I've been working on overclocking the NB because it seems to be effecting my 3dMark scores the most. I read a post the other day with a guy showing he's overclocked his NB to just over 3100mhz... thats a lot. He was doing this for the 3DMark05 low clock challenge.
So I ventured to see what I could do. I cannot get above 2800mhz. Its frustrating, because the bios will not post and now that I've changed my case around, I cannot easily reach the Reset CMOS button on my motherboard, lol. This board resets automatically after 3 failed attempts but since it doesn't even get past FF, it doesn't know that its failed. So I have to do the old fashioned, pop the battery out and back in trick. Thats annoying.
What happens is the computer won't even post. It stays at "FF" blinking motherboard message and never goes beyond. FF is the start of the CPU boot cycle. Obviously something going on there that it doesn't like.
So, my best setting so far (and I didn't tweak too much yet) is 2800mhz CPU-NB with CPU at 3400mhz. Difference is 600mhz. CPU-NB running at 1.3v.
I tried many different configurations within these ranges:
CPU between 3400-3900mhz
CPU-NB between 2900-3000mhz
HT Link from 2000-2500mhz
CPU-NB volts 1.3-1.42
Slower RAM timings
Slower RAM speed 1333-1700
Then I got tired of popping the CMOS battery out so I stopped and went to bed. It could be that 2800mhz is all that my chip will do at those temps. I'm assuming that scaling of the CPU-NB is much the same as the CPU, like perhaps the CPU-NB cannot get above 2800mhz similar to how the CPU will not break 4ghz without being in the 20C range. Tonight I can do more testing to see if this is the case, as its pretty cold outside. 2800mhz is a 28.5% overclock, which similarly would put my CPU at 4112...something that I haven't achieved yet.
Please share any tips you've got for overclocking the CPU-NB.
So I ventured to see what I could do. I cannot get above 2800mhz. Its frustrating, because the bios will not post and now that I've changed my case around, I cannot easily reach the Reset CMOS button on my motherboard, lol. This board resets automatically after 3 failed attempts but since it doesn't even get past FF, it doesn't know that its failed. So I have to do the old fashioned, pop the battery out and back in trick. Thats annoying.
What happens is the computer won't even post. It stays at "FF" blinking motherboard message and never goes beyond. FF is the start of the CPU boot cycle. Obviously something going on there that it doesn't like.
So, my best setting so far (and I didn't tweak too much yet) is 2800mhz CPU-NB with CPU at 3400mhz. Difference is 600mhz. CPU-NB running at 1.3v.
I tried many different configurations within these ranges:
CPU between 3400-3900mhz
CPU-NB between 2900-3000mhz
HT Link from 2000-2500mhz
CPU-NB volts 1.3-1.42
Slower RAM timings
Slower RAM speed 1333-1700
Then I got tired of popping the CMOS battery out so I stopped and went to bed. It could be that 2800mhz is all that my chip will do at those temps. I'm assuming that scaling of the CPU-NB is much the same as the CPU, like perhaps the CPU-NB cannot get above 2800mhz similar to how the CPU will not break 4ghz without being in the 20C range. Tonight I can do more testing to see if this is the case, as its pretty cold outside. 2800mhz is a 28.5% overclock, which similarly would put my CPU at 4112...something that I haven't achieved yet.
Please share any tips you've got for overclocking the CPU-NB.
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