Overclocking Help

[peter12213]

HI guys I'm enquiring about overclocking my computer, my specs are...

AMD Phenom(tm) 9650 Quad Core Processor 2.30Ghz
6Gb Corsair DDR2 800Mhz Memory
500Gb 7200 Hard Drive
Microsoft 7 (64)
Foxconn Destroyer Motherboard
Nvidia GTS250 1024Mb Graphics Card
Thermaltake Armor A90 Case

But having no experience of doing this I was wondering if you could share your opinions/experiences of doing this with me!

Regards ... Pete

[stansdds]

My last AMD was a single core 4000+. I managed to get that up to 2.76GHz on the stock cooler. My current rig is my signature line. I do recommend a good CPU cooler and overclocking RAM can quickly lead to stability issues. Keep everything cool, watch the CPU temps, and go slowly. That's pretty generic overclocking advice

[mjrhealth]

Do a search on AMD overclock forum, there are a few out there. Then lots of reading, Put simply, if it is a Black Edition, you just need to up the multiplier a bit at a time till it wont pass stress test, then back it off. After that you need to play with volatges, whcuh is where it gets dicey.

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...splay.php?f=66

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/forumdisplay.php?f=22

[peter12213]

I have no experience of doing Anything like this cooling shouldn't be a problem the system is full of fans and is liquid cooled plus it's England so it's always a bit chilly in my computer room! I'll do some Reading up on it but I'll probably need professional help!

[mjrhealth]

Well i will give you some basics. Programsdyou need,

CPUID CPUZ http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
HWmonitor http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
Prime95 http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103

Cpuid will show you your basic clocks and speed, HWmonitor will show you your voltages and temps and you shoud run it while stress testing with prime95. First thing to do is to install and run prime 95 for at least 5 min to see if your machine is stable and use hw monitor o watch you CPU temps then note them down as well as your ambient air temps. Simple thing is if your room temp is 10C and your CPU under stress is hitting 60c then the temp diff is 50C, which idealyy is your cpu true temp. now if your ambient is 30c and your cpu is hitting 80c then you may think , hey my fan aint cooling, weel it is as the diff is still 50c, thats why you need to know your ambient air temp.

The stock AMD fans aint bad, but if you get a decnt Heatpipe fan it can reduce your temps quiet a bit.

Basics.
Amd use a FSB of 200MHZ. This is the base reference clock on which your cpu speed, PCI bus and memory speed is based on. If you raise this, all your speeds go up. The Black Edition CPU's allow you to change your cPU multiplier, which in your case should be 11.5 , ie 200 X 11.5 gives you 2.3 GHz. This is your first overclocking door. Simply raise your multipler in the BIOS a step at a time then boot and run prime 95 for at least 15 min to see if it crashes the reboot and try again. This is the best opton as it doesnt mess with your PCI bus or memory speeds so you know what is causing your PC to crash during prime. Once your PC wont prime it starts getting messy, for now you have to start raising the CPU VCore a bit at a time till it stops crashing, but doing this increases heat and also if you raise it too high can cause your cpu to fail, so do a lot of reading on what the max voltages are for your cpu.
Now in AMD chips there is also an NB bus, it too has its own multiplier, the default for my chip was 2.0 Gig i managed to get it to 2.6 Gig, it basically is the speed your cpu talks to memory, so if you raise your cpu speed raising this can make your cpu talk more efficiently to memory, it also reduces memory latency. Of course you need to do this after you get your cpu stable.
Your PCI bus should be left on auto and 100MHZ.


Its a good idea to qrite down your new bios values incase your pc wont post on boot, in which case you will have to reset the bios to clear it and start again. Some motherboards have 2 pins you can short to clear the bios, or you need to remove the battery for a few minutes with no power to your pc to allow it to clear.
Hope all this makes sense.

[peter12213]

Hi I areally appreciate the advice mate but if I'm completely honest the thought of doing somthing wrong or blowing somthing up is really scaring me lol so I'm going to call the company that built it for me and do a Captain kirk and ask scotty for more power lol ideally I'd like 3.5 ghz weather this is possible or not I'm not sure?

[mjrhealth]

you have an am2+ socket, gwt an amd 955 quad it is 3.2 ghz standard but will do 3.8 with stock volatges, just make sure its the c3 version, the part nimber is on the web

[Naismith]

Hi I areally appreciate the advice mate but if I'm completely honest the thought of doing somthing wrong or blowing somthing up is really scaring me lol so I'm going to call the company that built it for me and do a Captain kirk and ask scotty for more power lol ideally I'd like 3.5 ghz weather this is possible or not I'm not sure?

Don't forget the di-lithium crystals, though they are rather expensive at the moment. Much cheaper if you can get to Rigel IV.

[txnetcop]

Peter, mjrhealth gave accurate advice for overclocking the board. However FOXCONN Destroyer is a B*tch of a motherboard to overclock unless you download the latest BIOS. It corrects some of the issues with that board. If you do as mjrhealth suggests and raise your FSB incrementally you are in no danger of burning up your system.
Ted