OVERCLOCKING

Updated 05/11/02 by Tim B @ OCWorkbench.com

How do I overclock my Athlon/Duron processor?
How do I modify my motherboard for overclocking?
How do I increase the RAM voltage?
How do I change the FSB frequency?
How do I overclock my video card?
How do I enable Fast Writes and Sideband Addressing?
What testing utilities should I use?
What benchmarking programs should I use?
What temperature/voltage measuring programs should I use?
What are the settings for Motherboard Monitor 5?

1. How do I overclock my Athlon/Duron processor?

You can modify the voltage, frequency, and multiplier of your processor by connecting/disconnecting the small bridges on the processor. To learn how to do it, read this Tom's Hardware Article. If you decide to go ahead, use this Interactive Table at OCinside.de Interactive Table at OCinside.de for TBirds/Durons or this interactive guide for XP's/Duron Morgans to make your life easier. This is a proven method to overclock your processor, and the procedure is simple enough to understand, but it requires very delicate work. You may also want to check out the cpu modding guide.

For a guide to unlocking the Thoroughbred xp2400+ chips, see this guide at OCWorkbench.com or here for the Thoroughbred painting guide at www.ocinside.de

2. How do I modify my motherboard for overclocking?

If you don't want to mess with your processor's bridges, you can also get control over the voltage, frequency, and multiplier of your processor by modifying your motherboard. Check out the K7S5A Mod Guides. This guide shows you how to wire up your board, to allow for manual settings. You'll need soldering skills, and a bit of patience, but not for the inexperienced.

3. How do I increase the RAM voltage?

If you want to overclock your RAM you'll need to increase the RAM voltage to allow it to work at higher frequencies. Read this OCworkbench thread or check out the K7S5A Mod Guide to learn how to do it.

4. How do I change the FSB frequency?

There's two ways you can go about this, you can select the FSB in the BIOS, or you can use a utility to change it after the system has booted.

To be able to select the FSB in the BIOS, you need to use one of "unofficial" versions of the BIOS. Download the latest at Latest Overclockable BIOS. I suggest you use the latest as they are based on the latest BIOS code. The other way you can go about it is use CPUFSB written by Podien or Speedfan. This utility allows you to change the FSB, and the resulting processor speed from inside Windows. It does so by directly accessing the chip (PLL) that manages the clock signals.

5. How do I overclock my video card?

PowerStrip by EnTech, is a utility that will let you overclock the processor and memory of your video card, among other settings. It works with most video cards and chipsets.

GeForce Tweak Utility and RivaTuner at Guru3D.com are utilities designed specifically for NVIDIA GeForce cards. It let's you modify the memory and processor frequencies of the video card, among hundreds of other settings.

NVMax is a another utility designed to tweak and overclock NVIDIA GeForce video cards. It also lets you overclock the card and control settings.

6. How do I enable Fast Writes and Sideband Addressing?

Both of these features need to be supported by the chipset, the BIOS, the video card BIOS and the drivers. If any of these requirements is not fulfilled, the features cannot be enabled. The SiS 735 Chipset supports both of this features. Sideband Addressing is supported by all bios releases, while Fast Writes are supported only by BIOS Version 010806.

Here's the problem, all the latest NVIDIA reference drivers turn off Sidebanding and Fast Writes by default. On top of that most video card manufacturers are disabling the features in the video card BIOS. So you may ask, why? Because the potential gain in performance of using them pales in comparison to the problems and instability they can cause. Furthermore, because the demanding timings, these two features can prevent the overclocking of the video card. My advice is forget about fast writes and sideband addressing, and concentrate on overclocking your card's memory and processor.

To check whether Fast Writes and Sideband Addressing are supported and/or enabled, use WCPUID by H.Oda!. Enter the program and select View -> Chipset Info. Download WCPUID

To learn more about Fast Writes and Sideband Addressing, read AGP Overclocking Guide by Adrian Wong at Rojakpot.

If you decide you still want to experiment with these features, there's a couple of things you need to do. First you need to select a BIOS, as I said before all versions support Sideband Addressing and only cheepobios’s denoted with an ‘f’ (i.e chb1001f.rom). Second you need to enable the feature in the drivers, which you can do with the utilities in the previous question. Then you should check if the feature is enabled, if it's not, that means the video card BIOS doesn't support it. You can also fix that, by flashing a new video BIOS but I don't recommend it. Before you do please this excellent General guide by Robert Richmond. After, you must read the Video Flashing Section of the GeForce FAQ.

I cannot recommend enough the excellent GeForce FAQ written Christopher Hill. For ANY question you may have regarding GeForce cards, this is the ultimate source of info.

7. What testing utilities should I use?

Memory Testing:

Sisoft Sandra 2002 provides a good memory benchmark and can be used to burn in your components.

CPU Load Testing:
Prime95 at Mersenne.org is a program that tests suspected primes numbers. Needless to say, it can consume 100% of your cpu cycles, enabling you to test your processor under load. You can also use it to place your cpu under load and measure it's temperature under load.

You also may like to join the OCWorkbench folding team which stresses the cpu and memory as it runs the folding protein client for scientific purposes. See this thread for details – Offical OCWorkbench Distributed Folding Thread

8. What benchmarking programs should I use?

CPU, Memory, and Hard Drive Benchmarks:
Sandra 2002 by Sisoft is the accepted standard for benchmarking and system information.

3D Graphics Benchmark:
3DMark 2001SE by MadOnion.com is another accepted standard for measuring 3D gaming performance.

CD-Rom Benchmark:
Nero CDSpeed at CDSpeed 2000.com is the best program for measuring the performance of your cdrom drive. CDSpeed is small fast and accurate. The best part is the database of CD drives and how they perform on each test, giving you an baseline by which to measure your drive. Look at the databases for Data (255), DAE (209), and DVD (63). You can also search for your drive. Download CDSpeed (Win) or CDSpeed (DOS)

9. What temperature/voltage measuring programs should I use?

These utilities can measure temperatures, voltages and fan speeds. You can set alarms to go off if the processor gets too hot.

CPUCool written by Podien. Download CPUCool 6.2.3

Motherboard Monitor written by Alex.

Speedfan

MBprobe

10. What are the settings for Motherboard Monitor 5?

Sensor 1 = Sis950/ITE8705-2 = Case Temp
Sensor 2 = Sis950/ITE8705-3 = CPU Temp
Sensor 3 = Sis950/ITE8705-1 = Nothing > this temp sensor is not connected to anything on the board.

Voltages Sensor = Sis950/ITE8705-4