Overclocking - It's very addictive :-)
04 February 2001, 12:36 AM
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Hi Mick,
I used to run an AMD K6/2 300 at 380(4*95). You may be able to squeeze a bit more out of it.
Make sure you use a decent fan and heatsink and you should be okay.
I used to run an AMD K6/2 300 at 380(4*95). You may be able to squeeze a bit more out of it.
Make sure you use a decent fan and heatsink and you should be okay.
04 February 2001, 01:15 PM
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I think that with current chip prices overclocking is something that people do "cos they can" rather then because they need to.
Sure, I tried overclocking my 1100 , but the thing wouldn't run for very long without a hang or crash.
I guess if you've an oldie board that will only take upto say a 500 then overclocking gives a bit more mileage. I would be interested in the stability and lifetime of the chip though
Sure, I tried overclocking my 1100 , but the thing wouldn't run for very long without a hang or crash.
I guess if you've an oldie board that will only take upto say a 500 then overclocking gives a bit more mileage. I would be interested in the stability and lifetime of the chip though
04 February 2001, 02:31 PM
#4
I've got a board that maxes out at a K6 3 500. I could get one for £52. I've been told the performance won't really be noticeably different to do the chip upgrade. Rather than spend the money on the upgrade I thought it might be fun to try this route. It won't cost too much for a replacement chip at this level if it all goes wrong 
.
There was a guy on the forum who claimed to be getting 690 MHz out of a 350! - I can't be fussed with doing too much on the cooling front anyway!
Mick
.There was a guy on the forum who claimed to be getting 690 MHz out of a 350! - I can't be fussed with doing too much on the cooling front anyway!
Mick
04 February 2001, 04:36 PM
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Naff
Overclocking is making the central processing unit (cpu) run faster than it's supposed to (although it's questionable whether they where actually designed to run faster in the first place (Say a 900mhz and various different ones where made round the same cpu i.e 700mhz,800mhz). End of the day it works if you know what your doing.
Si
Overclocking is making the central processing unit (cpu) run faster than it's supposed to (although it's questionable whether they where actually designed to run faster in the first place (Say a 900mhz and various different ones where made round the same cpu i.e 700mhz,800mhz). End of the day it works if you know what your doing.
Si
04 February 2001, 05:18 PM
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My first Celeron 300a ran fine at 450Mhz and I've got two Celeron 366s that hit 550Mhz with no problems.
My current 'stead' is a Celeron 566 that cracks along at 850Mhz. I could probably get more out of it, but I can't be bothered to mess around.
Other than the odd voltage tweak (but I still stay inside the CPUs +/- voltage spec), all run fine.
Some CPUs overclock much better than others, a lot depends on the clock multiplier and if you have a 'tweaker's motherboard.
As a rule though, I <B>never</B> overclock anything at work. I only mess with my home PC.
Chris.
[This message has been edited by ChrisB (edited 04 February 2001).]
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04 February 2001, 07:11 PM
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NAF,
If you're not sure about your motherboard jumper settings or BIOS settings then probably best not to bother. I'd be surprised if you could see the difference anyhow !!
Neil.
If you're not sure about your motherboard jumper settings or BIOS settings then probably best not to bother. I'd be surprised if you could see the difference anyhow !!
Neil.
05 February 2001, 12:20 AM
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My Celeron 300A has now clocked up (geddit? 
) nearly two years at 464Mhz and my twin-Celeron 366 server has nearly a year of service at 550Mhz (1.1Ghz if you add them up! ) under its belt.
Neither system relies on anything more sophisticated than a some extra fans and some larger heatsinks. I always run a copy of Motherboard Monitor (try
) nearly two years at 464Mhz and my twin-Celeron 366 server has nearly a year of service at 550Mhz (1.1Ghz if you add them up! ) under its belt.Neither system relies on anything more sophisticated than a some extra fans and some larger heatsinks. I always run a copy of Motherboard Monitor (try
05 February 2001, 12:36 AM
#13
Thanks David.
I asume WinME will also do this automatically if 98SE does? My motherboard does not have any temp monitors I think (FIC PA-2013)
I just have a standard fan and heatsink. Am I likely to push it too far if I go for 450? I am guessing it is better to keep freq at 100 MHz with this chip and PC100 RAM and inc speed by the CPU to BUS Freq Ratio? Keeping voltage down to the min required for system to run? I do not run heavy loadsd much so if the chip is being kept cool by the OS I would hope it will run smoothly
Cheers
Mick
I asume WinME will also do this automatically if 98SE does? My motherboard does not have any temp monitors I think (FIC PA-2013)
I just have a standard fan and heatsink. Am I likely to push it too far if I go for 450? I am guessing it is better to keep freq at 100 MHz with this chip and PC100 RAM and inc speed by the CPU to BUS Freq Ratio? Keeping voltage down to the min required for system to run? I do not run heavy loadsd much so if the chip is being kept cool by the OS I would hope it will run smoothly
Cheers
Mick
05 February 2001, 03:17 PM
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Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that!
<johnfelstead>
CPU speed is derived from the bus speed via a clock multiplier. For example, a PII 450 has a multiplier of 4.5, so on a 100Mhz 'board, it runs at 450Mhz. The Celeron 300A had the same multiplier, but was only designed (i.e. "sold") on 66Mhz boards, 4.5 x 66 = 300.
Overclocking can work so well because chips are all designed to a maximum speed, but not necessarily sold at this speed. For example, the PII was originally designed to a maximum of 450. Some will make this speed, some won't go further than 400 (for example), so are sold at lower speeds. However, the market demands a range of speeds. This means that sometimes, CPUs that can happily run at the maximum design speed are sold at a lower speed.
For example, back in '99, due to AMD's efforts Intel suddenly needed a cheap processor. Rather than design a new one, they "hobbled" the PII by putting it on a 66Mhz board speed (plus a few other tweaks) and sold it as the Celeron. The reason the Celeron was so successful as an overclockers chip was that it had a lot of "headroom" designed into it, the circuitry on most chips was good for 450. A quick tweak of the bus speed and your £80 C300A was running at the same speed as a £380 PII-450. Not bad for a few minutes work!
Different revisions of the a chip will have different amounts of headroom. Often, the last set of "slow" processors will be good because as the production quality increases, they're good for much higher speeds, but are sold "slow" purely for market reasons. Typically, the lower the multiplier the better. Good choices at the moment are the AMD Duron 600 which can hit 900+Mhz and the Intel P3-750e which reaches 1Ghz quite happily.
Before you start trying to change the multiplier on your PC, please note that all modern CPUs are multiplier-locked, so you're stuck with whatever cpu/bus ratio that's on the chip. So the only thing you can change is the motherboard speed (increasing the board speed makes the chip go faster). Some boards let you do it the hard way with jumpers, other manufacturers such as ABit and Asus let you make the changes from the bios menu.
However, there's more to worry about than just the CPU-RAM bus speed. At the same time the bus is running at 100MHz, your PCI cards are ticking along at 33Mhz and the AGP socket at a brisker 66Mhz. These speeds are derived by clock-<I>dividers</I> from the bus speed and at the moment, only certain dividers can be selected.
Most of the old PII/Celeron BX boards could run the PCI & AGP at their correct speeds only at 66 (1/2 and 1 respectively) and 100Mhz (1/3 and 2/3 respectively). Some could run the PCI at 33 when set to 133Mhz, but none could keep the AGP at 66 at that speed, it would end up at 89Mhz, which would do rather interesting things to your graphics cards...
The more modern P3 boards can cope with the 133 setting, but usually, there aren't any intermediate settings. Why is this important? Well, you might get your chip to run happily on a 107Mhz bus speed, or 112, but not at 133. At 112 you are stressing components that would be running fine if you could make it to 133. And there is *nothing* worse than being just unable to reach one of these plateaus!
The faster you go, the more chance there is of strange behaviour, so it's best to increase speeds in small steps, to check that the rest of your machine can cope. Maybe the O/S will crash, or your graphics card starts to draw black polygons instead of textured ones. Worse, your hard-disk might crash.
The other big enemy is heat, bump up the board speed by 50% and you'd better be ready to suck all that extra heat out of the case. Pointing fans at chips is not the answer, you have to think in terms of extracting the heat out of the top of the case and pulling in colder air at the bottom.
Sometimes, the processors won't run at their standard voltage (e.g. 1.6V), but they might work fine at 1.65 or 1.7. The extra voltage can clean up the signal, literally making a bigger difference between ON and OFF. But more voltage = more watts = more heat, so be prepared to build yourself a water-cooler if you have to go mad with the voltage!!
Overclocking is a bit of science, a bit of art and a lot of luck. Nothing is guaranteed. You might succeed, or you might burn out your processor (or even your whole machine if you start poking around with a screwdriver when the power is still on!). None of it is rocket science, but pick the right CPU and you can get a faster toy for less money.
If you want to learn more, I would begin by doing some homework at some of these sites:
<johnfelstead>
CPU speed is derived from the bus speed via a clock multiplier. For example, a PII 450 has a multiplier of 4.5, so on a 100Mhz 'board, it runs at 450Mhz. The Celeron 300A had the same multiplier, but was only designed (i.e. "sold") on 66Mhz boards, 4.5 x 66 = 300.
Overclocking can work so well because chips are all designed to a maximum speed, but not necessarily sold at this speed. For example, the PII was originally designed to a maximum of 450. Some will make this speed, some won't go further than 400 (for example), so are sold at lower speeds. However, the market demands a range of speeds. This means that sometimes, CPUs that can happily run at the maximum design speed are sold at a lower speed.
For example, back in '99, due to AMD's efforts Intel suddenly needed a cheap processor. Rather than design a new one, they "hobbled" the PII by putting it on a 66Mhz board speed (plus a few other tweaks) and sold it as the Celeron. The reason the Celeron was so successful as an overclockers chip was that it had a lot of "headroom" designed into it, the circuitry on most chips was good for 450. A quick tweak of the bus speed and your £80 C300A was running at the same speed as a £380 PII-450. Not bad for a few minutes work!
Different revisions of the a chip will have different amounts of headroom. Often, the last set of "slow" processors will be good because as the production quality increases, they're good for much higher speeds, but are sold "slow" purely for market reasons. Typically, the lower the multiplier the better. Good choices at the moment are the AMD Duron 600 which can hit 900+Mhz and the Intel P3-750e which reaches 1Ghz quite happily.
Before you start trying to change the multiplier on your PC, please note that all modern CPUs are multiplier-locked, so you're stuck with whatever cpu/bus ratio that's on the chip. So the only thing you can change is the motherboard speed (increasing the board speed makes the chip go faster). Some boards let you do it the hard way with jumpers, other manufacturers such as ABit and Asus let you make the changes from the bios menu.
However, there's more to worry about than just the CPU-RAM bus speed. At the same time the bus is running at 100MHz, your PCI cards are ticking along at 33Mhz and the AGP socket at a brisker 66Mhz. These speeds are derived by clock-<I>dividers</I> from the bus speed and at the moment, only certain dividers can be selected.
Most of the old PII/Celeron BX boards could run the PCI & AGP at their correct speeds only at 66 (1/2 and 1 respectively) and 100Mhz (1/3 and 2/3 respectively). Some could run the PCI at 33 when set to 133Mhz, but none could keep the AGP at 66 at that speed, it would end up at 89Mhz, which would do rather interesting things to your graphics cards...
The more modern P3 boards can cope with the 133 setting, but usually, there aren't any intermediate settings. Why is this important? Well, you might get your chip to run happily on a 107Mhz bus speed, or 112, but not at 133. At 112 you are stressing components that would be running fine if you could make it to 133. And there is *nothing* worse than being just unable to reach one of these plateaus!
The faster you go, the more chance there is of strange behaviour, so it's best to increase speeds in small steps, to check that the rest of your machine can cope. Maybe the O/S will crash, or your graphics card starts to draw black polygons instead of textured ones. Worse, your hard-disk might crash.
The other big enemy is heat, bump up the board speed by 50% and you'd better be ready to suck all that extra heat out of the case. Pointing fans at chips is not the answer, you have to think in terms of extracting the heat out of the top of the case and pulling in colder air at the bottom.
Sometimes, the processors won't run at their standard voltage (e.g. 1.6V), but they might work fine at 1.65 or 1.7. The extra voltage can clean up the signal, literally making a bigger difference between ON and OFF. But more voltage = more watts = more heat, so be prepared to build yourself a water-cooler if you have to go mad with the voltage!!
Overclocking is a bit of science, a bit of art and a lot of luck. Nothing is guaranteed. You might succeed, or you might burn out your processor (or even your whole machine if you start poking around with a screwdriver when the power is still on!). None of it is rocket science, but pick the right CPU and you can get a faster toy for less money.
If you want to learn more, I would begin by doing some homework at some of these sites:
05 February 2001, 04:02 PM
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Not a lot to add to that really...
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Worse, your hard-disk might crash.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>.
I wouldn't say crash, but Windows might start writing garbage to your HD instead of your work (hmm, no change there then!).
A lot of the newer motherboards aimed at the overclockers market allow you to adjust the FSB speed by 1Mhz at a time so you can find the "sweet spot" better.
There a few companies which will pre-test and guarantee a CPU will overclock (if you run the right components).
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Worse, your hard-disk might crash.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>.
I wouldn't say crash, but Windows might start writing garbage to your HD instead of your work (hmm, no change there then!).
A lot of the newer motherboards aimed at the overclockers market allow you to adjust the FSB speed by 1Mhz at a time so you can find the "sweet spot" better.
There a few companies which will pre-test and guarantee a CPU will overclock (if you run the right components).
05 February 2001, 04:04 PM
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Hey, my kinda topic!
The main nasty with overclocking is heat. Heat will increase the potential for any component to fail. If you have any fan slots free, stick a fan in them!
If you have a processor with removable heatsink and fan, use a better compound. The stick pads are just pants!
Ive found the best improvements to be made by overclocking video card RAM for FPS critical games. there is a web site with an excellent card cooler (www.cardcooler.com) from memory, this really works!
Overclocking the bus can work, but is more likely to cause disk drive etc problems.
If you can change the core multiplier then this is the way to go. AMD athlons/durons can be unlocked with a pencil! but you need to be very careful.
Some of the best overclockers in the world reside at
The main nasty with overclocking is heat. Heat will increase the potential for any component to fail. If you have any fan slots free, stick a fan in them!
If you have a processor with removable heatsink and fan, use a better compound. The stick pads are just pants!
Ive found the best improvements to be made by overclocking video card RAM for FPS critical games. there is a web site with an excellent card cooler (www.cardcooler.com) from memory, this really works!
Overclocking the bus can work, but is more likely to cause disk drive etc problems.
If you can change the core multiplier then this is the way to go. AMD athlons/durons can be unlocked with a pencil! but you need to be very careful.
Some of the best overclockers in the world reside at
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