Overclocking athlon 2800+

[theevilsithlord]

well ive been researching this a little, and from what ive read, an nforce 2 mobo and a barton chip should already be unlocked for overclocking. I have a Gigabyte GA-7N400L1 mobo and it comes with this Easy Tune 4 utility that looks like it would be extremely easy to use to overclock. However, when i run it, it wont let me change the speed of the processor. I have the newest BIOS for the board as well.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Easytune is good for checking your temps and stuff if you want to overclock I would say do it yourself in the bios... when you enter the bios hit CTRL+F1 to get the advanced menu's and go from there

 

[RogerPhillis]

I have similar mobo to you and have used the up to date version of Easy Tune 4 from the gigabyte website( see the left hand side of the home page, not updates section.

If you go to the system bus section on ET4 you should be able to do as I can.. increase from 166Mhz to 175 Mhz.assuming you have a 333 board.

Only the multiplier setting should be locked

This puts the processor up to 2187.51 Mhz.
Mine reboots every 15-20 mins if pushed to 2200.0 Mhz.

It is better to use ET4 only, as recommended by gigabyte, and not the bios as Kermit mentioned.
Adjustments in one dont register in the other.
The CPU voltage should not need adjustment,to 1.756 v, although for 2200 Mhz setting it might help.

 

[theevilsithlord]

i just dl'ed the newest ver. of EasyTune 4, but i still cant change the system bus speed... it wont let me hit the arrow next to the system bus, it just sits there staring at me and shouting 167.

 

[LeeJend]

I have had no luck with muiltiplier overclcoking Barton or Tbred. I think the chips are unlocked but the MB must provide special capabilities to overclock the multiplier. There is a 5th conenction associated with cpu's over XP 2200 rating.

Gigabyte has not been real friendly to this on my MB or any other. ASUS and ABIT do support it from what I hear.


There is a "fix" that may or may not work depending on your MB. It involves wrapping a thin guage wire around 2 of the pins on the cpu before putting it in the socket. I tried it on my 7VRXP and it did not help with the Tbred.

Good luck. If you want to overclock and you can exchange the board I'd look at the ABIT or ASUS in that order. On the other hand the step from 2800 to 3200 (theoretical max limit on the Barton) isn't worth a whole lot of effort and the gigabyte boards are well built and stable.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Originally posted by RogerPhillis
I have similar mobo to you and have used the up to date version of Easy Tune 4 from the gigabyte website( see the left hand side of the home page, not updates section.

If you go to the system bus section on ET4 you should be able to do as I can.. increase from 166Mhz to 175 Mhz.assuming you have a 333 board.

Only the multiplier setting should be locked

This puts the processor up to 2187.51 Mhz.
Mine reboots every 15-20 mins if pushed to 2200.0 Mhz.

It is better to use ET4 only, as recommended by gigabyte, and not the bios as Kermit mentioned.
Adjustments in one dont register in the other.
The CPU voltage should not need adjustment,to 1.756 v, although for 2200 Mhz setting it might help.

LOL anyone knows when it comes to overclocking you need to learn how to do it for yourself and that would be through the bios , go to any overclocking site and say what you just said


LOLOL

 

[theevilsithlord]

thx lee i was just curious about it... i really dont plan on overclocking anyway, i just wanted to know what the deal was with easy tune 4. Also i really agree about the Gigabyte boards being stable.

 

[RogerPhillis]

Try changing your settings in "Frequency/Voltage Control" in the Bios, so that the CPU Host CLock Control is not greyed out and initially shows 166Mhz.
DRam Clock should be on auto or 333 to match processor.
Otherwise back to the drawing board.

 

[RogerPhillis]

As to your comments, Kermit..... I have been to overclocking sites.!
In most cases you do experiment as you mentioned and as other board manufacturers recommend.
However that was why the software is available in gigabyte who know the workings of their own equipment, as a convenience to easily see the effect of an adjustment, and yes other people do use the software as an alternative, for the reason that it works.
But you cant please all the people all the time!

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Well if you must use easytune by all means go ahead, but in itself it defeats a purpose ( overclock to gain performance yes , have another application running to steal performance no )

And as for overclocking easytune does nothing but change settings, its not magic, overclocking is always a risk and should never be done unless you are ready to replace any given piece at any given time without it bothering you. Easy tune works on some boards and on others all it does it moniter temps, fan speeds, and voltages... anyhow easytune sucks thats the bottom line

 

[jackal_0s]

Just out of curiosity...

Kermit, do you call yourself Kermit because you're a frog?

RogerPhillis: Aldershot, ON???

 

[RogerPhillis]

May be you should try another forum ( or planet)

 

[Sazar]

if you have a recent barton (ie manufactured after around the 30th week of production) you are likely to have a locked core... this is from amd themselves... no where else and the cpu is not locked in bios... it is physically locked...

if you have a previous fab version then you are not going to have much trouble oc'ing by multipliers since these were less likely to be locked...

this mainly afffects the 2500+ crowd since they were able to oc to 3000+ or 3200+ levels in many cases...

 

[theevilsithlord]

thx sazar, thats it

 

[Sazar]

np...

if you google it you may be able to find out the code you are looking for that == the production date of your core...

 

[scriptasylum]

I kind of agree with Kermit on this. ET4 works, but it is something else that gonna run in the background on your PC. If anything, use ET4 for a while to find your most stable and highest overclock and then enter those settings directly in BIOS and get rid of ET4 once you're happy.

I have O/Cd my 2800 only to 2200 (200FSBx11) simply to keep temps down. I have gone higher (210FSBx11.5), but then I have to adjust the voltage on my memory and CPU, which raises the temps. Bumping to 200FSB alone made a big difference even though I lowered my multiplier. I was even able to lower temps a bit by undervolting a little.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Originally posted by jackal_0s
Just out of curiosity...

Kermit, do you call yourself Kermit because you're a frog?

RogerPhillis: Aldershot, ON???

Of course I am a frog !! what a silly question


And like I said Easytune is not magic but for someone who is starting out in overclocking it can help you get a basic idea on what settings will work, then when your up for the task you go into bios , hit ctrl+F1 to get the advanced menu's ( gigabytes weird method ) and get down to really overclocking that puppy, always keep an eye on temps ( Speedfan works real nice, so does MBM ) and make sure you have a good fan on the CPU and a couple of case fans to boot, ( more so if you start bumping up the volts that is )


Good luck and have fun