OCing 2500 Barton Mobile

[TheStu]

I currently have:
AMD Athlon 2500+ XP Mobile
Abit AN7
GeIL 2*256 PC-3200 Golden Dragon Dual Channel

My current settings are:
FSB - 200 MHz
Multiplier - 12.5
VCore - 1.923 (I think may be wrong, but it around 1.9)
VDDR - 2.8
CAS - 2.5 6 3 3


Anytime I push to 2.6 GHz by Multi I get an IRQ error from Windows and have to go back to the BIOS and gear down again. I realize the key to go faster will be to push my RAM but I'm not sure how far this RAM will go... I've heard good things about it, but I'm just not sure how exactly to tweak it.. anyone out there have the same or similiar set-up that could help me out?

 

[imported_elwood]

Wow, someone correct me if i'm wrong, but 1.9v's is kind of pushing it!

 

[bunnyfubbles]

yeah, it sounds like you're really reaching the limmits of your chip there. I coudl get more out of my mobile Barton but I've backed it down in order to run at a safe voltage as I plan on keeping the CPU for quite some time. Oh and I think many would agree to 1.8 being relatively safe but I think 1.9 is pushing it.

 

[Concillian]

On air, yes, but if he's watercooled, 1.9v is par for the course.

To the OP, is Prime95 stable at 2.5 on that?

To tweak the RAM, you want to do the following:
1) Download superpi (go to google and search it, I don't have a link off the tip of my finger)
2) Download Prime95 (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm)
3) slow down to a low multiplier where you KNOW the CPU will be stable, even at 250 FSB like 8x.
4) Increase vDIMM to at least 2.8, if your board supports 2.9 or 3.0 and you feel comfortable with that, then go for more.
5) increase the FSB slowly, I usually take 3-4 MHz steps.
6) Boot into windows and run SuperPi for 2M digits. This will take around 2 minutes or so to run

If it passes, bump up the FSB a bit higher
If it fails you have two options either:
Loosen the RAM timings a bit and try again
or
Go back down to where you were last stable and run Prime95 Torture Test on blend test for several hours (at LEAST 8, I run 24+)

If Prime95 fails, you should back down again.

This is why you want to be 100% certain you are at a low enough multiplier that your CPU is NOT an issue. You don't want Prime95 erroring with a false-negative, where your processor caused the failure instead of your RAM/FSB

At some point your motherboard will not be stable, generally on the nForce 2 this is somewhere in the 210 - 230 FSB speed range.

Now you know the highest FSB where your RAM is stable, you can push the FSB higher, and OC in smaller increments than 100 MHz. Also, use Prime95 on the max heat test for verifying processor stability. Again 8-24 hours minimum.

 

[TheStu]

Ok so...

I'm using a ThermalRight SLK-947U heatsink so temps are not that big of an issue, im at around 39 C at Idle, I haven't pushed it to extremes yet but I know that the Mobile Barton can take temps up to and past 100 C. I don't intend to let it get that high!

I'm DLing 3dMark right now, and will start Prime95 and SuperPi when that is done.

The board allows for up to 2.9 V on the DDR I believe...

I will try what you suggested. 8 Hours is about the max time I can allow for Benchmarking at lest for the next few days... I have class work to do on my puter during the day...

 

[TheStu]

BUMP

 

[The_Lurker]

Well with such a high voltage, it's not just the issue of heat, it's also electromigration. The higher the voltage, the faster the electromigration, the quicker your CPU will die. 1.9 is running a little high, and although the temps are fine, ur cpu's going to die quite a lot sooner than if you backed the voltage down a bit.

 

[TheStu]

I am hapy to report that I am dropping hte volts while remaining stable all teh same. I believe I am at 1.8 V or so, and I am trying to run stably at around 1.7... not sure how feasible that is but hey.... here's hopin...

 

[Blain]

1.9v is high, but not extreme for OCing an XP-M CPU.
I'd try and bump the FSB up and back off on the multiplier. You are in a tight spot with your DDR being only 3200. You may also bump the core voltage up to 1.95v or even 2v.

Check here at the OCs database to see what kind of voltages people are running for your CPUs FPO/Batch #. That, along with their cooling should give you some idea of how high yours might go.