O/C'ing my Tbird 850 on my A7V...

[opus512]

I got it unlocked, as I can now set the multiplier and have it boot at different speeds, but the only speed I can get it to do anything at is 10x, and even then it won't load Windows, the farthest I got was the Windows splash screen, and the top third of it was chopped off, and then it hung.

I can't get video out at anything other then 8.5x and 10x. I tried setting the SDRAM to 100 and set the FSB to 133 and dropped the multiplier down, and couldn't get any video no matter what multiplier I had it set at.

I have it set for jumper free mode, then I set the clock multiplier in the BIOS, but only get an 800 MHz, even though it's an 850 by default. I thought you could set the multiplier in the BIOS even in jumper free mode long as you had the CPU unlocked?

I tried upping the voltage and it puked right away, thank God for Asus and their CMOS reset, heh, makes it *lot's* easier to reset your system.

But I'm a little confused on this, I don't seem to be able to over clock the basige at all, even at 9x it has no video out.

Am I missing something on the MoBo? The voltage settings? I have a peice of shit Tbird that won't O/C? What?

[Weapon X]

did you try disabling the splash screen?

[opus512]

Uhm, no, but that wouldn't make a difference in the over clocking, would it?

[Weapon X]

Maybe or maybe not, but some users have been able to boot into Windows when the splash screen was disabled.

[White_Rooque]

850 tbirds don't oc too well and a7v dip switches work better than the bios does.Guy at work has that same set up.Best he ever got was 950.Can ask him any questions you prefer,I'll see him again tomorrow.

[opus512]

That'd be cool, WR. I tried the dips and the BIOS, both no luck. With the switches, all I could get video out on was 8.5x and 10x, but again, at 10x system kept hanging. Ask him if he ever got anything to work on a 133 FSB and a lower multiplier. I can't even get the 133 to work with 133 x 6.5 = 865 MHz. Ask him if he had to change the voltage and if so to what. Appreciate it.

I'll give that a shot, Weapon X, thanks for the suggestion.

[EvilEngine]

All I did to get my 800mhz Duron to 1ghz on the A7V is the unlocking, then pushed the Multiplier to 9.5x then, pumped the FSB to 133, then the cpu fsb to just a couple notches, and it booted fine. Only problem I had at first was there was a IRQ conflict which I fixed easily by assigning the the IRQ in question to Legacy, and it worked.
Overclocking AMD chips is really self explanatory, you just have to play with the best settings until you get , one level at a time. Maybe I'm being off topic about this, but theres not much to say, if you already have proper cooling and unlocked the chip.

[White_Rooque]

ok Opus,I'll ask him tomorrow.He is an avid overclocker,got about 5 rigs and ocs them all.He is really into it and I know he has prolly tried every different approach to achieve the best results on the a7v.I'll find out what his best setting are.Let ya know tomorrow.

[opus512]

Well Evil, I have a Super Orb on it. Some people think this isn't a very good cooler, but it actualy is pretty decent. Also I have lapped the bottom, and I know the CPU doesn't run that hot. I even had a 1.2 GHz I was testing for a customer with the Super Orb, and it had no problems at all.

This 850 is wierd, I may just have one that doesn't O/C very well, that or the MoBo may be the problem, I mean, I couldn't even get to give me video at a *lower* multiplier then the default. I'm going to check the unlocking I did on it tomorrow, and try a few other settings, see if I can get something to happen.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[White_Rooque]

Well Opus,it looks like as I suspected,the 850 tbird dosen't oc too well.He removed it from the A7V and installed a 600 Duron that ocs up very well.He put the 850 bird on an MSI board for more stablilty,but still can only squeeze about 100 megs out of it.He ran it on the A7V at 1.8 volts,at 9x109 = 981 got lock ups,ran ok at 9 x 107 = 963.

[<Randell>]

Bad overclocking results normally from the same things;

1) Closing the bridges was done badly - maybe there is a shot-circuit or an incomplete circuit. Try re-doing the L1 bridges.
2) Bad cooling - There are better coolers than the super-orb out there. Like the Globalwin FOP-38, plus more recent ones from Taisol and Swiftech.

What thermal compound have you got? Have you tried Artic Silver II?

3) Bad luck :( There wasn't much headroom in the early T-birds especially before they went to a 266FSB.

I would put it on maximum voltage (1.85v) in jumpered mode and try from there.

Try these sites for advice - www.ninjamicros.com (http://www.ninjamicros.com) and www.amdmb.com (http://www.amdmb.com)

[opus512]

Thanks Randell,
The unlock, I would think that it would either be done right or not, wouldn't it? If it was done wrong, or incompletely, it wouldn't let me change the multiplier at all, would it? I have thought about redoing it, just to make sure, and might try it later. Pain to work in my system right now, as I have an IBM HDD going bad, I think, and if I move the system anyway but straight up, the HDD will start giving me fits and be inaccesable, heh. So I have to work on it standing up.

The cooling, well, as I said, the Super Orb is nowhere near as bad as some sites make it out to be. Is it the best? Far from it, but it's also far from inadequate. But right now I just got in some new Thermaltake products, and I am currently using the Volacno II on it, with a fan that dos 36 cfm, and so far the sucker ain't even warm, heh. So I'm going to start trying it again.

I'm using a basic thermal compund, sold by one of my distributors at http://www.startech.com, model # AKA-100, made by Plowstar, Co.

I also just got my new Prophet 4500 in, and am getting ready to install that, so the O/C on the CPU is kind of taking a back seat for now :)

[opus512]

Well so far so good at 1 GHz.

Have it set to jumpered mode, have the multiplier at 10x, 100 FSB and the voltage maxed at 1.825/1.85.

Tried it at the next to highest voltage setting and it still crapped out. Upped it to the max and so far no problems, only have had it on for 1/2 hour so far. Ran 3DM2K once, made it through, going to get jiggy wid it later after I install the Prophet 4500.

Have the Thermaltake Volcano II on it, also have the memory heatsink on the Micron PC133 I have in the system. Got shit loads of cooling in the case. Base of the heatsink is starting to get a little warm, but hardly even noticable. Ran the CPU tests in SiSoft Sandra, made it through them fine.

Gotta go run home right now, then after I get back slapping the 4500 in, then I'm going to test the shit out of it, heh. I'll let you know how stable it is.

WhiteRooque, what was the MSI board your buddy has the 850 on now, did he say? Just curious, as I like the MSI boards I have used so far, and am interested in how they do. And he gets better results on the MSI then the Asus, just not as good as hoped for?

[opus512]

Btw, anyone interested in the Volcan II, it seems to be a very nice cooling setup so far. I don't see the problems all these "review" sites seem to be having. Here I'm running an 850 @ 1000 and no heat issues. I think they need to be looking at the air flow in their test systems. And half these mental midgets don't even know how to insatll a CPU coller. I have *never* cracked a CPU with a Thermaltake Orb. And the reviews I have been reading of the Volcano II all say something about how hard it was to install, and TweakTown even saying they had to use a pair of pliers! Duh! Use a screwdriver in the latch and it "pops" right on! Dweebs.

http://www.thermaltake.com/images/products/VOLCANO2.gif

[<Randell>]

Keep it up m8. Sounds better already. The L1 brisges is just something to try redoing once all else fails :)

I know nothing about Volcano coolers. Not sure they are in the UK. I can't beleive people have scared themselves over putting coolers on & off Durons/Athlons. They must be really heavy-handed. You're right, carefully with a small screwdriver in the slot works on most.

[opus512]

Thanks for the input, Randell, so far so good. Yeah, I have had a couple customers crack their CPU on the Orbs, but they didn't know what they were doing. They do now, heh.

Got the Prophet 4500 in now, but I'm going to have to go find some tweaks for it. Not teribly impressed so far, nice card, but got some issues I knew it would have going into it. So far so good, though.

[White_Rooque]

He now has it on the msi pro 2a,Still crippled a bit by the kt 133 chipset as opposed to the 133a,when it comes to upping the fsb.Stable board,fairly quick.That board has a quirk with running cas 2 ram in spd,only corsair memory will work in spd at cas 2,even muskin defaults to 3,and to disable spd is to disable 4 way mem interleave.Best to stay with 133a or AMD 761 DDR.

[opus512]

Hm, my Asus A7V is a KT133. The highest I ever got the FSB to go was 114, that with a Tbird 750 and Micron CL-2 PC133. Don't know what the memory defaults to, how do you check that with it set to default? In the grayed out is shows whatever I had it manualy set to last.

I am going to up to the 133a here soon, hopefully, probably an MSI, possibly the Tyan S2390b. I used to use a lot of S2390's, but it took them a while to get the "b" version out (KT133a, ATA/100, 200/266 FSB, etc.), and one of my distributors started carrying MSI, so I switched over to that.

I do like the Asus now that I finaly got my Tbird unlocked, heh, and kind of hate to go back to an 850 when so far I got an 1000, heheh, but we'll see when it's time to think about it.

Thanks for cheking on it!
Appreciate it :)

[White_Rooque]

No problem Opus.Yah,that's about where the 133 starts to choke on the fsb,133a/266 does much better. :cool: