I have never overclocked a cpu before but I am going to attemp it.

[mellondust]

I have built many computers over the years, but have not done any overclocking.(mostly because I have never had anything that could overclock enough to be worth doing it) I have just assembled the following:

E2180 M0 w/stock hsf
Gigabyte p35-DS3L
4gig hp ddr2 667 ram
Ultra 600w ps
Forsa 7600gs
other usual stuff

My original intentions were to replace the cpu with a E8400 and the video card with an 8800gt sometime in the summer. Now I am thinking I will see what I can get out of the E2180 and just replace the video card in the nearer future.

I have read the cpu overclocking thread and still would like some opinions. I have been going through the bios to get more familiar with the different settings I will be changing and noticed that it says the cpu is currently running at 1.6ghz or 8x200. Is that correct? Windows says 2ghz. Which is correct?

I want to overclock the system and not stress anything to hard exept the cpu if that is possible. I read through the e2180 overclocking thread and noticed a lot of people are getting aroung 3ghz on their 2180 but I think I would be fine with something a bit less than that if it is more stable with stock cooling.

What would some recommended settings be if I want a 1333 fsb. I am not sure how this all works, but I wouldn't mind running everthing like an e8400 was in there but with out the e8400, even if the cpu is running slower. What cpu setting would be best to use, or is that going to be too high.

I have seen others running mostly 9x333 and 10x300. Are they overclocking their ram also? Do I have to overclock the ram.

Thanks for any feedback.

****Update****

Ok, I followed v8envy's setting below and I performed a moderate overclock and here is what cpu-z is telling me:

core speed: 2660mhz
multiplier: 10
bus speed: 266mhz
rated fsb: 1064
dram frequency: 332.5mhz
fsb:dram 4:5
5-5-5-15

core voltage on the first tab says:1.280v but I know I set it to 1.325volts. Is that accurate or just the rating for the E2180?

How is this looking? What do I do now?(besides use it)

 

[magreen]

Relax. It's going to be a piece of cake.

10x300 would actually be underclocking your ram at 1:1 since your ram is rated to run at 333 FSB. You could go all the way up to 3.33GHz without overclocking your ram at all. Plenty of headroom.

your bios is probably showing you the speed of your cpu with speedstep enabled, which turns down your multiplier when the cpu is at idle. So your cpu is both a 2.0Ghz and a 1.6GHz processor, one is referring to load speed and the other turned down when idle.

You're going to laugh afterwards at how easy it was to OC your rig.

 

[piotrgurin]

Don't be nervous, its very unlikely anything would break. Just be prepared for frustration if you get unlucky and have trouble OCing.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: magreen
your bios is probably showing you the speed of your cpu with speedstep enabled, which turns down your multiplier when the cpu is at idle. So your cpu is both a 2.0Ghz and a 1.6GHz processor, one is referring to load speed and the other turned down when idle.

I don't think that's the issue.

1. I don't know about other motherboards, but my DS3L doesn't show me the CPUs lower speedstepped speed. I didn't think speedstep was something the processor even engaged until instructed by the OS, but I could be wrong.

2. Speedstep et al. lower the CPU's multiplier to 6, not 8. If speedstep were active his processor would be shown as 1.2GHz (200x6), not 1.8GHz.

OP, it's very odd that your processor is showing up that way in the BIOS. I would manually set the multiplier to 10 and see if that has any effect.

 

[v8envy]

It looks like the BIOS did not correctly recognize your cpu and you're running at 2140 specs. I have a nearly identical machine (same CPU, hpbate ram, ds3l), and you may wish to try this:

1. Find the PCIe frequency option, set it to 100 mhz. Do not forget this step or you may be be very, very sorry.
2. Set the CPU frequency control to manual. Set it to 10x multiplier, 266 mhz bus speed.
3. Make sure the automatic voltage control is off. Your voltage should be 1.325v, but you can go lower. If you leave the voltage control on auto you'll boot up at 1.41v CPU -- this is a huge waste of power and quite the heat generator.
4. Set the memory multiplier to 2.5. This will run your ram at 333 mhz when your FSB is at 266 mhz.

That's it! 2.66 mhz CPU, 333 mhz ram. You can experiment with higher overclocking or undervolting from there (disable c1e and speedstep if you are going to experiment further) -- just follow the core2 overclocking sticky in this forum.

My chip hit 3.33 ghz at 1.41v (I didn't try higher) -- but that's a one in a million CPU. You should be able to hit 333x9 on stock volts -- that'll keep your ram exactly at spec, and give you 3 ghz. BTW, the D9 chips on that HP ram report themselves as capable of 400 mhz operation via SPD. And mine passed memtest at 400 just fine -- I just haven't been brave enough to run them at that speed in production.

 

[mellondust]

Originally posted by: v8envy
It looks like the BIOS did not correctly recognize your cpu and you're running at 2140 specs. I have a nearly identical machine (same CPU, hpbate ram, ds3l), and you may wish to try this:

1. Find the PCIe frequency option, set it to 100 mhz. Do not forget this step or you may be be very, very sorry.
2. Set the CPU frequency control to manual. Set it to 10x multiplier, 266 mhz bus speed.
3. Make sure the automatic voltage control is off. Your voltage should be 1.325v, but you can go lower. If you leave the voltage control on auto you'll boot up at 1.41v CPU -- this is a huge waste of power and quite the heat generator.
4. Set the memory multiplier to 2.5. This will run your ram at 333 mhz when your FSB is at 266 mhz.

That's it! 2.66 mhz CPU, 333 mhz ram. You can experiment with higher overclocking or undervolting from there (disable c1e and speedstep if you are going to experiment further) -- just follow the core2 overclocking sticky in this forum.

My chip hit 3.33 ghz at 1.41v (I didn't try higher) -- but that's a one in a million CPU. You should be able to hit 333x9 on stock volts -- that'll keep your ram exactly at spec, and give you 3 ghz. BTW, the D9 chips on that HP ram report themselves as capable of 400 mhz operation via SPD. And mine passed memtest at 400 just fine -- I just haven't been brave enough to run them at that speed in production.

Thanks a lot! I figured someone would have a set up similar to mine. I will try it when I get home from work tonight and post my results. Sounds like it won't be as hard or confusing as I am thinking.

Thanks for the other input also!

Also, should I write down everthing I change so I can revert to the default if needed or is there a way to save a copy of the bios?

 

[magreen]

Ok, I stand corrected on the speedstep part. Thanks all for the info.

It's still going to be a piece of cake to OC that thing.

 

[sonoran]

>I must admit, I am a little nervous

Nothing at all to be nervous about (so long as you know how to reset your BIOS if the machine won't boot - ASUS automatically reverts to the last settings that booted, don't know about Gigabyte). As long as you don't raise any voltages, you have about zero chance of doing any harm.

 

[mellondust]

Ok I did it. See first post for update info. It is working ok as I am using it currently. Only thing of note, was the bios had a warning flashing something about voltage or something but I checked everything and didn't see anything wrong with what I changed. Does anyone know with this bios what I should set theperfomance enhance to? I set it to standard becuase turbo and what ever the other one was made a warning flash on the screen.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Next step is to test for system stability and check your CPU temps!

Download this stress testing program

Prime95 25.6


And this temp monitoring program

Core Temp 0.97.1


Run the Prime95 torture test for small files and open coretemp while it is running. Let the test run for a couple of hours and check coretemp and note your temps.

If Prime95 stops running and reports an error that means your overclock is not quite stable, and you either increase the CPU voltage or reduce the FSB and retest until it doesn't create an error in Prime95.

If it passes prime95 no problem and your temps are reasonable (<60c IMO), you can call it good or go higher by increasing the FSB and testing again.

Once you find your "final overclock", run Prime95 overnight. If it's still running with no errors the next day and the temps are acceptable then your done!

If you depend on this computer for semi-critical data(never o/c a system with very critical data) then I would reccomend running prime for a full 24-48hrs. With modern hardware the risk of damaging hardware by overclocking is very,very small unless you are extreme overclocking with very high voltages. The real danger in overclocking is an unstable system that can crash and potentialy corrupt data and in extreme cases require a full reformat of the primary hard drive and reinstall of the operating system



If you choose to overclock further(I would as that chip has alot left) then you will want to lower your memory ratio to 1:1 (FSB speed = ram speed per CPUz), that will allow you to increase the FSB up to 333mhz before you begin overclocking the ram.

That chip should overclock to 3ghz (300x10) fairly easily and I would say thats probably the "sweet spot". You could likely push it to 3.2 or 3.3ghz but you will have to pump up the CPU volts and temps will likely get out of hand unless you have excellent cooling