Overclocking CPU's (split from Pentium -vs- AMD Athlon)

[sagarverma]

Spasticteapot::

i have an old P4 1.7 ghz pc,how can i overclock it?do i need to fiddle with electronics(its xtal oscillator) or is it software based?how can i extract more pp outta it?

[Spasticteapot]

Originally posted by sagarverma
Spasticteapot::

i have an old P4 1.7 ghz pc,how can i overclock it?do i need to fiddle with electronics(its xtal oscillator) or is it software based?how can i extract more pp outta it?

Overclocking is done through the BIOS. Processors are (almost always) locked to a specific multiple of the FSB; by increasing the FSB, you can increase the speed of the processor. However, only some motherboards will allow you to do this.
To overclock, it's a simple matter of pressing the appropriate key on your keyboard during startup to get into the BIOS menu, and look through the options. If you have a good-quality motherboard, you will often be able to adjust the front side bus; however, many motherboards in commercially made computers won't let you do this.
Also, overclocking is tricky. A large heatsink, powerful fan, and good thermal paste are required. Overclocking should be done at about 25mhz at a time; the trick is to increase the speed until a "burn-in" program like SuperPI crashes, and then set it one step lower.
Oh, and one other note: The older P4's do not overclock well at all.

[davidsrsb]

Unless you really enjoy installing your OS from scratch regularly, keep well clear of overclocking. The Windows registry is a fragile stack of cards that can get fatally corrupted very easily. PCs are unstable enough anyway.

[Spasticteapot]

Originally posted by davidsrsb
Unless you really enjoy installing your OS from scratch regularly, keep well clear of overclocking. The Windows registry is a fragile stack of cards that can get fatally corrupted very easily. PCs are unstable enough anyway.

Although I've only dabbled in overclocking, registry problems are really, really rare, especially if you overclock properly. It's more likely that you'll just cook something.

[sagarverma]

Originally posted by Spasticteapot

Oh, and one other note: The older P4's do not overclock well at all.

thanks for the reply.

i read in a mag that said about altering something called as 'latency time' and some other parameters to increase the performance
of the pc.is it advisable?
overclocking,as u r saying requires more of the cooling arangements>>i cant take such a headache.
mine is an assembled unit whose BIOS is accessed by pressing DEL.i dont wanna take the processor to the edge,plz suggest a suitable and stable increase in clocking that requires minimalistic(or zero) coooling arrangement alterations?


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hey cop!u split my post as a new thread?i just asked a learned man,a small question, as a sidenote.

[Spasticteapot]

Originally posted by sagarverma


thanks for the reply.

i read in a mag that said about altering something called as 'latency time' and some other parameters to increase the performance
of the pc.is it advisable?
overclocking,as u r saying requires more of the cooling arangements>>i cant take such a headache.
mine is an assembled unit whose BIOS is accessed by pressing DEL.i dont wanna take the processor to the edge,plz suggest a suitable and stable increase in clocking that requires minimalistic(or zero) coooling arrangement alterations?

The "latency time" that the magazine refers to is likely RAM latency. As a rule of thumb, cheap motherboards won't even let you change this; also, it's usually easier (and more beneficial) to crank up the RAM speed anyway. Of course, with a commercially made system, you're not likely to be doing either.

Sorry to say this, but with overclocking, cooling is the name of the game. Strictly speaking, the only thing that's not letting you run your CPU faster is temperature; you could easily get a 1.7 ghz Pentium 4 up to 3.5 Ghz so long as you ran it at -20 degrees celcius. (It's called phase-change cooling, and is the next best thing to straight-up liquid nitrogen.)
If you are'nt willing to upgrade your cooling, the only option is to simply replace your processor.

A word of advice, though: A RAM upgrade can make a world of difference. Windows XP does not run well on less than 512mb of RAM; if you have less, UPGRADE! If you're using RDRAM, however, I'd reccomend just replacing the motherboard, CPU, and RAM at the same time; RDRAM's roughly triple the price of DDR-SDRAM, and performs far worse.

[bender460]

Do a Google search with the brand and model of your motherboard. Also there are MANY sites dedicated to just overclocking. It's all going to come down the the motherboard you have and the speed capability of your ram. I would also recommend that you NOT use your main computer, things can go down hill in a big hurry. I've broke cpu and motherboards when I first started overclocking.

[sangram]

Overclocking an old P4 is a bad idea. It's better to not try unless you're

1. prepared to read and research extensively

2. Prepared to replace your CPU and motherboard and the PSU in case things blow

Good forums to read up on are

http://www.ocforums.com/

www.hardocp.com/forums

First, you have to identify your motherboard model and make. If youve used an Intel Original motherboard, you have no way to overclock it except using a software called Clockgen, if it's available for your board (they have verions for each different board).

Your CPU speed is a function of the Front Side Bus speed and the multiplier. For all CPUs except some of the Athlons, the multiplier is locked and the only way to overclock is by raising the FSB speed. Normally the entire system is clocked from a single generator and raising the FSB also raises all other frequencies, leading to disk corruption.

The newer chipsets don't suffer from this problem, starting from the 865 and nForce2 chipset this has been addressed by something called a PCI-lock, which locks down the PCI bus to 33 MHz.

What you term as PCI latency timer is exactly that, it is the number of cycles for which any PCI device has exclusive access to the bus. It may improve performance, mostly it has no effect on systems which suffer the problem in the first place, because the add-in card manufacturers mostly design the devices to ignore external settings and use only their internal latency settings. Basically, it's useless advice.

I think 90% of systems require you to press DEL to access the BIOS. To overclock, the first thing is to find out the make and model of your motherboard. Otherwise you can be assured of a fruitless start.

Overclocking is going to make your system run hotter. By how much is anybody's guess, but you're going to have to be prepared to sacrifice your CPU and board if you're not willing to spend on cooling. There is really no such thing as a free lunch, sorry.

[sagarverma]

the mag told bout CAS latency time,and some other parameter.i did change them and my system,it started to behave as if it was haunted.
obviously i reverted back,Status-quo-ante.
that was 1yr ago.

motherboard is intel original.p4 1.7ghz.(pentium class).
it runs pretty fast bec of the reg maintainance operations that i carry on in it.
what i want is to get more power outta it.i planned to get a 256 mb ddr,to connect in parallel to the existing RAM(256 mb ddr)+a graphics card(most probably 256 mb).
NO HEADACHE was on my mind(as this overclocking stuff is turning out to be).i jus want to tweak up my system in the cheapest possible manner and not to do any experiments on it to test the endurance of the CPU and related peripherals.

[Nordic]

What gfx card do you have now?