Overclocking X2 4400+

Hey all,

Am running the Athlon X2 4400+, on an MSI K8N Neo4 Plat motherboard.

Now that I have this sytem stable, thought I would start to overclock this
puppy.

I currently, have the Corsair LL ram, set to run at 1T, locked at 200 mhz.
I reduced the HT to 4, and have slowly been upping the cpu bus , have it now
at 237, for a final speed of 2.6 ghz.
Each time I up the bus a little, I run Prime 95 for about a half hour at
least, so far, so good. CPU temp, under Prime95 torture test, gets to about
54C, highest I have seen it so far. I have my vcore at 1.55

I am thinking I am getting about as high an overclock as I could hope for,
so I am wondering, should I now start to up say the memory speed a little at
a time, say to 205, then 210, or so, to get my final overclock tweak? Or is
it better to leave it set at 200? Or should I continue to up the cpu bus
even higher, until I start to get unstable, or errors in Prime95?

One final question. I have two WD 250 gb Sata hard drives, running on
channels3 and 4.
Are these at a locked speed, or is my overclocking done so far, actually
overclocking those as well? Probably dumb question, I am pretty sure I read
where they are locked?


Thanks for any tips,



--
Don

"Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
news:NMCdnUWBibWFTRjYnZ2dnUVZ_t-
> Hey all,
>
> Am running the Athlon X2 4400+, on an MSI K8N Neo4 Plat motherboard.
>
> Now that I have this sytem stable, thought I would start to overclock
> this puppy.
>
> I currently, have the Corsair LL ram, set to run at 1T, locked at 200
> mhz. I reduced the HT to 4, and have slowly been upping the cpu bus ,
> have it now at 237, for a final speed of 2.6 ghz.
> Each time I up the bus a little, I run Prime 95 for about a half hour
> at least, so far, so good. CPU temp, under Prime95 torture test, gets
> to about 54C, highest I have seen it so far. I have my vcore at 1.55

I've had my 4200 Manchester (very similar to your Toledo) running at 2.7Ghz
with some headroom left but I decided to pull back to 2.6Ghz because I
wasn't entirely comfortable with having the CPU voltage above the
recommended maximum of 1.4v. Your voltage seems a bit high to me.

Also, running Prime95 for only half an hour won't cut it. Try 8 hours or
more, 24 hours if you can. I started getting instability problems with
games like Civ IV that use lots of memory (something like Civ IV on a Huge
map in the late game gives my 2GB a work over). Upping the CPU voltage
another 0.125v notch fixed that but I'm still just under 1.4v.

> I am thinking I am getting about as high an overclock as I could hope
> for, so I am wondering, should I now start to up say the memory speed
> a little at a time, say to 205, then 210, or so, to get my final
> overclock tweak? Or is it better to leave it set at 200? Or should I
> continue to up the cpu bus even higher, until I start to get
> unstable, or errors in Prime95?

You RAM is already overclocked. While the memory clock is set in the BIOS
(ie, DDR400 or DDR333), that is multiplied by the CPU frequency. DDR400
with a CPU frequency of 250Mhz is actually running at DDR500. I found my
Corsair TWINX didn't perform too well at DDR480 (CPU frequency 240Mhz; CPU
speed 2.5Ghz), so I dropped the memory clock to DDR333 and with the
multiplier I'm running DDR398, yet my access times according to PCMark05 are
actually faster and 3DMark results improved. Although my TWINX didn't crash
at DDR480 something obviously wasn't quite right. Your Corsair LL (from
memory; pardon the pun) is more overclockable than the TWINX so you may be
OK. However, check the Corsair web site for its recommended maximum voltage
(2.7v for my TWINX works better than the BIOS default 2.5v). Do not
over-voltage your RAM or you may fry it.

> One final question. I have two WD 250 gb Sata hard drives, running on
> channels3 and 4.
> Are these at a locked speed, or is my overclocking done so far,
> actually overclocking those as well? Probably dumb question, I am
> pretty sure I read where they are locked?

Non-issue. Leave them.

"DRS" <> wrote in message
news:4585d736$0$21889$...
> "Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
> news:NMCdnUWBibWFTRjYnZ2dnUVZ_t-
>> Hey all,
>>
>> Am running the Athlon X2 4400+, on an MSI K8N Neo4 Plat motherboard.
>>
>> Now that I have this sytem stable, thought I would start to overclock
>> this puppy.
>>
>> I currently, have the Corsair LL ram, set to run at 1T, locked at 200
>> mhz. I reduced the HT to 4, and have slowly been upping the cpu bus ,
>> have it now at 237, for a final speed of 2.6 ghz.
>> Each time I up the bus a little, I run Prime 95 for about a half hour
>> at least, so far, so good. CPU temp, under Prime95 torture test, gets
>> to about 54C, highest I have seen it so far. I have my vcore at 1.55
>
> I've had my 4200 Manchester (very similar to your Toledo) running at
> 2.7Ghz with some headroom left but I decided to pull back to 2.6Ghz
> because I wasn't entirely comfortable with having the CPU voltage above
> the recommended maximum of 1.4v. Your voltage seems a bit high to me.
>
> Also, running Prime95 for only half an hour won't cut it. Try 8 hours or
> more, 24 hours if you can. I started getting instability problems with
> games like Civ IV that use lots of memory (something like Civ IV on a Huge
> map in the late game gives my 2GB a work over). Upping the CPU voltage
> another 0.125v notch fixed that but I'm still just under 1.4v.
>
>> I am thinking I am getting about as high an overclock as I could hope
>> for, so I am wondering, should I now start to up say the memory speed
>> a little at a time, say to 205, then 210, or so, to get my final
>> overclock tweak? Or is it better to leave it set at 200? Or should I
>> continue to up the cpu bus even higher, until I start to get
>> unstable, or errors in Prime95?
>
> You RAM is already overclocked. While the memory clock is set in the BIOS
> (ie, DDR400 or DDR333), that is multiplied by the CPU frequency. DDR400
> with a CPU frequency of 250Mhz is actually running at DDR500. I found my
> Corsair TWINX didn't perform too well at DDR480 (CPU frequency 240Mhz; CPU
> speed 2.5Ghz), so I dropped the memory clock to DDR333 and with the
> multiplier I'm running DDR398, yet my access times according to PCMark05
> are actually faster and 3DMark results improved. Although my TWINX didn't
> crash at DDR480 something obviously wasn't quite right. Your Corsair LL
> (from memory; pardon the pun) is more overclockable than the TWINX so you
> may be OK. However, check the Corsair web site for its recommended
> maximum voltage (2.7v for my TWINX works better than the BIOS default
> 2.5v). Do not over-voltage your RAM or you may fry it.
>


Thanks for the info.
As far as the voltage, I had read, on one of the overclocking guides, that a
voltage of 1.5-1.55 was good, for the 90nm chips. But not to go higher.
I figured since I was not having a heat issue, it would be ok. I may back it
down a little and see if it is still stable.

I ran Prime95 longer, at 237 mhz cpu bus, I got an error after about an
hour. I backed it back down to 235 mhz, ran it overnight ( app 8 hours), and
no errors.

Thanks for the info on the ram. I thought that, having it set to 200 mhz for
the ram speed in the bios, that locked it at that, I did not realize it was
actually overclocked as well. My Corsair, is PC3500 ddr ram LL ram, 2x1gb
matched sticks. I have the voltage at 2.8, which is what is recommended.

I guess I am pretty happy, with a 2.585 ghz overclock( 235x11) on this stock
2.2 ghz chip...



--
Don

"Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
news: ...
>
>
>
>
>
> "DRS" <> wrote in message
> news:4585d736$0$21889$...
>> "Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
>> news:NMCdnUWBibWFTRjYnZ2dnUVZ_t-
>>> Hey all,
>>>
>>> Am running the Athlon X2 4400+, on an MSI K8N Neo4 Plat motherboard.
>>>
>>> Now that I have this sytem stable, thought I would start to overclock
>>> this puppy.
>>>
>>> I currently, have the Corsair LL ram, set to run at 1T, locked at 200
>>> mhz. I reduced the HT to 4, and have slowly been upping the cpu bus ,
>>> have it now at 237, for a final speed of 2.6 ghz.
>>> Each time I up the bus a little, I run Prime 95 for about a half hour
>>> at least, so far, so good. CPU temp, under Prime95 torture test, gets
>>> to about 54C, highest I have seen it so far. I have my vcore at 1.55
>>
>> I've had my 4200 Manchester (very similar to your Toledo) running at
>> 2.7Ghz with some headroom left but I decided to pull back to 2.6Ghz
>> because I wasn't entirely comfortable with having the CPU voltage above
>> the recommended maximum of 1.4v. Your voltage seems a bit high to me.
>>
>> Also, running Prime95 for only half an hour won't cut it. Try 8 hours or
>> more, 24 hours if you can. I started getting instability problems with
>> games like Civ IV that use lots of memory (something like Civ IV on a
>> Huge map in the late game gives my 2GB a work over). Upping the CPU
>> voltage another 0.125v notch fixed that but I'm still just under 1.4v.
>>
>>> I am thinking I am getting about as high an overclock as I could hope
>>> for, so I am wondering, should I now start to up say the memory speed
>>> a little at a time, say to 205, then 210, or so, to get my final
>>> overclock tweak? Or is it better to leave it set at 200? Or should I
>>> continue to up the cpu bus even higher, until I start to get
>>> unstable, or errors in Prime95?
>>
>> You RAM is already overclocked. While the memory clock is set in the
>> BIOS (ie, DDR400 or DDR333), that is multiplied by the CPU frequency.
>> DDR400 with a CPU frequency of 250Mhz is actually running at DDR500. I
>> found my Corsair TWINX didn't perform too well at DDR480 (CPU frequency
>> 240Mhz; CPU speed 2.5Ghz), so I dropped the memory clock to DDR333 and
>> with the multiplier I'm running DDR398, yet my access times according to
>> PCMark05 are actually faster and 3DMark results improved. Although my
>> TWINX didn't crash at DDR480 something obviously wasn't quite right.
>> Your Corsair LL (from memory; pardon the pun) is more overclockable than
>> the TWINX so you may be OK. However, check the Corsair web site for its
>> recommended maximum voltage (2.7v for my TWINX works better than the BIOS
>> default 2.5v). Do not over-voltage your RAM or you may fry it.
>>
>
>
> Thanks for the info.
> As far as the voltage, I had read, on one of the overclocking guides, that
> a voltage of 1.5-1.55 was good, for the 90nm chips. But not to go higher.
> I figured since I was not having a heat issue, it would be ok. I may back
> it down a little and see if it is still stable.
>
> I ran Prime95 longer, at 237 mhz cpu bus, I got an error after about an
> hour. I backed it back down to 235 mhz, ran it overnight ( app 8 hours),
> and no errors.
>
> Thanks for the info on the ram. I thought that, having it set to 200 mhz
> for the ram speed in the bios, that locked it at that, I did not realize
> it was actually overclocked as well. My Corsair, is PC3500 ddr ram LL
> ram, 2x1gb matched sticks. I have the voltage at 2.8, which is what is
> recommended.
>
> I guess I am pretty happy, with a 2.585 ghz overclock( 235x11) on this
> stock 2.2 ghz chip...
>
>
>
> --

Hmm, ok now let me ask this...

I have PC3500, LL, matched twin, Corsair ram. ( 2ea x 1gb).
My ram speed, is set it bios, at 200mhz.
Now, when I overclock my cpu bus, currently have it set at 235 mhz (
stable ), with ht of 4, how much am I actually overclocking the ram?
To 235 mhz as well?
Also, now I wonder, if it would make sense, to lower the ram speed, say to
175 or 180, to see if I can up the cpu bus even higher, to achieve a higher
overclock? Currently, my system is stable at 235, whereas, when I set it at
237, I start to get errors in Prime95.


Thanks for the help,



--
Don

"Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
news:

[...]

> I have PC3500, LL, matched twin, Corsair ram. ( 2ea x 1gb).
> My ram speed, is set it bios, at 200mhz.
> Now, when I overclock my cpu bus, currently have it set at 235 mhz (
> stable ), with ht of 4, how much am I actually overclocking the ram?
> To 235 mhz as well?

The default CPU frequency of 200Mhz with the memory clock at DDR400
obviously gives you DDR400 (PC3200). A CPU frequency of 235 gives you
DDR470 (2.35 x 200). The HT setting doesn't directly affect RAM speed and
at 940 (4 x 235) it's fine. Since PC3500 is DDR433 you're only marginally
overclocking your RAM.

> Also, now I wonder, if it would make sense, to lower the ram speed,
> say to 175 or 180, to see if I can up the cpu bus even higher, to
> achieve a higher overclock? Currently, my system is stable at 235,
> whereas, when I set it at 237, I start to get errors in Prime95.

It could be a CPU voltage issue (remember the memory controller is on the
CPU die with AMDs), so tweaking the CPU voltage up can help if the memory
controller is working hard. However, as I noted when I tried to run my
TWINX PC3200 at DDR480, although it seemed stable I found I actually got
better memory performance by dropping the memory clock back to DDR333 and
letting the CPU frequency drag it back up to DDR398. I used the memory
access benchmark in PCMark05 to test this.

I would have thought PC3500 (DDR433) would be able to go to DDR480 (CPU
frequency of 240Mhz), so my inclination would be to first try leaving the
memory clock at DDR400 and slowly increasing the CPU voltage, one step at a
time, until you get stability, as long as the CPU voltage doesn't exceed
whatever level you're comfortable with. Then again, you're running 1T,
which will stress the memory controller even more than usual so that will be
a factor. I'm running 2T because I've got 4 sticks. If increasing the CPU
voltage fails or if you can get better memory access times by dropping the
memory clock back to DDR333 as I did then I'd try that second. With any
decent third-party CPU cooler your 4400 should run happily at 2.6GHz (240 x
11) with headroom to spare. I've been running my 4200 at 2.6 for nearly a
year.

"DRS" <> wrote in message
news:45872a0f$0$21859$...
> "Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
> news:
>
> [...]
>
>> I have PC3500, LL, matched twin, Corsair ram. ( 2ea x 1gb).
>> My ram speed, is set it bios, at 200mhz.
>> Now, when I overclock my cpu bus, currently have it set at 235 mhz (
>> stable ), with ht of 4, how much am I actually overclocking the ram?
>> To 235 mhz as well?
>
> The default CPU frequency of 200Mhz with the memory clock at DDR400
> obviously gives you DDR400 (PC3200). A CPU frequency of 235 gives you
> DDR470 (2.35 x 200). The HT setting doesn't directly affect RAM speed and
> at 940 (4 x 235) it's fine. Since PC3500 is DDR433 you're only
> marginally overclocking your RAM.
>
>> Also, now I wonder, if it would make sense, to lower the ram speed,
>> say to 175 or 180, to see if I can up the cpu bus even higher, to
>> achieve a higher overclock? Currently, my system is stable at 235,
>> whereas, when I set it at 237, I start to get errors in Prime95.
>
> It could be a CPU voltage issue (remember the memory controller is on the
> CPU die with AMDs), so tweaking the CPU voltage up can help if the memory
> controller is working hard. However, as I noted when I tried to run my
> TWINX PC3200 at DDR480, although it seemed stable I found I actually got
> better memory performance by dropping the memory clock back to DDR333 and
> letting the CPU frequency drag it back up to DDR398. I used the memory
> access benchmark in PCMark05 to test this.
>
> I would have thought PC3500 (DDR433) would be able to go to DDR480 (CPU
> frequency of 240Mhz), so my inclination would be to first try leaving the
> memory clock at DDR400 and slowly increasing the CPU voltage, one step at
> a time, until you get stability, as long as the CPU voltage doesn't exceed
> whatever level you're comfortable with. Then again, you're running 1T,
> which will stress the memory controller even more than usual so that will
> be a factor. I'm running 2T because I've got 4 sticks. If increasing the
> CPU voltage fails or if you can get better memory access times by dropping
> the memory clock back to DDR333 as I did then I'd try that second. With
> any decent third-party CPU cooler your 4400 should run happily at 2.6GHz
> (240 x 11) with headroom to spare. I've been running my 4200 at 2.6 for
> nearly a year.


Thanks for the tips.
Since my vcore, is already running around 1.5-1.55, I would be wary of
upping it any more.
My system still booted fine, but it had started to give some errors in
Prime95 once I got the cpu frequency above 235 with the ram set at ddr400.

I may give lowering the ram a try, then upping the cpu frequency higher to
get it back up there.

Thanks again,

Don

"Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
news:

[...]

> Since my vcore, is already running around 1.5-1.55, I would be wary of
> upping it any more.

That seems high to me. My 939 X2 4200 is running around 1.39v-1.4v at 2640.
I'm still wondering how much extra stress running at 1T is putting on your
memory controller though.

"DRS" <> wrote in message
news:458777ff$0$21900$...
> "Don Burnette" <> wrote in message
> news:
>
> [...]
>
>> Since my vcore, is already running around 1.5-1.55, I would be wary of
>> upping it any more.
>
> That seems high to me. My 939 X2 4200 is running around 1.39v-1.4v at
> 2640. I'm still wondering how much extra stress running at 1T is putting
> on your memory controller though.

Well, I had downloaded an overclocking guide for amd X2's, and it
recommended a 1.5-1.55 setting for the 90 nm chips.
I will try backing it down to about 1.4-1.45 and see if still stable.

I also had read, that the X64's suffered in performance, when set at 2T
versus 1T. After changing mine to 1T, I must say it seem to be snappier in
some areas, like menu changes in FSX, or exiting the sim, etc.


--
Don