k7n2g-l overclock problems

[stampee]

Hi all: I have been going bald reading overclock information and not really getting anywheres with my motherboard. I am not trying to create the killer overclocked system, but only hope to pick up a few frames/second in fs4
Currently I cannot get my fsb any higher then 166 and call the system stable.
I have gotten fsb to 182 but I get crashes in flight sims at that speed.
ANYHOW here are the specs, near as I know them.
k7n2g-L board with original bios.
1 gig (2 sticks) of pc2700 memory (not positive on its speed) but knowing my money budget...
2500 cpu barton. Someplaces I read this is unlocked other places say it isnt.
thermaltek cooler. danged if I recall what model, sorry.
PNY 7600 GS on the agp bus.
CPU temps? who the devil knows. I have pcalert4, mdm and the bios cpu reading and all 3 read drastically different temps.
which one do I believe?
MDM appears to read 10 degrees higher than pcalert4. I can set bios warning buzzer to go off at 56C and it will start beeping, yet mdm will show 45-47 and pcalert4 may show 42C or less.
3dmark 2001 default bios is 12,293 with all background processes off. For what that is worth.
As I said I can get to 182 FSB but the system is not reliable. I also can get to 12.5 on the CPU multiplier with fsb at 175 but again, not very reliable. 3dmark maximum is 14154 at 182 fsb and cpu 11.5X but some crashing out of flight sims at this speed.
I have read some overclock guides that say not to raise the PCI bus faster then 166. How do I lock the bus speed to that on this k7n2g-l motherboard? I do not see any such option.
I also read to raise the fsb voltage. Once again. where is this done in the bios? I see where to raise the CPU Vcore and the agp core voltage, but not the fsb voltage.
Well.. any advice other than to shoot myself in the other foot would be greatly appreciated. By the way, here is another really wierd thing. My 3dmark speeds max out at 182 fsb. If I set fsb any higher the 3d scores begin to go down. What gives with that crazyness?
I presume my memory is running at the dual core speed, how would I know?
-Stampee

[_DL_]

What psu do you have?

You wont really get far with vcore at default. (unless you have a mobile cpu)

Changing the AGP voltage is not needed if you dont overclock your GPU (it is better to do one thing at a time so if you want to do it after you find a stable setting for your cpu).

[stampee]

Well, my power supply failed this morning. The system would not boot at all. WHO KNOWS WHY? it was a 460 watt psu only 2 years old. Should have been plenty of power for this system. I only have a dvd and single harddrive installed. Anyhow maybe that was part of my stability problems as the power supply was failing.
It has no power on the pwr_ok line. I installed a 300 watt model from another system and booted fine.
I will just have to put this overclocking on hold until I get another replacment power supply.
Thanks all!
-Stampee

[uddarts]

can't help ya on the other threads but found a write up on the board. it shows the bios screens and where to look for the settings. (memory as dram voltage)

http://www.nordichardware.com/Reviews/?skrivelse=391&page=13

your going to want to run your cpu and ram at 1:1 to get any performance gain.

prime95 is the proper way to test stability.

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

i use superpi mod to test performance improvements.

http://www.overclock.net/downloads/138140-super-pi-mod-1-5-a.html

with your pc2700 memory a higher multi will probably be the way to go with a slight cpu/mem fsb increase.

i'm quessing your using a stock cooler. if you can find a thermaltake volcano 12 or a thermalright cooler all the better. you probably can get away with high 50's under load.

are you using the onboard vga?

ud

[stampee]

UD: Thanks for the response: I now have a 550 watt power supply. I read the data on my memory and it is OCsystem.com X2 dual channel true cas 2
with aluminum heatsink. I have a volcano thermaltek volcano 6 copper cooler now.
Under load right now and a slight overclock I see 3 different CPU temperatures and do not trust any of them!
pcalert4 shows 37C, MDM shows 51c and the bios cpu warning was set for 56C and it was going off. SO what is an accurate temp and what can I believe?
I just upgraded to bios 4.0 for the mainboard and saw no temp changes either.
-kerry

[stampee]

I forgot to say, no I am not using onboard graphics. I have a 7600GS video card.
-Stampee

[uddarts]

1st. what vcore are you running?

my msi delta always ran hot too.

2nd. i'd set the bios to 66c. the xp2500 barton is good to 85c.

after running my 2500 for 2 years in my main msi delta rig, i put it in a asrock k7s41. with a modded heatsink at 12x200@100% folding for a year with temps in the high 50's. got it back in the delta and just fired it up check the bios to see exactly what pc health setting were.

3rd. you have your vdimm now? what does ocz give your voltage default as?

4th. i use mbm5 on it. i dumped msi's app the first week i had the board.

5th. remember your not going in the record books, just trying to get the most out of what you have.


ud

[stampee]

Thank you for the help. I think I am getting real close to my maximum settings now.
vcore is at 1.75
Dram voltage is 2.7V
fsb 188
cpu multiplier 12.0
memory is 10,6,5 cas 3.0
MBM5 reports temp at 63 Celsius after running 3dmark 2001
If I up the fsb to 189 the system locks up. If I raise cpu multiplier to 12.5 I also lockup. I hesitate to raise the vcore voltage any further, it did not seem to be helping anyhow.

I still want to do some more tweaking, but it appears like the memory is holding me back now.
my 3dmark score is now 14602 not great compared to what I see other people doing, but it is alot better than base settings which was 12,293
I see people showing marks in the 14,000's using the integrated graphics. I cant understand it myself.
I noticed that the Nforce heatsink was just warm to the touch and so was the cpu heatsink. Memory heatsink also was warm to the touch. Nothing was blazingly hot.
I know I am not touching the actual hotspot of the cpu or whatever. CPU temp has been holding around 63 no matter what I do.
if you have any other ideas I would greatly appreciate them.
-Stampee

[uddarts]

it's not oc'd properly till it passes prime95.


http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm


you might want to test the memory first to see how it's does at 188.

http://www.memtest.org/


if it passes and prime95 fails, you may be better off to drop the multi to 11.5.


ud