Need help with overclocking system

Treewolf

Noob
Joined
6 Feb 2005
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I just got my system put togeather and was gonna try to overclock it.I've never overclocked before so dont know anything about it :(. I waswondering if someone could help me. My system is

A8N-SLI Deluxe
Athlon 64 3500+
1GB Kingston PC3200 DDR400
2x eVga Geforce 6800 GT PCI-Express
PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI PS

I have heard you can overclock the 6800GT to Ultra speeds. If anyonecan help me to get this thing overclocked abit so I can reach my3dmark05 10k score club I'd appreciate it. Thanks guys.
 
Very nice setup. Please answer a few questions for me first.

First: What kinda of heatsink are you working with?
second: What is your temperature Idle after 30 minutes of running windows?

Let me know.

Nice setup by the way.
 
Thanks Sheps, I am using all artic cooling heatsinks. One for CPU and one for each GPU. CPU and MB temp both stay around 32 Degree C.
 
Ok, that's very good for temps. You want to make sure your bios is up to date too. Or with the best overclocking version. But with the AMD64's you want to lower your HT to 4x Lock your video at 67 and raise your FSB about 10, check stability, If good, raise it 10 more. Proceed to do so until you have either hit the high 40's at load, or very low 50's. Or until it's unstable. Then lower your FSB back down a little and check it's stability. There's too many ways to overclock. I usually do the quick method now. I raised my FSB up about 40 which took me to 2.4 right off the bat. I based that off of what I had seen other people get with their overclocks with the same processor, 2.4 seemed to be the common low.
 
Ok thanks for the info guys. One thing though. How do I lock the video at 67? Also I think in one post I saw it said you can download coolbits. Would it just be better to do what that page says and change the settings to get it yourself or d/l it? Also Luna, what does your temp on your GPU stay at? I looked at the GPU temp in the program that came with my GPU and it says my GPU temp is 58 Degree, that seems high to me because CPU isnt near that, but I dont know what GPU's temps are on average. Thanks guys
 
Oh yeah, and you might want to make sure Cool and Quiet are turned off on your motherboard. Ummm as for overclocking your video cards, I'd assume you'd want them overclocked at the exact same level. But I'm not sure how to overclock SLI setups. I don't have one. Kinda wish I did but at the moment, the uses for them are very little.
 
Treewolf said:
Ok thanks for the info guys. One thing though. How do I lock the video at 67? Also I think in one post I saw it said you can download coolbits. Would it just be better to do what that page says and change the settings to get it yourself or d/l it? Also Luna, what does your temp on your GPU stay at? I looked at the GPU temp in the program that came with my GPU and it says my GPU temp is 58 Degree, that seems high to me because CPU isnt near that, but I dont know what GPU's temps are on average. Thanks guys

It depends on the drivers I use. The new 'leaked' ones cause my core ot go up 10C, but the latest stable Nvidia drivers have my 6800GT GPU running at 64C.

My case is a tad warm though so that's probably why.
 
Which chipset and forceware driver versions are you using? I have chipset 6.39 and ForceWare 71.81. Thanks Shep, just cut cool and quiet off. Also how long after getting new stuff should you wait and overclock? I heard to let it run for a few weeks before trying anything?? THanks
 
Couple more questions. I think I got how to OC a CPU down, if you OC it to much it wont boot up/not be stable/temps will be too high. But what about a GPU? How can you tell when something is wrong with it? Will it not boot up also or will temps get really high or will it just not work at all? Also how do you OC ram? This is my ram.

Description:
1GB Kit HyperX DDR 400MHz 2-2-2-5

Detailed
Specifications:
Standard 64M X 64 Non-ECC 400MHz 184-pin Unbuffered DIMM (SDRAM-DDR, 2.6V, CL2, Gold) (Datasheet)

Additional Info:
Timing for this part: 2-2-2-5-1

I have heard about ram timing? Is the timing for this ram good? If not is how can I OC it to make it better? Thanks
 
Ok, that timing is the best you can have at the moment. But when you overclock, sometimes you need to actually loosen the timings a bit in order to make your system stable.

You're right about the stability factor. You won't damage your computer with instability, but I wouldn't run on it for a while. When you feel you've overclocked your processor enough, you will want to run Prim95 overnight or for as long as you can. You want to perform it's stresstest. This will put your processor through some intense calculations and will put the processor under full load. You'll notice your temps get pretty high after running it a while. My processor IDLES at 38c (AMD64 3200 90nm), and under full load goes to about 47-48c. But I've got it overclocked from 2.0ghz to 2.4. I don't really need it overclocked any higher just yet. But I know this thing can do 2.6ghz and will probably top out at that.
 
Early instabily in graphics cards will show up as artifacts. (Spots in the pictures). It will show up in games first because of the high work load. If you get artifacts cut the speed back.

Nvidia gpu's run notoriously hot. Thats why I switched to ATI. Heat is death for electronics. Electronics have an exponential failure rate with operating temperature. You may be over the knee of the failure curve even without artifacts showing up.

Once you have overstressed a gpu they usually do not recover so be very careful with video overclocking and don't be surprised if the card craps out after several months of running over clocked. Thermal damage is cumulative.

Use software overclocking in wondows whenver possible. Then if the video or cpu locks up just reboot to get back to defaults. Do not write the new values to MB bios or the Video card bios until you have run with software overclocking for a week and completed the stress test.

BTW DO NOT DO A STRESS TEST OVER NIGHT! You need to be there to monitor what is happening and watch temepratures real time. I use sisoft sandra for stress testing. It gives you graphs of temperature while the test proceeds. A 1 hour test is plenty to reach thermal equilibrium. My system usually stabilizes at the new temperatures in 30 minutes.

One thing I don't like about sandra is it's various burn in modules run sequentially which causes thermal cycling of the components instead of heating everything at the same time. A less effective test.

REMEMBER: Overclocking and stress testing can and often do damage hardware. Do it at your own risk.

And with a brand new system I would run it heavily until the return policy date passed to make sure there are no infant mortalities before I started stressing it with overclocking.
 
Generally you want to stress test for hours on end. And not too many people want to sit at your computer for hours. There's too many different ways to overclock. Everyone has their own technique. Stress testing overnight is fine. As long as you generally see about an hour of stress test. If you're in safe limits, you generally will not go higher then 2 - 3c above your first hours temps.

Technically yes, your computer's hardware can be damaged, IF you go too high. But for the most part it is safe.

I suggest going to www.hardocp.com and reading a lot of the overclocking tips in the forums there for the best information.
 
Ok thanks alot guys. I will take what you all said into consideration. I definately dont want to over do it. Ill just stick with a slightly OCing it for now.
 
Treewolf, that is already a very nice setup. I agree with LeeJend, wait until the return policy has passed before you try overclocking it.
 
Thanks vivid, right now I am just using NVperformace that came from Nvidia to let windows optimize it for me. Im not doing any manual OCing right now
 
Hey guys,

how you doing? This is my system:

-AMD 64 3500+ ( newcastle )
-Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939
-GEIL value 2X512mb dual channel pc 3200/DDR400
-ATI X800XT PE (8XAGP)
-WD raptor 37,5 GB (10000rpm/sata)
-Maxtor 120 GB (7200rpm/sata)
-Tagan 420 W
-Zalman reserator watercooling (CPU)
-AG-Neovo E19

It's a pretty fast system, but like all cases you get used to it and you want more!!!:lick: first thing i'm gonna change are the ram's they dont have such fast timings!!:nervous: does anybody have a proposition about which ram's to buy( mushkin, GEIL, Kingston, ...) Thats not my main question, my GPU is now clocked at the standard settings 520/560:nervous: I want to overclock these but i dont know till which value you can go. If anybody does please let me know. This gpu is not watercooled but cooled by the latest zalman VF-700 Cu. It runs idle at about 33°C and stressed around 40°C, but drops down real quick( good airflow in the case). Also i'd like to clock my cpu, now its clocked at 2221 mhz ( standard), how far can you go with these 3500+? It runs stressed also about 40°C, this is cooled by the zalman reserator.

Ive there is anybody who can answer my questions please let my know @ mic_0000@hotmail.com or post a reply thx alot

CU:devious:
 
smoeckoezzz said:
Hey guys,

how you doing? This is my system:

-AMD 64 3500+ ( newcastle )
-Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939
-GEIL value 2X512mb dual channel pc 3200/DDR400
-ATI X800XT PE (8XAGP)
-WD raptor 37,5 GB (10000rpm/sata)
-Maxtor 120 GB (7200rpm/sata)
-Tagan 420 W
-Zalman reserator watercooling (CPU)
-AG-Neovo E19

It's a pretty fast system, but like all cases you get used to it and you want more!!!:lick: first thing i'm gonna change are the ram's they dont have such fast timings!!:nervous: does anybody have a proposition about which ram's to buy( mushkin, GEIL, Kingston, ...) Thats not my main question, my GPU is now clocked at the standard settings 520/560:nervous: I want to overclock these but i dont know till which value you can go. If anybody does please let me know. This gpu is not watercooled but cooled by the latest zalman VF-700 Cu. It runs idle at about 33°C and stressed around 40°C, but drops down real quick( good airflow in the case). Also i'd like to clock my cpu, now its clocked at 2221 mhz ( standard), how far can you go with these 3500+? It runs stressed also about 40°C, this is cooled by the zalman reserator.

Ive there is anybody who can answer my questions please let my know @ mic_0000@hotmail.com or post a reply thx alot

CU:devious:

What you have is very good memory especially for cost...
First off, what kind of memory do you want?
Something for MAX headroom, or something with really tight timings?
If you want good headroom I would suggest OCZ or corsair TWINX paried sets. These are the best for a full system overclock as they are the two most stable in my experience. I am in the process of OC'ing my rig... As soon as I get benchmarks I will post them here...

PERSONALLY, I like Corsair, I have only used OCZ and Kingston as the alternates. and those were LOONG ago... Corsair I have used for over 5 years now, I have never had any probs with any memory module from corsair...

In your case if you are going for an extreme OC then timings are NOT so important... what you DO want is memory that will allow for alot of juice (volts) Corsair notoriously runs better and tightens its timings when given more voltage... which is one reason I use them.

One warning... it AINT cheap... but IMHO, it is well worth the cost...

Linked HERE is corsair's XMS website. Also listed HERE is what I would buy out of that list if I wanted the most overhead room for overclocking...

<-------- If I helped you, you know what to do...
 

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