How much?

[Synay]

How much can I overclock Pentium 4 630 3.0 GHz to be still on the safe side.

My cooler is: CoolerMaster but don't know which model because I can't find it on the producer site. All I can tell that it's very big with huge fan. It has big heat sink and fan that can spin til circa 4400 rpms.

 

[diduknowthat]

It's different for everyone. You'll just have to try for yourself. Just push it a little at a time and you'll eventually find your ceiling.

 

[Synay]

The program I got from Asus - AI Booster - lets me overclock my cpu. The lowest point is 5% up. Isn't it too much?

Maybe you know other programs that lets overclock the cpu but in more exact way.

 

[Geoff]

The best way to overclock is in the BIOS, where you have alot more control over the tweaks, and you can raise it up in lower incremements.

 

[Synay]

So how do you count you outcome. I mean - how do I know what multiplier x MHz gives me more than 3.0 GHz?

 

[Geoff]

On most motherboards, the multiplier is permenantly locked.

So when you overclock, your Bus will be at 200Mhz stock. Then when you raise it, you multiply it by 15x (15x is the multiplier at which your CPU runs), and that will give you your new clock speed.

 

[Synay]

I checked and my motherboard has CPU Lock Free function and lets me to adjust cpu multiplier to 14x. Is it good and what possibilities it brings to me?

 

[Geoff]

Your CPU doesn't allow you to raise the multiplier, so if you're trying to reach the max possible clock speed, you should leave the multiplier the highest it can go, and just raise the Bus. By lowering the multiplier, you will increase your FSB, which will increase performance, but wont allow you to reach as high of a clock speed.

Since you seem pretty new to overclocking, I would recommend just raising the Bus until your computer becomes unstable. Then you may want to start increasing your voltage or setting a memory divider.

 

[Synay]

Yes - I am pretty new to overclocking, so even more I appretiate your advices.

 

[Synay]

So I came to the point that I changed from 200 to 210 resulting in FSB 840 and cpu running at 3.16GHz. Asus Probe shows 40-42 degrees @ 1500 rpms, which is pretty the same that I had at original speed.

So when do I know this is stable speed so I can go a little further?
And of course what happens when I go too far?

 

[Synay]

when I run folding@home at ca. 45% CPU's temperature changes to a 49-50 degrees @ 2200 rpms, is that good or bad?

 

[Geoff]

when I run folding@home at ca. 45% CPU's temperature changes to a 49-50 degrees @ 2200 rpms, is that good or bad?

That sounds fine for a P4 Overclocked, when being heavily used.

 

[Synay]

and unfortunatelly I have to stay at 3.16GHz because with this cooler I can't go more. When I came to 3.2GHz and when I run 3DMark03 it stucked after some time. Also at folding@home it stucked. So guess I foud a point.

 

[Geoff]

and unfortunatelly I have to stay at 3.16GHz because with this cooler I can't go more. When I came to 3.2GHz and when I run 3DMark03 it stucked after some time. Also at folding@home it stucked. So guess I foud a point.

It's most likely caused because your memory is running too high, or you need to increase the voltage.

 

[Synay]

my cpu voltage is 1.35V. How much up would be safe?

 

[Shady]

i guess P4 runs at 1.4 safe.

 

[Synay]

Could you tell me what exact possibilities gives me droping multiplier from stock 15x to 14x?
What are pros and cons?

 

[Synay]

I've got strange problem. While puting FSB up I came now to stable 3.5GHz, but my memory speed (originaly 400MHz) came to 442 MHz and now droped to 348MHz. This is strange.

Do you know is there any solution to this?
(I have memory frequency and voltage set up to Auto in BIOS).

 

[Synay]

I already ound a solution - but another question raised.

When I set up my processor to 3.6GHz my pc boots, but when it starts Windows, pc restarts itself. Did I found the limit of something? My motherboard can take up to 3.8 with this cpu so what can be wrong?