A7V133 + 1G Thunderbird = no go!

[Greebe]

OCing your cpu depends on many things, like...
the ambient temp (room), how well the case is cooled/ventilated, HS used and last but not least, the quality of your cpu.

If all these things are observed and addressed properly you should be able to (with a bit of luck) hit at least 1.2gHz.

[az]

Greebe, not quite

FSB266 is kind of a marketing term or an oversimplification, but it confuses people...

It is indeed a double-pumped FSB133, like DDR266 RAM runs at 133 MHz, but sends data on the rising and the falling edge of the clock signal, thus doubling bandwidth, but STILL at 133 million "clicks" per second.

So the CPU is a model "C" Athlon, which is good, since it is ready for FSB133 out of the box, without overclocking. Since your board seems to default at 133 MHz FSB, this may just be what destroyed your first processor. If it wasn't a "C" model, it would have run at 10x133 MHz, which is 30% over spec!

You have two options now to overclock your processor, but since you seem to be new to overclocking, or at least overclocking Athlons, you should read all the information you can get beforehand and/or ask on this board. There are a few passionate overclockers here (me not among them, I don't even have a processor faster than 166 MHz ), and you cannot be careful enough - you don't want to lose a lot of money just because you wanted your system to run 10% faster, do you?

OK, the methods:

a) Unlock your Athlon and play with the modifier.

b) Play with the FSB, thus overclocking your system bus, RAM, PCI, AGP, and IDE.

Of course, you can combine the two to get optimal results - you can also play with your RAMs timing settings, but bear in mind that an overclocked system bus puts more burden on the RAMs, which might force you to set your RAMs to even slower settings (RAM is in many cases the weak point in a system, especially if it's not brand stuff).

That having said, I don't recommend overclocking your system. It's fast enough, I think (of course you could do a lot of raytracing or 3D rendering, in which case your CPU cannot ever be fast enough), and you don't seem to know that much about overclocking Athlons yet. Become familiar with your machine, learn about Athlons, overclocking and the stuff, and when your rig reaches the end of its life span, overclock it to lengthen its life a little so that you are able to hold on just a few months more, to wait for the next Matrox card to be released .

Or you could do it just for the fun of it, but I think you should still become familiar with your system, how the bus speeds interact, what RAM settings can do, what dangers lie ahead, and so on

Whoa, this was long! *lol

AZ

[Pace]

az: If I send something on the falling and rising edge of a clock cycle, am I not sending twice per cycle?

And there is another little rule in electronics you might not have come across..."Greebe, not quite" does not exist in electronics!

Oh, the Athlon is already running on the EV6 bus...so I think that the processor now also runs at 266, with DDR RAM now matching it.

So, az, not quite

P.

[az]

Pace, not quite

I didn't say greebe was wrong, it's just that FSB266 is an oversimplification and might cause irritation, as monocrom nicely demonstrated here (no offense monocrom!).

FSB266 simply IS a 133 MHz clock, it's just that data is sent twice per clockcycle, which is NOT the same as sending it once per cycle and double the clockspeed (almost, but not quite ). And there IS a difference, otherwise a G450's 64bit DDR RAM would perform the same as a G400's 128bit SDR (I hope I'm not mistaken on the cards' specs here )

I do not know THAT much about electronics myself, but I do know that many people are confused with FSB266 being 133 MHz, and I simply wanted to clarify it for monocrom, since he was apparently having trouble with it

But I'll try and remember Greebe's law in the future

AZ

[Greebe]

AZ, I was over simplifing the FSB, because monocrom doesn't understand the basics (again sorry monocrom) and felt that this would be the best way to explain it.

My Bad.

But your posts are nothing short of being an anal retentive arse by critizing those whom do know WTF they are talking about.

Your bad.

Now stop it, you're only confusing mono.

(notice the well placed smiley)

[az]

Sorry Greebe and monocrom, I didn't want to be an ass, I just wanted to help - and since monocrom seemed to think that his board ran at "only" 133 MHz, and he had to get it to 266 MHz, I thought I'd clarify it... but, given my not-so-good english and electronics knowledge, I seem to have made it even more confusing, and for that I apologise.

I do accept that others know WAY more than I about electronics (in fact, I do not know that much, only what I read on the net), and I'll never claim to be an expert in either computers or electronics. You, Greebe, seem to be one, and I never doubted that nor was my post meant as an attack, merely as a clarification because it seemed that monocrom thought that FSB133 and FSB266 were two different things.

OK, since that was basically all I wanted to say: If you're talking about an Athlon or Duron, FSB100 = FSB200 and FSB133 = FSB266. (And yeah, this is of course an oversimplification )

Again, sorry if I caused any confusion.

AZ

[Greebe]

AZ, I never took it as an attack, just an overly eager whipper snapper

(btw your engrish is fine

[az]

Err... whipper snagger? You WANT to make me look stupid, eh? *lol

WTF is a "whipper snagger"?

Hey, look at my eyes (I'm half Korean) - my engrish MUST be good (My english is OK, the problem is - sometimes I don't notice my harsh tone or simply don't know how to express my thoughts in a more polite way, but let's leave that out of this thread now - someone needs help )

OK, now that that's out of the way and if monocrom STILL reads this thread.. shouldnt someone explain the basics to him eventually?

I mean, your post about FSB and 3.75 factor confused me, and my posts would probably confuse me too if I hadn't written them myself

AZ

[Pace]

Whipper snapper: Just a term given to a possibly over zealous/eager young person. Usually kids...so I'd take that as an insult

And...more apologies to monocrom, for turning this thread into an electronic nitpicking exercise...az, you're comparison of double clockspeed vs double data rate is missed, when you compare ddr with double bandwidth

By your comparison, it should be 266MHz SDR = 133MHz DDR, which is effectively the same.

So, anyone have a good Athlon overclocking page?

P.

[Greebe]

Yes, but it's all in me brain.

[Shandra]

Hi Folks,

My new System is also an A7V133 with a 1GHz
T-Bird ;-)

The C Athlon will only be reccognized as 7.5x
100Hz (100Hz FSB is Default)... to let it run
at 1GHz, you should configure it by Jumper:
Set FSB to 133 (DSW), Multiplier to 7.5x (DSFID) and (THIS IS IMPORTANT, OR ELSE YOU WILL OVERCLOCK THE PCI BUS) set Jumper JEN
to Jumper Mode... If all is correct, you should no longer be able to configure this settings in the BIOS (The Options should be disabled and it must state SET BY JUMPER)...
If you modify the FSB through the BIOS, you
overclock the PCI/AGP Bus, 'cause you still
have a fixed divider setting for 100HzFSB

Also make sure to use the latest Asus Bios
(1005, or 1005a Beta), inform yourself about the VIA SB686 Bug.... The Bios is on the
German Asus Side, the worldwide Side is still
with 1004...
Be cautious with the Fan Settings in Hardware
Monitoring by BIOS (I had it set to shutdown if Fan is abnormal - And BINGO, the system
was shutting down everytime I started it, had
to mount another Fan, disable it and mounting back the old one (because it is functioning - not sure how ASUS define abnormal...)....

A good link to information about the A7V(133)
Series go to (if you can understand german)
http://kickme.to/a7v
( A very good side IMHO )

Try to get a stable system before you overclock (still using jumper mode then)... and keep an eye on the temperature of your CPU ;^)

Hope This was of any help to you,
SHAnDRA


[This message has been edited by Shandra (edited 14 June 2001).]

[DentyCracker]

www.overclockers.com is always good.

[monocrom]

Again... Thank you for all the replies.

Currently, I haven't overclocked my CPU yet, but I am getting some difficulties installing Windows XP... Once it installed fine, now everytime I try to install, error comes up saying "there was problem with your disks, so in order to prevent damages setup is cancelled"

Sometimes it says to try chkdsk /f, sometimes it says my system doesn't support ACPI fully...

To diagnose the problem correctly, I tried to install under normal IDE, disabled Promise Ultra100... Still no go... Does this mean that there is something wrong with my hard drive?

Any help will be appreciated...

P.S. Sorry... I just want to find a correct and safe way to overclock Thunderbird. CPU is autodetected as 1 Gig. (7.5X133). If I change the FSB to 100, it boots as 750 MHz. In terms of bus speed, if my motherboard supports 200/266 MHz, that means basically the same as Intel. Either 100 or 133 MHz. Am I getting this correctly? I am so sorry... This 266 thing is still confusing...

Anyways, I am so glad to have all this replies... Enlighten me as much as possible! I am willing to learn...

[az]

When we're talking about an Athlon or Duron processor (which we do here), you can take FSB266 as FSB133 and FSB200 is essentially FSB100. WHY this is so you'd better ask Greebe, it's a bit technical though

And your Athlon runs at optimal speed while still being within spec, since FSB133/266 (the SAME, remind you ) is the highest FSB speed allowed for Athlons. As long as you're satisfied with the performance of your system, I would not take the risk of frying your CPU and/or motherboard for a little more performance which you probably won't notice anyway, but this is just my personal view of things. Even if you think you MUST overclock, you should REALLY be informed and careful. Understanding the basics is never a good thing, especially when you're tuning

AZ

P.S.: I won't take "whipper snapper" as an insult because Greebe's right - I talk way too much sometimes, but it's really not to make me look like the god of electronics or something, but because I want to help and share my knowledge - IMHO, knowledge isn't worth much if it isn't shared. Of course, I could wait till somebody ASKS me to share it

[SCompRacer]

Try this way since you have the 100/133 concept down.

The Thunderbird "B" CPU's are spec'd to run on a 100MHz FSB motherboard, and "C" CPU's run on a 133MHz FSB MB.

You have a "C" CPU, correct? It sounds like it by what you described. Go here to see how to identify. If you have a "C" CPU, and your multiplier is 7.5 X 100MHz FSB = 750MHz, your CPU is underclocked. The same "C" CPU, 7.5 X 133MHz FSB = 998MHz, (though your BIOS will say 1000MHz).

To get your CPU up to 1000MHz with a 100MHz FSB, you would need a multiplier of 10, 10 X 100 = 1000MHz. That is where the L1 bridges come in. You would not be able to change the default multiplier of 7.5 with them "open" (laser cuts across the bridges).

To overclock your "C" CPU with a 133MHz FSB, you would go to a 8.0 multiplier X 133 = 1064MHz. 9.0 X 133 = 1197MHz. Again, the L1 bridges would have to be closed (no laser cuts across the bridges) to change the default multiplier.

The probability is high you will have to increase the voltage to the CPU so it will run overclocked. When the CPU gets unstable, it can crash in Windows or may not even boot into Windows at all. If you go way too far, you may have to power down and clear the CMOS and start over as your PC won't even post the BIOS.

Just start slowly and keep a log of everything you do regarding multiplier, FSB and voltage (if you can get it going again. ) That way you will be able to identify where the warning signs of instability are. You will be able to give better details if you ask for help, and get specific solutions to your questions.

Edit: Did you run scandisk to check your hard drive?




[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 15 June 2001).]