I have really had it with this.

[galt]

For 8 months I ran my Athlon XP 1800+ (tbredb) on a SiS motherboard at stock speed because the bios didn't allow for overclocking. Then three weeks back I bought an nForce2 board because everyone has nothing but good things to say about it. I spent 70$ on the Shuttle AN35N-Ultra and 100$ on Kingston HyperX PC3200 512mb ram. I put my system together, and first thing I format and install winXP.

Everything goes well. Perfect. Time to overclock. Bump fsb up to 166, and run Prime95 and Sandra. Stable. Now since I dont want to push the cpu beyond 1950mhz, I bump the clock multiplier down to 9.5 and fsb to 200. No boot.

A lot of experimenting yields these results: I can't select any multiplier below 11. Everything above it works fine, 11, 11.5, 12, 12.5 ..... and on. But if I set the multiplier to 9,9.5, 10, and 10.5, the system ignores it and uses the default 11.5x of the chip.

So I do the wire trick, and connect the two pins on the cpu by using an ultra thin wire. Put the cpu back in, boot up. Same thing. Can't pick multiplier below 11.

What gives? I have the latest bios, a GF4, SBLive, and a Maxtor.

 

[EeyoreX]

What gives?

What gives is that overclocking is basically a hit or miss activity. Sounds like you missed. I guess you are "stuck" running stock or at the settings you can get to work.

\Dan

 

[arsbanned]

Wait, you didn't get the chip with "THIS AMD PROCESSOR GUARANTEED TO OVERCLOCK TO WHATEVER YOU WANT" emblazoned across the packaging? Well, sucks to be you then!

 

[jdogg707]

You didn't exactly get the world's best motherboard to overclock with...and unless that 1800+ is a DL3TC chip or some variant of that, then your overclocking on it may be very limited...grab a 2500+ push FSB to 400MHZ and be happy.

I agree with hte others, overclocking is hit or miss...simple as that. Hopefully next time you will be more lucky.

 

[igowerf]

He's asking why he can't select a multiplier below 11, not why he can't massively overclock.

 

[EeyoreX]

He's asking why he can't select a multiplier below 11, not why he can't massively overclock.

He is asking, IMO an "overclocking" question. By "overclock" here I also include that word to mean run anything other than stock. In this case, the answer is the same. If the CPU is supposed to run at a multiplier of 11.5, there is zero guarantee that any other multiplier will work.

\Dan

 

[novice]

I don't know why you can't use multipliers lower than 11. My Shuttle AN35N is running at 10x200 right now with a XP1700+ T-Bred B. It also ran fine at 12x166 before I picked up my PC-3200 ram. I didn't have to mess around with the CPU at all, either. On the other hand, I have had zero luck running faster than 200 on the fsb, even at lower multipliers. So I guess your mileage may vary. I am just happy to be running the 200 Mhz fsb, with the equivalent of an XP2400 CPU. (for $42 if I recall..)

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: EeyoreX

He's asking why he can't select a multiplier below 11, not why he can't massively overclock.

He is asking, IMO an "overclocking" question. By "overclock" here I also include that word to mean run anything other than stock. In this case, the answer is the same. If the CPU is supposed to run at a multiplier of 11.5, there is zero guarantee that any other multiplier will work.

\Dan

But this problem isn't a problem with an overclock failing. It's a problem with his system BIOS resetting to an 11.5 mulitiplier. If his processor can't run at a multiplier below 11, wouldn't his system just not POST? When overclocks fail, your system locks up or your system doesn't POST. It doesn't reset your multiplier.

But if I set the multiplier to 9,9.5, 10, and 10.5, the system ignores it and uses the default 11.5x of the chip.

I assume his attempt at 9.5 x 200 failed because his system defaulted to 11.5.

On a similar note, are AMD processor's unlocked now? The last AMD CPU that I had was a Tbird 1.4 GHz. I've been using Intel since.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I'd post this in the processors & overclocking forum. There are probably more people that can actually help you with this there and fewer smartasses looking to preach to you their own personal take on overclocking.

 

[boyRacer]

probably depends on the board... i had a 2100+ that needed 1.75v on my old Abit KX7333 and KD7-E to do 2700+ 166FSB... it will only do 185-190FSB at 1.85v... no higher. Then the same chip on an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe can do 200 at 1.85. Now I have the chip on my A7N8X-X and it can do 2700+ undervolted to 1.6v...

 

[galt]

Problem has been solved. The issue was with the bios. I flashed the board with an older bios, and now I can change multipliers. The wire mod is still there. I'm running at 9.5x200 now.

The bios I had (latest one) probably had issues with multipliers below 11. The older one runs perfectly. I wasnt complaining about my cpu not overclocking. I was complaining about my nforce2 not unlocking tbred-b chips, like its supposed to.

Its been a stressful couple of weeks to get to this, but the system is running beautifully now. 200mhz fsb. Thanks for all the help guys. Its really appretiated.