual Machine = Enabled
Cool 'n' Quiet = Disabled

Under AMD Overclocking Config:

Processor Freq Multi = Auto
Processor Voltage = 1.400 V (let me know if there are higher options)

Under Advanced Chipset Settings:
> Memory Controller > Memory Config:

Memclock Mode = Manual
DRAM Freq = 266MHz (DDR533)
For the rest of the options, use all the defaults. Do NOT change the memory timings!

> ECC Config & SouthBridge Config:

Use all the defaults.

> Hyper Transport Config:

MCP65 (SB) to K8 (CPU) Freq Auto = Disabled
MCP65 (SB) to K8 (CPU) Freq = 800MHz
MCP65 (SB) to K8 (CPU) LinkWidth = 16

OK I did exactly what you said. My BIOS only has values for 1.250 and 1.300 volts for the CPU. I set the voltage to 1.3 and saved the settings, exited BIOS and the system powered itself off. When I restarted, I get a message that overclocking failed press F1 to load defaults and continue so here I am again.
This time when I log into Windows, my display goes crazy for about 15 seconds before I can do anything...lots of moving lines throughout the entire screen.

I don't know why the online motherboard manual would show CPU voltage options above 1.30v if they're not possible? Did you look at your manual to see if they're shown that way as well?

yep.
manual says 1.3 too

Maybe a BIOS update is needed?

Sorry to bump this thread, but I have about the same system:

ASUS M2N-X Board
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6 GHZ
GeiL PC2-6400 DDR2-800 Dual Channel 2x1024 MB (4-4-4-12)
Pci-e xfx 8600 GT xxx 256 MB

My problem is, according to GeiL I'm supposed to let the memory have 2.1 volts, whereas the mainboard only has the options [auto][1.9v][1.95v]. Is there a solution to this?

Thanks in advance