Hi,

am not deliberatly trying to overclock, but i was wondering if my settings in BIOS are at their maximum speed.....or can i alter the settings to run them faster without adding any extra cooling.

in other words, are my componants "synchronised" properly, and are they running at their safe MAXIMUM level ?

Asus P4S800-MX mainboard (FSB 800)

Intel Celeron D 330, 2667 MHz (20 x 133) - (90 nm 256 KB L2 2.66 GHz FSB 533 MHz) and i might add, a very overclockable CPU from what i've read on the www.

RAM - 512Mb. 2 sticks (2 x 256Mb) Apacer PC3200 (200 MHz) DDR

in my BIOS my default settings are current and show......

CPU Speed - 2667MHz (options are Manual, 2667, 4000)
CPU Frequency Multiplyer - 20x (locked i think)
CPU External Frequency - 133/33 MHz (options are from 133/33 ----> to 266/33)
Memory Frequency - 200 MHz (Options are Auto, 133, 166, 200)

temps at idle in Desktop are CPU 38, mainboard 33, CPU Usage 0%

system was home built a year ago.

should i alter any settings in BIOS to get more juice (and how would i do that and without adding extra cooling) or should i just leave it alone, as it runs quick enuff for what i use it for - surfing www, general PC work, cupla games like M'$oft Flight Sim, Golf sims, Quake 2 and 3.

thanks for any advice.

:)

Rob, Central Coast
NSW Australia

There's some good stuff on overclocking in the tweaking companion downloadable from

http://www.tweakguides.com/files/TG...

There are numerous other settings that you failed to mention that are also important when it comes to overclocking...RAM timings, voltage settings, Spread Spectrum, AGP Aperture, etc. But just going by what you have listed, there's no point running your RAM freq at 200MHz if your CPU freq is only running at 133MHz. Running both at the same speed will give optimal performance. Unfortunately, you don't have a great board, but you *may* be able to run the CPU at 3.33GHz (20 x 166/33) with the RAM at 166MHz. Most likely, it will require a slight voltage boost.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cp...

thanks for your responses.

thanks pgckkwvdzm for the TweakGuides link

Jam, i did that. i set my CPU and RAM speed both to 166 MHz and yes Everest reports 3333MHz as my CPU speed. the PC is faster, as i did a FPS test with Quake3Demo "Timedemo" and game setting set to "Fastest". The FPS has increased by 20FPS in that test (from 252fps to 273fps).

i didn't increase the VCore voltage from 1.37v. just left it "as is". Little bit "nervy" in adjusting something like that LOL.

have noticed tho, that my CPU temp has risen to around 43C at idle and gets up to 48 when i'm using the PC.

sooooo what you are saying Jam, is that one should synchronise RAM and CPU bus speeds to the same figure, therefore both at 200 or 166 or whatever (??)

QUESTION: if i boosted BOTH CPU and RAM speeds to 200, then i assume i would need extra cooling in there for the CPU, before i attempted that ???

my Memory Timings are.....
@ 166 MHz 2.5-3-3-7 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS) current default setting
@ 200 MHz 3.0-3-3-8 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)

the vid card is Radeon 9550 256Mb ram

the AGP (x8) Aperture Size in BIOS says 64Mb (whatever that means)

can't find/spot Spread/Spectrum (whatever that means)

p.s. and yes LOL the Mainboard and Celeron were bought on a shoestring $$$ budget last year.

:)

Rob, Central Coast
NSW Australia

"sooooo what you are saying Jam, is that one should synchronise RAM and CPU bus speeds to the same figure"

Exactly.

"i didn't increase the VCore voltage from 1.37v. just left it "as is"."

If it will run stably at the default vcore, that's great.

"my CPU temp has risen to around 43C at idle and gets up to 48"

That's to be expected. Those temps are fine...no need for concern.

"if i boosted BOTH CPU and RAM speeds to 200, then i assume i would need extra cooling"

Not necessarily. All you can do is try it & see what happens. If your temps start to climb too much, simply back it down again. I suggest you raise the FSB in 5MHz increments & test the system after each change. If you can't lock the PCI/AGP at their defaults of 33/66MHz, don't let the PCI go above 37MHz. Also, you'll probably find that a voltage increase will be necessary somewhere along the way to stabilize the overclock. Add 0.025v at a time & keep an eye on your temps.

Set the AGP Aperture to 128MB.

Keep your RAM timings as tight as possible. You may find that 2.5-3-3-7 will also work at 200MHz. A little googling should help to find the optimal RAM timings to work with your CPU & motherboard chipset.

thanks for all your help there Jam :)

am starting to understand the nuts and bolts of overclocking now.

my Asus P4S800MX mainboard is limited in some respects, in that the VCore voltage of 1.37 is locked. Apart from that, its a good solid board.....because its ASUS :)))

i'll have a look into what you suggested above, especially RAM Timings. Yep, need to Google.

it seems to me that overclocking is a matter of "small changes - test - watch the temps". If ok, repeat again.

at present the 2.66GHz Celeron is running @ 3.33 GHz with no ill effects. Idle CPU is at 42C. So this is a good start.

there is always something new to learn isn't there ! .....its fun !

Cheers :)

Rob, Central Coast
NSW Australia