Name: Derek111 Date: December 28, 2007 at 11:07:59 Pacific Subject: Pentium M reverts to default speed OS: XP CPU/Ram: Pentium M 780 Model/Manufacturer: AOpen Motherboard
Comment:
I'm trying to overclock my Pentium M 2.26GHz so that it will play BDs without stuttering audio.
I got it running at 154/616MHz bus clock for a CPU speed of 2.62GHz. It was OK at that speed, but when I turned it back on a couple hours later, it was back to 2.26GHz. I can't get it to stick to my higher speed. This applies to all overclocked settings. It always reverts to the original speed after a cold boot. My PC stats: AOpen i915GMm-HSF Socket 479 motherboard Pentium M 780 "Dothan" PCI-E x16 Radeon x1950Pro 2GB PC2-4200 ram 250GB IDE+250GB SATA
Those were about different things that had nothing to do with my troubles in overclocking, except for maybe the very last post on the second thread, which really just hinted that I might overclock. And I did. Now I'm having problems getting the overclock to stick. I can't even overclock it ONE MHZ without going back to the normal bus clock after a cold boot. It is keeping the time, so i think the bios battery is OK.
From a Tom's Hardware review of your board/CPU combo:
"...when rendering videos and graphics or encoding video and audio files to popular formats such as MPEG2, MP3 and MPEG4, the Pentium M is clearly left in the dust. Unsurprisingly, these fields are dominated by the brawnier Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 processors. For these applications, the higher power consumption of the desktop processors is tolerable, since they actually offer a tangible performance increase in return for their power use.
As a result of the lower signal strength used between the motherboard components and the CPU, mobile chipsets aren't especially suited to overclocking."
Are you able to lock the PCI/PCIe busses to 33/100MHz on that board? If so, make sure that they are LOCKED!
See, some video cards have zero tolerance for overclocked video busses and will cause the behaviour you have described. They pretty much disable/bypass video bus overclocking. If you have one of these picky cards on a board that doesn't allow you to lock the video bus, then you're pretty much stuck running the entire "powertrain", including the CPU, at stock speed. My old A-I-W 9800Pro rendered the overclocking features of an AGP-unlocked Soyo board useless. It always bypassed my overclocked CPU settings, no matter what.
Took out the ATI, put in an nVidia (which have always been more overclock-friendly, IMO), and bam! an overclocked system!
If you really wanna play BDs on that system, your best bet is to buy a video card that has a unified video decoder. With only a single core procesor, you simply lack the "processor ponies" required to be able to do it without a UVD. A 400MHz overclock likely won't cut it.
Ultimate 939 system Opty 185 @ 3.2GHz 1.45v SLI 8800GTS 640MB, BIOS-flashed to 625/1458/1950 4GB OCZ DDR400 LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo A8N32-SLI Deluxe 13.9K 3DMark06; 55K '01
"Would I lock/unlock it in the BIOS? i don't see anything like that here."
I just looked up your board. From what I've seen on other message boards, it appears that your board doesn't allow the PCI/PCIe busses to be locked.
Your x1950Pro must be bypassing your overclocked BIOS settings like my old A-I-W 9800Pro did. That's the only thing I can think of that would cause your board to switch back to its default clock settings at start up, other than a hooped BIOS (very unlikely, since everything else is working fine (?)).
If you have any spare PCI video cards around, you might wanna pop in one of those and try overclocking the CPU.
Ultimate 939 system Opty 185 @ 3.2GHz 1.45v SLI 8800GTS 640MB, BIOS-flashed to 625/1458/1950 4GB OCZ DDR400 LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo A8N32-SLI Deluxe 13.9K 3DMark06; 55K '01
Well, that sucks. I don't have any other card to test it with, but I believe what you said is true.
If I were to buy a GPU with a UVD, which one would you recommend? NVIDIA 8600GTS a good deal? Or would building a cheap Core 2 Duo computer and keeping my x1950 Pro be a better idea? Would even the cheapest versions of the Core 2 Duo series be strong enough to play BDs with my x1950?
If you're considering purchasing a video card with a unified video decoder, an ATI model would be the best choice. Reason: The nvidia UVDs only decode H.264. This means that VC-1 encoded discs would still be done by your sluggish CPU. The ATI cards will handle both H.264 and VC-1.
But I think that building a new Pentium Dual Core, Athlon X2, or cheap C2D system and keeping your existing card is a better idea. Reason: Your X1950Pro is faster than current-gen midrange UVD-equipped cards such as the 8600 and HD2600 series.
You could build a cheap Pentium Dual Core system and use your existing RAM, video card, hard drives, case, PSU, and optical drives. Pretty much the only two things you'd need would be the motherboard and CPU.
The Pentium Dual Core is just a cache-reduced Core 2 Duo--it's easily faster than your Pentium M despite having a lower clock speed.
For the price of an 8600GTS, you'd have a much faster computer that'd be fully capable of playing Blu-Ray discs without a UVD-equipped video card, PLUS you'd get to keep your existing card, which is faster than an 8600GTS!
Ultimate 939 system Opty 185 @ 3.2GHz 1.45v SLI 8800GTS 640MB, BIOS-flashed to 625/1458/1950 4GB OCZ DDR400 LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo A8N32-SLI Deluxe 13.9K 3DMark06; 55K '01
Your video card is fine and should play BD's and i would think upgrading to the lowest Core2Duo the E2140 @ £45 should give you a great performance gain over your current Celeron M. And buying a cheap over-clocking board like the Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 @ £78. This would be a vast imporvment and allowing you to still use your current vid card. 02coled
Core2DuoE6600ES @3.6ghz 2gb Elipedia 1066mhz5,5,5,15 EVGA 680i BFG 8800 GTS-OC 320mb 680w Thermaltake Purepower 2 x 250gb Sata Vista Home Premium
Your 3DMark 06 score should increase once you move that x1950Pro to your new rig. '06 is more sensitive to CPU speed than earlier versions of the benchmark were.
Ultimate 939 system Opty 185 @ 3.2GHz 1.45v SLI 8800GTS 640MB, BIOS-flashed to 625/1458/1950 4GB OCZ DDR400 LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo A8N32-SLI Deluxe 13.9K 3DMark06; 55K '01
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