Abit AS8 (i865PE) with Celeron D336 (2.8GHz)

I have this motherboard fitted with a Socket 775 Celeron D, and previous
posts tell me

1. The Celeron has less cache than a Pentium 4 5xx or 6xx series chip that
would also fit this board

2. These chips are overclockable, at present I have the stock cooler and
fan, the Abit overclocking utility allows me the following overclocks

2835 MHz clock 135MHz 1.3875v DDR 2.60
2940 MHz clock 140MHz 1.4875v DDR 2.65
3066 MHz clock 146MHz 1.5875v DDR 2.70

These options are called Default, Normal and Turbo, I can change the
voltages etc but see no need to because I have found the system to be
totally stable at these settings. (no doubt Abit worked it out before me!)

I am allowed 3 user settings and have tried cranking up the clock speed to
150MHz and beyond, but once I load a game the screen freezes or the system
reboots after a few minutes.

I have 2 x 512Mb DDR PC3200 RAM and a Radeon 9550 256Mb graphics card.

Can anyone advise how I might achieve "serious" overclocking ?
Or should I just splash out on a 5xx or 6xx series CPU with 1Mb or 2Mb cache
respectively to get the increased speed I desire?

Thanks

Peter Allison (Swindon UK)

PS I am monitoring the CPU temperature which never rises above 50 degrees C

'Peter Allison' wrote, in part:
| Can anyone advise how I might achieve "serious" overclocking ?
| Or should I just splash out on a 5xx or 6xx series CPU with 1Mb or 2Mb
cache
| respectively to get the increased speed I desire?
_____

Yes. Read the newsgroup for information.
Five days ago I posted the following.

I've posted the information below several times this year. Newer dual core
CPUs are out, and AMD overclocking requires slightly different techniques
than Intel overclocking, but the general procedures are the same.

*****
All Pentium CPUs can be overclocked; some do better than others.

If the motherboard is 'overclocking friendly',
an Intel CPU is very easy to overclock. If the motherboard is NOT
'overclocking friendly' the task is much more difficult. If your
motherboard is 'overclocking friendly' the manual likely gives all the
information necessary to overclock, though the manual may have been
transplanted back and forth among several languages, and the information may
be a bit confusing.

#1. Raising the CPU voltage can destroy your CPU. NEVER raise the CPU
voltage more than 15%, and if you do raise it, do it in very small steps.

#2. Raising the CPU clock speed will NOT damage your Intel CPU,
motherboard, memory, or anything else. If you raise the clock speed too
much, the system will either to run in a stable manner, or will fail to
boot. This is not a problem because either the BIOS will automatically
reset to default values or there will be directions in the manual on how to
reset to default speeds.

#3. In overclocking, make any changes in small steps, checking for proper
operation after each change.

#4. Overclocking works best when the CPU temperature is kept as low as
possible.

#5. Intel CPUs can ONLY be overclocked by raising the clock speed. Even if
the multiplier can be set in the BIOS, changing this settings has NO effect.

#6. Some older motherboards may report an incorrect speed for CPUs that
have a higher speed than available when the BIOS was installed.

#7. Intel CPUs have a quad-pumped memory bus; that means data is
transferred
four times for each clock cycle; for a 533 MHz FrontSide Bus speed the clock
speed is 133 MHz. That 133 MHz clock speed is multiplied by a factor FIXED
and UNCHANGABLE inside the CPU to give the overall CPU clock speed. For
your 2660 MHz CPU, the multiplier is X 20 (133 MHz X 20 = 2660 MHZ.)

#8. The rated speed of the installed memory can limit the overclock.
Memory can be overclocked, but it will eventually reach a limit. Faster
memory can be installed, but the cost may not be worth it. The memory clock
can be set to a lower ratio (with some motherboards) to allow higher clock
speeds, but there is a performance penalty.

How you overclock depends on the specifics of your system, how much patience
you have, and much attention you pay to details.

A general approach:

* Download and install MotherBoard Monitor 5 (free) at
http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ . This will allow you to monitor and
record the CPU speeds, fan speeds, CPU temperature (and perhaps motherboard,
memory, and other temperatures, and voltages.)

* Download and install SiSoft Sandra (free) at
http://www.sisoftware.net/ . This program is a collection of
information gathering applets for your system. It also has low level tests
of performance, as well as stress tests (necessary to establish proper
operation when the CPU is operating at full capacity. I find version 2004
more useful than 2005, but 2004 is hard to find now.

* Use MotherBoard Monitor 4 and SiSoft Sandra because the vast majority of
the people who use this forum also use these applications

* Read the manual carefully.

* Clean the heatsink fins, and fans of all dust, grease, and dirt.

* Write down the settings in the BIOS.

* Write down the temperature and voltage information from SiSoft Sandra.

* Check the voltages reported by MotherBoard Monitor 5 for you system. If
any are outside the specifications this may affect the operation of your
system, especially if it is overclocked. Also check the total rated output
of your power supply, if it is marginal, overclocking (since more power is
required) may also be marginal.

* Steps for overclocking your Intel CPU (only after completing the above
recommendations):

#0. The standard setup for PCI bus and AGP bus speeds are fractions of
the clock speed. Make sure the PCI/AGP Bus speeds are instead locked at 33
MHz/67 MHz; if the PCI bus speed is more than 36 MHz corruption of data on
your hard drives can occur.

#1. Increase the clock speed by 5%.

#2. Reboot and check for operation.

#3. If #2 is successful, repeat #1.

#4. If #2 is not successful, raise the CPU core voltage by 0.05 volts
(in NO case raise this voltage to more than a total of 15%, doing so may
instantly destroy your CPU; when the core voltage reaches this limit go to
#6.)

#5. Go to #2.

#6. You have reached the limit of overclocking without changing other
factors which may include CPU cooling, System cooling, memory settings.
Installing memory capable of higher clock speeds may help. On the other
hand, some of these changes may be expensive, and not worth the money for
the possible performance increase.


* After reaching the highest speed, check operation under full CPU load (use
SiSoft Sandra burn-in, other burn-in programs, or intense action 3D
accelerated first-person shooter games.) If the system is not stable under
heavy load, try reducing the clock speed and/or CPU core voltage (higher
voltage means higher operating temperatures.)

* Check the installation of the CPU heatsink; new heatsink compound may help
CPU cooling.

* A better than stock heatsink/fan may aid overclocking.

* Improved system cooling may aid overclocking.

* Exotic cooling of the CPU to room temperature or below can significantly
increase top speeds (or not, depending on the individual CPU speed, memory
quality, and motherboard.)

WARNINGS!!!
* Increasing the CPU voltage above 15% over specifications is likely to
INSTANTLY destroy the CPU
* There is always a chance that when you start fooling around inside the
system case of your computer that you may cause damage (the butterfinger
factor.)

You can find a LOT of additional information on the Internet, including the
speeds that others overclockers have reached with your model CPU. One
question you must ask yourself is WHY you wish to overclock; I can think of
three reasons:

#1. Higher performance at little or no expense with your present
system.

#2. Just because you can, and enjoy experimenting

#3. Bragging rights - the highest possible speeds (which is going to
require a LOT more money.

Don't let this long list intimidate you; just go along step by step.

I am posting this on a system using
aBit TH7-II (Intel 850 chipset) motherboard
Pentium 4 2.6 GHz 400 MHz FSB Northwood CPU
PC800 RDRAM 640 MBytes
Stock CPU cooling
450 Watt Antec Power Supply

I selected a clock speed in the BIOS of 121 MHz, giving a CPU speed of 121
MHz X 26 = 3146 MHz. The CPU will overclock to a higher speed, but the
memory will not. To reach a higher CPU speed requires setting the memory
clock/CPU clock ratio to other than 1, which reduces performance. Since I
just want improved AND reliable performance and not the highest possible
clock speed, 3146 suits me fine, though with async setting 3.5 GHz is easily
reached.

Phil Weldon

"Peter Allison" wrote in message
...
|I have this motherboard fitted with a Socket 775 Celeron D, and previous
| posts tell me
|
| 1. The Celeron has less cache than a Pentium 4 5xx or 6xx series chip that
| would also fit this board
|
| 2. These chips are overclockable, at present I have the stock cooler and
| fan, the Abit overclocking utility allows me the following overclocks
|
| 2835 MHz clock 135MHz 1.3875v DDR 2.60
| 2940 MHz clock 140MHz 1.4875v DDR 2.65
| 3066 MHz clock 146MHz 1.5875v DDR 2.70
|
| These options are called Default, Normal and Turbo, I can change the
| voltages etc but see no need to because I have found the system to be
| totally stable at these settings. (no doubt Abit worked it out before me!)
|
| I am allowed 3 user settings and have tried cranking up the clock speed to
| 150MHz and beyond, but once I load a game the screen freezes or the system
| reboots after a few minutes.
|
| I have 2 x 512Mb DDR PC3200 RAM and a Radeon 9550 256Mb graphics card.
|
| Can anyone advise how I might achieve "serious" overclocking ?
| Or should I just splash out on a 5xx or 6xx series CPU with 1Mb or 2Mb
cache
| respectively to get the increased speed I desire?
|
| Thanks
|
| Peter Allison (Swindon UK)
|
| PS I am monitoring the CPU temperature which never rises above 50 degrees
C
|
|

In article , "Peter Allison"
wrote:

I have this motherboard fitted with a Socket 775 Celeron D, and previous
posts tell me

1. The Celeron has less cache than a Pentium 4 5xx or 6xx series chip that
would also fit this board

2. These chips are overclockable, at present I have the stock cooler and
fan, the Abit overclocking utility allows me the following overclocks

2835 MHz clock 135MHz 1.3875v DDR 2.60
2940 MHz clock 140MHz 1.4875v DDR 2.65
3066 MHz clock 146MHz 1.5875v DDR 2.70

These options are called Default, Normal and Turbo, I can change the
voltages etc but see no need to because I have found the system to be
totally stable at these settings. (no doubt Abit worked it out before me!)

I am allowed 3 user settings and have tried cranking up the clock speed to
150MHz and beyond, but once I load a game the screen freezes or the system
reboots after a few minutes.

I have 2 x 512Mb DDR PC3200 RAM and a Radeon 9550 256Mb graphics card.

Can anyone advise how I might achieve "serious" overclocking ?
Or should I just splash out on a 5xx or 6xx series CPU with 1Mb or 2Mb cache
respectively to get the increased speed I desire?

Thanks

Peter Allison (Swindon UK)

PS I am monitoring the CPU temperature which never rises above 50 degrees C

Motherboards have a myriad of clock signals. On some motherboards,
signals that you do not want to change in frequency, do change
when you change the clock that sets the CPU speed. People refer
to this issue with the term "lock", as in PCI lock or AGP lock,
when a motherboard maintains the PCI clock at a constant 33Mhz
or the AGP clock at a constant 66Mhz, when you are dialing the
CPU to some level of overclock. On more modern motherboards,
sometime the SATA interface or the PCI Express interface clocks
are affected by overclocking, and the former can cause disk
corruption during overclock testing. Generally, you want your
boot disk to be backed up before an overclocking run, as you
can never predict exactly when your drive will be corrupted.
Reading reports from people who have overclocked your motherboard,
can help warn ahead of time, whether the motherboard implementation
has any issues like that.

In other words, when playing the overclocking game, it helps
to select the perfect platform for the job. Just selecting some
cheap $39.95 motherboard at random and trying to overclock it,
will make the overclocking job a lot tougher. Some review
sites provide the necessary info about locks or the lack
thereof, that can limit the usefulness of a motherboard
when it comes to overclocking. Sometimes the solution can
be as simple as changing from a SATA boot disk, to an older
PATA (ribbon cable) boot disk.

In youe examples above, the Abit overclocking utility
seems to be increasing the Vcore a lot, to go from 2835Mhz
to 3066MHz. Extra voltage means extra heat, and upping the
voltage should only be tried if you cannot achieve the
overclock without it. (I used to use an overclocker's database
on the web, but the data on that site is now virtually useless.
I used to be able to do a scatter plot of the data in Excel,
then fit the best line to the data. That would give a figure
of volts per MHz, and would help predict what kind of voltage
increase is necessary. If a couple hundred users reported their
overclocking results, a clear trend could be seen in the
scatter plot.)

Just what does "serious" overclocking mean, anyway ? At one
time, overclocking was everything. But the more experienced users
have noticed that the extra clock speed doesn't help like it used
to. Part of the reason, is the percentage increase in performance
is not increasing at the same rate as it used to. When I went from
a Celeron 300 to a Tualatin 1100, now that was an increase. If you
are going from 2835 to 3066, you'll never be able to see the
difference.

The "serious" overclockers are on this site. There are people who
sit with their window open in Finland in the winter, to take
advantage of the cold winter air, to squeeze a few more MHz from
a motherboard. There are guys who spend $5000 on fancy multi-stage
phase change (refrigeration) cooling systems running at -100C.
There are the crazies who use a brass or copper tube filled with
dry ice or liquid nitrogen, to cool the processor. They are
serious in the sense that the equipment and the conditiona
they use, are not suitable for permanent operation under those
conditions. So their art is more like drag racing than anything
else.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/index.php

(Notice how serious they are...)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=115040

Some have achieved clock speeds like 5GHz. But the application
level performance doesn't scale to the same percentage as the
increase in clock speed. And if the cooling methods used are
not practical for 8 hour per day use, year round, then the
overclock is not something you are going to want to use
very often. Imagine having to buy dry ice, every time you
want to play a game on the Internet :-)

So I don't know what your objective is with your computer.
If you are doing rendering or a DVD shrink, something where
the time difference to completion is measurable with a
stopwatch, then overclocking can be worth it. Or maybe some
game that stutters a bit, might magically smooth out with
only a slight level of overclocking. That can definitely
be worth it. But in most other interactive computer usage,
an overclock is hardly worth the effort. While I like my
systems to have the _potential_ to overclock, and I select
components that allow it, I hardly ever resort to overclocking.

Naturally, YMMV.
Paul