Article: Overclocking and Tweaking Intel® Platforms
(N=Newbie, E=Hardware Enthusiast, O=Overclocker, B=Budget)
III. Pre-requisites
There is no better pre-requisites than the enthusiasm to learn about the hardware, how to tweak it, and how to go about changing the necessary settings. High moral, and some money to burn is also a must. For the bang-for-the-buck overclockers, you still need to be ready to spend a little more in case things went sour.
The next pre-requisite is to know the hardware and to be intimate with it. Know where the Northbridge is, what is a Southbridge, where the CMOS jumper is, understand what BIOS is and get to be very familiar with your motherboard's features. Read the manual, know the little details by heart, the support features, validated processor, matched memory pair, and recommended power supply. Understanding the system at its basic level is a must.
Once you have the above mentioned pre-requisites, it's time to check what are the needed components in overclocking your platform. Listed below are the necessary components:
- A known good stepping processor
- A decent DDR1-400 RAM for older DDR-based system, or a decent DDR2-533 for newer DDR2-based system
- A good overclockable motherboard
- A very good PSU, preferably branded ones, with dual 12v rail
- Temperature monitoring software
- Processor Frequency Identifier
- Stress Testing Software
- A clean, well lit, properly ventilated working area
IV. Tweaking it up....
Elementary Preparation -
If you are already itching to jump in and tweak your platform, just try to hold off a bit and check the
pre-requisites one more time and see if you have missed anything. If not, and you are ready, then try
to read each step carefully. There are numbered accordingly, so ensure that you follow each step before
going to the next. As soon as you understand the concept, then you can easily jumble the steps every each
way you like, but if not, then follow the steps accordingly.
- Boot your system on stock, run benchmarks preferably for one(1) hour continous loops, and record idle, average, and peak temperature.
- Set your heatsink fan controller to manual, and in full/maximum power.
- If your CPU's system bus is 133MHz (533MHz Quad Pump Bus), set your CPU to RAM ratio at 1:1 or set your RAM to run at 266MHz
- If your CPU's system bus is 200MHz (800MHz Quad Pump Bus), set your CPU to RAM ratio at 5:4 or set your RAM to run at 266MHz or 333MHz
- If your CPU's system bus is 266MHz (1066MHz Quad Pump Bus), set your CPU to RAM ratio at 5:4 or set your RAM to run at 333MHz or 400MHz
- Set your Memory Timing to SPD, or manually set it at loose timing (CL3 for DDR1, CL5 for DDR2)
- Set your vCore to Auto
- Set your vAGP/vNorthBridge one voltage notch higher
- Set your vDimm to one voltage notch higher
- Disable Spread Spectrum
- For chipsets i875 and earlier, lock your PCI and AGP (set PCI at 33Mhz and AGP at 66Mhz).
- For chipsets i915/i925/i945/i955/i975, lock your PCI (set PCI at 33Mhz), and set your PCI Express Frequency to Auto.
- Ensure you monitor the Northbridge heatsink temperature
- Ensure you monitor the CPU temperature
- Ensure you monitor the Heatsink temperature
- Ensure you monitor the Case temperature
- Optionally, monitor the Hard Disk temperature
- Bump your FSB to 210 (Northwood C, Prescott E, SmithField 820 above, Presler, CedarMill 600 series), 143 (Northwood B, Prescott A, SmithField 805), 110 (Any 400Mhz FSB CPU)
- Boot, run benchmarks preferably for 1hr continous loops, and record idle, average, and peak temperature.
- Compare the temperature with your stock settings. If temperature goes up 10c higher than stock, stop and get a better heatsink or review your case ventilation. Otherwise, go to next step.
- Bump the FSB 5 notches
- Boot, run benchmarks preferably for 15mins continous loops, and record idle, average, and peak temperature.
- Compare the temperature with your stock settings.
- Keep your CPU as cool as possible, near ambient temperature.
- For Idle, maintain half the allowed Thermal Specs of your CPU. So if you have a 69c rated CPU, maintain at least 34c idle.
- For Load, maintain 10c higher than idle without hitting the maximum rated Thermal Spec OR
- For Load, keep it around 85% less than your CPU's rated temperature. For example, a 69c rated CPU can hit as high as 59c.
- Keep your Case temperature to 38c as much as possible.
- Keep your Northbridge below 45c as much as possible.
- If your OC is stable, go back to steps 21-23. If not, proceed to the next step.
- You MAY have hit the wall. Which is it? It's up to you to find out and have fun.
What the above steps does is eliminate any (elementary) possible bottleneck. For example, you are not going to hit memory limitation until around 30% of the stock FSB. And at that memory speed, your vDimm will be more than enough to provide juice.
Setting vCore on stock ensure you don't kill your CPU drastically (but that doesn't mean you can't kill your CPU).
Setting vAGP to a decent voltage ensure you will not be hampered by motherboard, but it does puts your overall system in low to moderate risk.
Before continouing, review the above steps again and check that you have followed each step. After that, proceed with the steps below:
Intermediate Preparation- The temperatures must be recorded for any abnormal spikes. Abnormal spikes would be anything 5c above your recorded peak temperature (see step 1 under Elementary Preparation). If abnormal spikes happened, ensure you have adequate air flow, and if needed, get a better heatsink fan for those devices that hits certain spikes.
Final Preparation- The final step would be the actual modification of the Front Side Bus or FSB. This is done via the BIOS, or in some cases, via Microsoft* Windows*. Some motherboard are equipped with their own overclocking software, and it can also be done thru such utility.
Start up the conking- As soon as the initial stress test at an overclocked settings is completed, the next step would be to go slowly but surely. Focusing on changing the FSB, ensure that you keep your system at a stable settings at all times.
The general rule (not the absolute) is to:
- Maybe your CPU needs more voltage?
- Maybe your CPU needs to be cooler?
- Maybe it's the max your CPU can handle?
- Maybe your RAM hate lax timing or tight timings?
- Maybe your RAM needs more voltage?
- Maybe your RAM needs to be cooler?
- Maybe it's the max your RAM can handle?
- Maybe your Northbridge needs more voltage?
- Maybe your Northbridge needs to be cooler?
- Maybe it the max your Northbridge can handle?
- Maybe your PSU needs to replaced?
- Maybe you need to look into your SouthBridge?
- Maybe you need to tweak more and check the rest of this OC article?
