Please help a lowly beginner.

[knowley]

Hi people!
I have a Thunderbird 700 with ABIT KT7 motherboard and a FOP38 cooler (my god is it loud, my god did I almost chop my fingers off installing it!!!)

The temp now only goes up to 30 celuis (using the thermal pad, no need for artic silver yet) under heavy useage.

So my question is : Without doing any pencil tricks, whats the most I can overclock to using the Softmenu 3?
And what CPU settings should I try to achieve this?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[Gunnyman]

What have you got against pencils?

It's better than upping FSB speeds and running everything out of spec.

 

[knowley]

Well I don't really want to remove the heat sink and processor again! The FOP38 was a right pain in the arse to get on in the first place. Plus I don't like the idea of doing the pencil trick, when I am not a micro engineer.

I am not after the highest overclock. Just a slight increase to 750 800 mhz would be great, if I can get more then maybe I will have a go.

Thanks

 

[Gunnyman]

VIA based Athlon chipsets are notoriously bad FSB overclocks.

Suck it up and grab a pencil it's really simple.

Trust me on this one I can hardly draw a straight line on a piece of paper but the pencil job was a snap..

 

[knowley]

but I thought the idea of softmenu 3 is so you can overclock on the screen.

I am not after massive figures, I just think as the CPU is running quite cool that I can overclock it a little...not much, just a tweek here and there....any suggestions?

 

[paulip88]

You might get another 20MHz or something like that by pumping up the FSB to 102 or something like that. But that would throw the PCI and AGP slightly out of spec, which would cause issues if you are using finnicky hardware.

As for the pencil trick, its VERY simple to do. Anyone that connect two dots should be able to do it. Besides, if you do utterly fail, you can just erase it. No harm done.

Also, the SoftMenu feature would only allow you to adjust the multiplier if you have the L1 bridges connected (by doing the pencil trick). The only significance of it is that you don't need to fiddle with DIP switches.

 

[Dan]

knowley: I know what you mean about what a pain it is to attach the heatsink and fan to the cpu. (I have a Duron 600 and Cooler Master DP5-6H11 Heatsink/Fan on an Abit KT7 mobo.) Trust me, it gets easier each time you remove it and attach it. And, thanks to the pencil trick, my Duron is running at 900MHz.

 

[NMTinHK]

Hi Knowley

I got my supplier to join the bridges for me, as i wanted to be 100% sure it would overclock.
I sent him the page in good old Anandtech, he had already seen some other article and was only to happy to give it a go.

But ive since redone it myself just for the hell of it, and even my old eyes managed it

 

[knowley]

Can anyone give me some settings to use in the softmenu3 ? Or give me some pointers on how it works?

If not maybe I could look at doin the pencil trick, I really did not want to waste too much time doing this, maybe it was wishfull thinking...assuming I could overclock in about 5 secs flat!

Cheers

 

[Gunnyman]

as we are trying to tell you softmenu 3 will only be of any real use you you if you pencil in your duron. the only settings that will be available to you if you dont mod your chip will be fsb and voltage. altogether not a stable way to go. Go with a multiplier adjustment

 

[knowley]

Fair enough!

So I close the L1 Bridges and then that will allow me to adjust the Multiplier in Softmenu 3. I.e. change it to 8x100 for 800Mhz, 9 for 900 etc

What about the voltages? Is there a bible on what voltage for what processor at what multiplication?

And I suppose I should increase the multiplier one step at a time and then give Unreal Tournament a good hammering for 1/2 hour and monitor the temps/stability etc?

I feel like I am learning something now cheers guys!

 

[Gunnyman]

usually the higher you go the higher voltage you need but with my Duron 700 I can get 900 Mhz at default voltage.
to get 950 Mhz stable I had to go to 1.75 Volts
system is stable as all get out at 1.75 voltage. go to This groovy site for info on voltages etc

 

[paulip88]

There is no specific setting for each speed when you overclock.

Pretty much after you join the bridges, you up the multiplier.

When it stops running reliably, then up the voltage. You shouldn't have any real heat issues with 1.85v. These socket As are supposed to run pretty hot (though be reasonable).