1.2 Athlon Tbird reading 900mHz

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 8:22 pm

i got my AK31 booted up and installed win2k pro. on the POST screen it shows AMD Athlon 900 ( 100 x 9)

the chip has 1200 on the core, also an AVHA stepping, and i am sure it is a 1.2 Ghz. I have an AX-7 HS w/ a big loud Delta fan, Arctic Alumina, and i have had it running about 10 hours and temps never have gotten over 107 F, even when room temp was 85 F. Got it in a big Antec case with 3 case fans. so i am pretty confident about temps being stable.

The CPU is at 100mHz FSB right now. i have samsung 256mB PC2700 memory, which i think i see somewhere it is 200mHz Bus Speed. I tried to step up voltage, but also did some other stuff, too, like upped the multiplier and set vCore to 1.85V. Got black screens always. Probably have been doing too much at once.

All i have done now after clearing CMOS is Load Optimized Defaults. This is the first time i have tried to oC a board that does not have all those dip switches.

i am sure it is "underclocked" right now. i have seen sometimes where a CPU will show up below what it is rated. can someone tell me the proper sequence to start stepping stuff up?

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 8:25 pm

I'm pretty sure there's a jumper on that board that is a 100/133 jumper. Set it on that and it will read 1.2 gig

First thing when installing a new motherboard is to go through the jumper section in the manual and be sure you have all jumper set correctly.

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 8:31 pm

there are only 2 jumpers on this board( according to the manual, and from what i have seen, but i will look again to make sure), 1 for "clear CMOS" and the other for "BIOS Write Protection." however, everything else can be set in BIOS. i tried only setting FSB from 100 to 166 and got black screen. that option is not a menu, but like a "type in" the number option. i will try to set to 133 and see what happens...

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 8:40 pm

ok, thanks. set it to 133 and on CPUID it reads 133.5 mHz FSB and CPU frequency is 1201.5 mHz. Multiplier is at 9.0, should i up that to 9.5 first, or should i try and up the RAM first?

i would like to get this chip to around 1.6 GHz.

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 2:09 am

Up'ing the multiplier first will give you a quick indicator about ~max speed of the CPU. Don't forget about the usual o/c'ing precedure: proper cooling, up'ing Vcore, running Prime95 or comparable to check stability.
You can then play with the FSB, prolly at default multiplier, to see how much speed your RAM can take.
After finding the max FSB you have to finetune the proper max multiplier/FSB mix for highest overclock.

I get 1450 out of my 1.2 tbird with 10x145 at fast RAM setting in BIOS.

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Wed Aug 07, 2002 6:00 am

as far as the multiplier goes, is it best to keep it lower if possible?

meaning is 11x133 better than 10x146.3, or the same for performance and stability?

i could get a multiplier as high as 14, but i am not sure if i should try that high.

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Wed Aug 07, 2002 8:22 am

Actually for performance a low multiplier and a higher FSB is better. Reason being increasing the FSB over clocks the whole system while increasing the multiplier only effects the CPU speed. As for stability it all depends on what your system likes.

Zak33 · Post by **Zak33** » Fri Aug 16, 2002 9:24 am

Some system components don't like going above their stated speeds by much. That is why we allhave to compromise between a mulitplier and a FSB speed. For example, my Crucial ram is OK at high FSB as is my Audigy Soundcard and Radeon 8500.........but my SCSI controller HATES anything over 140 instead of the standard 133.....

So I use 10x140 instead of 10.5x133

It is definately a faster PC because of that FSB increase....the bandwidth is better, it all breathes a lot better when sprinting!

Some EIDE hard disks get abit scared at high FSB and others just dont care at all.

So first : Up the multiplier one bit at a time and benchmark the hell out of it to stress it and find its highest point, stable.

Then drop the multiplier right down and up the FSB a bit at a time so you can get the ultimate FSB maximum..ie the multiplier lower than standard so it aint the chip that gives up first, its the FSB sub system,.

Then work out with a calculator which combo best achies the highest FSB AND Clock speed.

Happy days! Luck man

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 6:38 am

ok, well you guys are right. no way am i getting this thing to 1.6 on this board. it looks to be a bitch just getting to 1.4

here is what i have done:

multiplier at 10, vCore at 1.85
, FSB at 135, DDR voltage at 2.55, CPU temp at 35 C

this is the highest stable setting i have gotten so far.

it doesn't like the FSB to go over 140 i found out real quick. before making adjustments, i added an additional samsung pc2700 256mb module and on POST, it is reading over 524mb ram with DRAM clock at 266mHz.

i want to try 10x140; can i do something to the DRAM timing to get the DRAM clock speed from 266 to 280mHz? as it is at 10x140 now, it will load win2k fully, but as soon as it does, it will reboot. some other settings i have tried have given me errors before win2k loads.

or should i try something else?

i am gonna go ahead and take my current settings and "benchmark the hell outta them" and check for stability, just to make sure it is solid. (edit- it re-booted on burn-in tests.

and for some reason it reset all my bios settings to default. i did the burn-ins with sandra.)

also - what is "spread spectrum"? and should i have it enabled (disabled by default)?

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 7:17 am

spread spectrum should be off. it allows you to mask your em radiation so that the guy in the next room can't pick up your em radiation and see what you're doing

my ak31 rev2 doesn't like anything above ~142 fsb - you might want to check the threads at amdmb.com for tips

in your bios, make sure that the memory settings are for 2t and not 1t on memory precharge or whatever - some shuttle boards default to the 1t which is harder to overclock

the older cores are hard to get over 1.6 even with gonzo coooling - there's a reason they only went up to 1.4 before switching cores

you can go to http://www.overclockers.com and look in the cpu database to get an idea of what kind of oc is possible with that stepping -

if you really want to oc that system, you might want to look at the 1600+ at newegg for `$51 - i got oe of those - you need to do a bios update to get it recognized, but the have more headroom

you should also up the ddr voltage when overclocking - last but not least, make sure you have a good power source - 300 w + with a good voltage on the +5 is a minimum -

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 7:54 am

well, with you talking about PSU, that is a bit of concern for me. i only have essentials, mouse, keyboard, monitor, NIC card hooked to it. a 350W antec PSU, of course i have 3 case fans and a delta fan hooked to it as well(almost gonzo cooling). i get in BIOS:
+3.3VIN - 3.28
+5V = 4.91
+12V =12.16/12.22
-12V = -12.03
-5V= - 5.14
VBAT (V)= 3.07
5VSB(V)= 5.51

i am concerned about that +5V, seems kinda weak. if it is really gonna prove to be a problem, i am gonna put in a 400W

some of those entries at overclockers.com gotta be some BS. 2gHz on an Abit board??? of course, all i see is AXIA steppings and some AVIA.

you are right about it defaulting to 1T DRAM com rate. i set it to 2T. i will see what happens. what about cycle length. should i keep it at 2.5 or change it to 2?

and if all else fails, i got a 1700+ i can put in it, after i do the dreaded BIOS upgrade. don't really want to though.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 12:34 pm

while you're trying to oc just keep the ram at 2.5

a 350 w antec should be sufficient

you might try booting with every power eater but hd vid and a coupla fans disconnected and see what that does to your +5v -

with a 350 enermax, dvd,cdrw,floppy,zip,cdrom, 3 case fans and 1.33 @defaults i'm getting 4.89 on the 5v

on mys sytem with the 400w cheapo ps i'm getting 4.96 on an xp1600 @ 150fsb 2 case fans i hdd, i1 cdrom

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 2:53 pm

multiplier at 10, vCore at 1.90 (
, FSB at 137, DDR voltage at 2.6, CPU temp at 42 C after running about 5 benchmark tests in sandra. it settles at 40 C when idle.

it is getting there. when i increased the ddr voltage, and set the vCore at default(meaning, i guess it will set itself. it fluctuates anywhere from 1.75 to 1.9), i noticed a slight temp increase, but it runs more stable.

only other things i did, which are kinda unrelated is set the video ram to cacheable, that seems to help keep this crappy monitor it's on from jumping, (usually i just bang the top and it stops

, but now it doesn't do it at all)

gonna bump up the FSB 1mHz at a time from here.

edit- 138 FSB seems to be the breaking point. i tried changing the dram clock from HOST CLK to BY SPD and i don't think that is working out too well. vCore is also weird. the default is 1.75 and the options are like +.05, +1.0 and so on. and there is a default setting, i changesd it back to +.10

also, what about bank interleave? should it be 2-bank or 4 bank?

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Sep 28, 2002 3:05 am

well, after running this thing for a few weeks, it is now a www and ftp server @ 133x 10 and seems stable(as a server), anything more and i have concerns about stability. i am ok with it now, but if i wanted more and wanted to step it up, i got 3 options at hand;

should i do the BIOS upgrade and leave it like it is?

should i do the "lead pencil trick" to the L2 and unlock it, and what should i do about the BIOS in this case?

or should i put in a xp1700+ and most definitely do the BIOS upgrade?

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Tue Oct 01, 2002 8:31 pm

my ak31 seemed happiest around 133 fsb - if you go over to the shuttle forums at amdmb.com there is some discussion of what the best overclocking bios is for that board - mine never got much past 144 and it was ouchy there.

i tried mine with an 1600+ (needed a bios flash) but finallsold the ak31 and the 1.33 bird and went with a kt333/1600+ combo instead. the new combo is solid at 133+

the shuttle boards have pretty good internal throughput, so leaving it at 133 and tightening up the other stuff may be the best way to go