new to overclocking

[montec]

I have a gigabyte 7n400 pro2 ver.2 mobo and a athlon xp 2500+ barton cpu and 2 stick of 256mb ddr ram 2700. what would be a good stability to run or how or what should I start with the pc will be put together on fiday for testing. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[CheesePoofs]

First make sure its stable at stock settings by running prime95 overnight. Then start upping the CPU's multiplier, assuming its unlocked, and run prime95 again each time you up it. When it becomes unstable, try giving the CPU a little more voltage (not a lot more), and try again. Rinse and repeat until you're happy with your OC, or you max out the CPU.

 

[bmillerd]

I had the exact same board. It was rock solid stable with the proper vcore until 3200+, but if you really plan to overclock (which you can do easily with your barton) I would consider getting another board. The multiplier on the GA7N is locked which limits you to FSB and vcore increases as your only means of increasing clockspeed. Moreover, the vcore (and vdimm) on the GA7N maxes out at +10% over original voltage which leaves you with a weak 1.65 max vcore, not enough if you plan to get the most out of your chip. Granted you can still get a sizeable overclock (probably about 2.2ghz), but you will be forced to run a memory divider since any increase you make will be one involving the FSB.

If you have the money to buy another board, I picked up the Abit NF7-S and am very happy with it. Cheaper than the GA7N too, about $90 on Newegg.

 

[CheesePoofs]

I have the GA-7N400PRO (not 2) and my multi is not locked. i have adjusted it to compensate for me upping the FSB on my chip to 166mhz from 133.

 

[montec]

On my the 7n400 pro2 ver.2 you can manually set the multiplyer on the mobo it self and change settings in the bios as well but not by alot so I know that I won't be able to do some heavy overclocking but that wasn't my biggest concern but wanted to do some and its better then my current mobo which is a asus a7n8x-la board which came stock in my hp that I am using now I didn't mind the abit but for 5 buxx more got alot of features. But heres my other concern is that I have the factory heatsink do you think that will hold up if I get it to the 3200+ range

 

[montec]

any input anybody is appreciated

 

[CheesePoofs]

On mine you can set the multi all the way from 5ish to 20 or more. Are you sure you scrolled down through the whole list? because they are not listed in numerical order on mine.

 

[montec]

I got the 7n400 pro 2 version 2 and it came with a sticker for the case that shows all the multipliers from auto which is the default to 18x

 

[Fern]

Well, since your first post indicates you won't be assembling this till Friday - have a look at the cpu and post the stepping codes. AMD XP cpu's have been uber-locked since week 39 of 2003. Unless its an old cpu, you aren't gonna be able to play with multi anyway.

Post the stepping codes and we can tell you if its locked.

If it IS locked, then you are left with increasing the FSB. That means OCing both the cpu and the ram.


Fern

 

[SunSamurai]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1441072&enterthread=y

 

[montec]

Ok here's another ? for ya....ON my board it came with 4 ide controlers and 2 sata ports and I also have an ide pci card that came with my second hd. Heres my prob...I am wanting to run a dvd rom, cd burner, dvd burner all seperately and I have 2 hard drives that already have info on them and really don't want to lose the info inthe swap or run raid which I know not much about. How should I do this??????

 

[montec]

pls some help here

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: montec
Ok here's another ? for ya....ON my board it came with 4 ide controlers and 2 sata ports and I also have an ide pci card that came with my second hd. Heres my prob...I am wanting to run a dvd rom, cd burner, dvd burner all seperately and I have 2 hard drives that already have info on them and really don't want to lose the info inthe swap or run raid which I know not much about. How should I do this??????

Ok, not exactly sure what the question is (1) is it which drive s/b hooked to which controller or (2) You don't wanna lose existing data on HDD's but you realize that since you have a new mobo you'll need to get the new chipset drivers in there to work properly?

THis appears to be a new build you are going to do today. So, first I'd hook up the HDD with the OS (I assume winXP). Go HERE, scroll down to "misc notes" and see the instructions for the repair method to get the new chipset drivers installed. Either that or reformat/reinstall (which is what I do).

Next I'd add one drive at a time.

When you say you want the drives to be "seperate" I'm not sure what you mean? Is it that you want only one device/drive per IDE channel? (ie., all are master, you want none as slave-so to speak).

Fern

 

[Staz]

I currently run that same mobo and same CPU, pending you meant the mobile version which is multiplier unlocked. I had to manually bump my CPU multiplier using dipswitches on the mobo to 12 and have my FSB set to 200, thus giving me a 2400MHz(12x200) mobile Barton running on air at stock(1.6v) voltage. My memory is set to th e 200 FSB at 2.5-2-3-7. My CPU averages 52*C at full load, and 46* under minimal load. This setup has been stable for several months, but when I tried to bump my FSB up higher or take my multiplier up higher, I started to BSOD, so just leaving it here.


P.S.
This mobo, along with many other Gigabyte mobo's don't run many RAM sticks at PC3200(200 FSB), which is my main limiting factor at the moment, even with Hyper-X sticks.

 

[montec]

I don't have the mobile version unfortuantly-cause the chip is comming form an HP CTO PC.

And should I set up everything as it to maintain the drive letters with my current set up or what should I do cause I have everyting in the start menu for my games, movies, music which is all on my second hd without the os?????

Please be patient with me I am new to building a pc for the first time have done upgrades in the past but not this entailed

 

[Staz]

Well, that chip is locked at an 11 multiplier, so just bump the FSB from 166 to 200 and that overclocks it to 2200MHz(11x200), which isn't shabby at all, and is equiv to an XP 3200+. Just make sure to set your memory to SPD and to adjust your AGP/PCI clock accordingly. Also watch your temps, stock cooling should cool this cheap well enough, but better safe than sorry.

 

[montec]

bout the second ? re setup for drives

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: montec

And should I set up everything as it to maintain the drive letters with my current set up or what should I do cause I have everyting in the start menu for my games, movies, music which is all on my second hd without the os?????

Please be patient with me I am new to building a pc for the first time have done upgrades in the past but not this entailed

Check the Microsoft Data base for your OS. There will be a bulletin whick explains how your OS assigns drive letters.

I try to keep the old "C:" the same in the new setup etc. Otherwise I fear trouble getting apps to run, the shortcuts to work etc.

Fern

 

[Staz]

As long as you hook up your current drives in the same order, meaning master/slave and on which channel, they it should assign your same drive letters.

If it doesn't, you can manually pick the drive letter you want for each device, except for your main system drive, don't think that can be anything other than C:

 

[montec]

thnx hope it works will post when complete-loging off for the 1st time in mote than 3months

 

[Staz]

I would bring the system up at stock speed and make sure it is running totally stable before you try to overclock.

 

[montec]

ok I'm up and runnign barely.
According to aida32 my cpu temp is 82C
my motherboard temp is 38c
and it list an aux @ 34c
and is only running @ 100mhz and when I switch the bios to 133 it shuts down I believe to heat
but I don't know why its so hot i got thermal compound on it maybe it still needs some break in time

 

[montec]

anybody have an idea

 

[Fern]

What heatsink did you use?

Did it come with the "wax pad"?

What thermal compound did you use? and how did you apply it?

If the heatsink was new did you *cough* take off the plastic label b4 installing

A common problem is not having the heatsink oriented properly, thus it will fail to make good contact and poor cooling w/b the result

Fern

 

[montec]

factory
no
coolermaster htk-001 high performance
and I found out that the heatsink was not seated properly