O/C Noob looking for direction

Hiya all,

Was considering upgrading the PC (again) but then thought about O/C'ing to
make the system last that little bit longer.

I'd appreciate it if you could answer a coupla questions:

1. Can I actually do much with this system - is it worth O/C'ing?

Asus A7V8X
AMD XP2100+
512MB PC2700 (1 stick)
400W PSU
Sapphire 9600Pro
Audigy
Win XP Pro
(Need any other details)?

2. Where do I start? Are there any good guides on the web?

Many thanks for any help you can give. Shawk.

"Shawk" wrote
Hiya all,

Was considering upgrading the PC (again) but then thought about O/C'ing to
make the system last that little bit longer.

I'd appreciate it if you could answer a coupla questions:

1. Can I actually do much with this system - is it worth O/C'ing?

Asus A7V8X
AMD XP2100+
512MB PC2700 (1 stick)
400W PSU
Sapphire 9600Pro
Audigy
Win XP Pro
(Need any other details)?

2. Where do I start? Are there any good guides on the web?

Many thanks for any help you can give. Shawk.



Hi,
well looking at your specs I am left wondering why you want to upgrade?
looks like a nice system!. It's always worth trying to squeeze every last
drop of power from your set-up (overclocking) before you think about
upgrading. . .I'm not sure about your motherboard, I think it's a VIA KT400
chipset and I only have experience on the NVIDIA platform. You can
overclock on that mobo for sure, but I don't think it's as easy as on the
nForce chipset. You may have to *mod* the cpu or other such shenanigans,
but allot of folk here have done it. I'm also not sure how the KT400
handles changing FSB speeds, like does it lock PCI/AGP bus to 33/66MHz when
you raise the FSB?.

As I said you have a pretty good spec, and I think the most obvious thing I
can see to speed it up would be to overclock the CPU and get the memory
(PC2700) running at its best (166MHz-FSB, 333DDR, Cas2, etc). If you intend
to overclock your CPU it is recommended that you have a decent HSF
(Heat-Sink-Fan) and good cooling in your case (intake, exhaust fans, etc). .

But I warn you to turn back now, once you get *bitten* by the overclocking
bug its hard to shake the habit (very addictive!). . .

If you have some spare bucks $$$ / Pounds £££ to spend on your P.C maybe you
could *Max* out on some neat accessories to make your computer spec a bit
fuller, i.e: Sound-System, PVR (Personal-Video-Recorder), USB blow-up doll,
that sort of thing. . . :P

Good luck,

Wayne ][

"Darren Wilkinson" wrote in message
...

reply to chipsuar.chipsuarremove this at charitydays.co.uk not
ivorgratebigwun
"Shawk" wrote in message
...
Hiya all,

Was considering upgrading the PC (again) but then thought about O/C'ing
to
make the system last that little bit longer.

I'd appreciate it if you could answer a coupla questions:

1. Can I actually do much with this system - is it worth O/C'ing?

That depends what you would want to do. What do you use your system for at
the moment? What would you use the extra speed for and how much extra
would
you want?

Asus A7V8X
AMD XP2100+
512MB PC2700 (1 stick)
400W PSU
Sapphire 9600Pro
Audigy
Win XP Pro
(Need any other details)?

The fan make+model on your cpu would be a good thing to know. Also install
"Hardware Doctor" or something similar to monitor your cpu temperature.
Try
and make sure your cpu temperature doesn't go much over 50c-55c.

2. Where do I start? Are there any good guides on the web?

The best place to start is always the motherboard manual. The section on
setting up your cpu is the one you want. Multiplier x FSB speed = cpu
speed.
The motherboard should have some jumpers on the board or bios settings to
change either of these. Note down the defaults for your cpu tho.

Stability is the main aim. Increasing the FSB increases the motherboard
speed but can make the system unstable so try raising the multiplier
first.
On the older XP cpus the multiplier is "locked" to a certain setting. If
your pc refuses to even start when you change the multiplier then it is
"locked". Your computer will still work if you change it back tho, and no
damage will have been done.

That leaves the FSB. If your motherboard has an option to autodetect
dimm/pci timings then make sure it is enabled and raise the FSB a few Mhz
at
a time. Only go as far as you feel comfortable and you should be fine.

Many thanks for any help you can give. Shawk.



Thanks for the replies so far.... reason for upgrading? I'm a gamer and
they always want the fastest :-) Except i also have a coupla daughters that
spend my upgrade cash on silly things like clothes! :-( Thinking about
trying to get the best out of HL2 and Doom 3 without spending much if I can
help it. I also do a fair bit of video encoding etc.

Ref the questions you asked I'll take a look when I'm back (working away)
and get back to you.

Cheers, Shawk.

On Mon, 08 Sep 2003 22:55:34 +0000, Shawk wrote:

Hiya all,

Was considering upgrading the PC (again) but then thought about O/C'ing to
make the system last that little bit longer.

I'd appreciate it if you could answer a coupla questions:

1. Can I actually do much with this system - is it worth O/C'ing?

Asus A7V8X
AMD XP2100+
512MB PC2700 (1 stick)
400W PSU
Sapphire 9600Pro
Audigy
Win XP Pro
(Need any other details)?

2. Where do I start? Are there any good guides on the web?

You start by finding out which 2100+ you have. Palomino, Tbred A, or Tbred
B. Without that info you're lost. Then download all the headers in this ng
and find the relevent questions that's been answered a hundred times.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.html

Thanks for the replies so far.... reason for upgrading? I'm a gamer and
they always want the fastest :-) Except i also have a coupla daughters
that
spend my upgrade cash on silly things like clothes! :-( Thinking about
trying to get the best out of HL2 and Doom 3 without spending much if I
can
help it. I also do a fair bit of video encoding etc.

Ref the questions you asked I'll take a look when I'm back (working away)
and get back to you.

Cheers, Shawk.

If you are wanting to get more fps then search the net for "sapphire 9700
pro" and "overclocking". Overclocking your graphics card is a far better way
to get games to work better than overclocking your cpu. If you divx/xvid a
lot of video then just upping the FSB should knock 10-20% off the encoding
time.

I have overclocked with the a7v8x-x. It has some overclocking options but
the a7v8x has a couple of more.

It does take advantage of the unlocked cpu's (tbred b's). It has adjustable
vcore, vdmm, and possibly other (I have only vcore on my board as it's the x
version.

So you have multipliers freed up to I believe 22x (good luck getting there!)

It does not have a locked pci or agp bus so you have to be careful to keep
your fsb overclocks to a place where those 2 are reasonable; close to 133,
close to 166.

I overclocked a 2400+ on it and got it 250 mhz higher but a lot of folks
with nforce2 boards got the same so well...

I'd really try your board and see how it goes. I just got an epox 8rda+ but
not because I needed the overclock, just because I got hooked! So watch
out.
"Shawk" wrote in message
...
Hiya all,

Was considering upgrading the PC (again) but then thought about O/C'ing to
make the system last that little bit longer.

I'd appreciate it if you could answer a coupla questions:

1. Can I actually do much with this system - is it worth O/C'ing?

Asus A7V8X
AMD XP2100+
512MB PC2700 (1 stick)
400W PSU
Sapphire 9600Pro
Audigy
Win XP Pro
(Need any other details)?

2. Where do I start? Are there any good guides on the web?

Many thanks for any help you can give. Shawk.