Overclocking Dell 8400 P4 3.2Ghz???

A

andytk5

New Member
SO I was experimenting with CPUFSB increasing the Fand got to over 3.5Ghz~ and then the comp blacked out. Got to the boot screen and it said boot device unrecognized or something, insert boot disc.

Anyhow, used the jumpers to reset CMOS and went to setup and restored defaults. Up and running now.

Thing is my PLL is an ICS 954102AF and is not supported, and not avail for tuning. But when I use the CPUFSB the 954101 doesn't bring up and "fine tuning" or like it doesn't recognize it. But when I use the 954103 it brings up options for tuning the FSB like I did last time. Maybe I just won't push it to that limit. Just go to 3.4xxx Ghz???

Anybody had any luck or exp with this?
 
You're lucky to be able to do any overclocking on a Dell machine. OEM's specifically lock the BIOS to prevent you doing this because you're not allowed a free speed increase :rolleyes:

A Pentium 4 in this day an age doesn't cut it for new games... may i ask what exactly you do on this machine? If you're just doing office stuff like email and word you won't need to do any overclocking.
 
WEll I am just playing with it really before I sink any money into a mild build. I just finished an i7 930, EVGA x58 4way sli, 6gig 1600mhz 12800, 850w corsair, thermaltake armor+ VHS6000, 4 vid cards, 8 22" monitors, Win 7 build for trading and wanted to pump the Dell for my web/email/go to webinar daily stuff so the big machine is just trading. I was waling thru compusa and figured I could prob just snag a lower cpu, decent mobo and new case adn just build a mild rig for that stuff.

Just kinda having fun with it to see if I can do anything. I ran the passmark and it got an abismal 250-288 score, where other P4's were getting into the 600s..
Has 3gigs of ram, 32bit xp.

Maybe my ram timing is off or the memory settings in the performance area is not right?

Already backed up all my pics and stuff to ext drive.
 
Ok, so everytime I boost the FSB speed it goes black and gets stuck and a black screen wanting me to reboot, or setup.
No keys work, so I turn it off and it boots up with the old speeds set. Looks like that is over. So best bet is prob just clean this up and optimize it is best I can for a back up.

Any thoughts on what I should do to get this as good as new or wring out as much as I can?
 
if im recognizing what dell your playing with its a dimension 8400, and thats quite a nice dell imho, easy to open up and maintain, its mostly tooless, a business grade machine, but not set for ocing, i would not recommend clocking that thing at all, id just be satisfied with leaving it stock and avoid cooking it
 
Yeah that is what I need to use this for. I need to clean it up though. I have a second hard drive in it that is just set as another drive and I just drag stuff over to it to back things up so it is on 2 drives. The main drive is 160gig and only 20% free, computer is kinda glitchy and takes a while to boot up and get ready. May try a fresh install once I am sure overthing is backed up twice.

Can you guys give me some tips on what I should do to get this as good as I can? I built the other machine from case to O.S. but as you know assembling a computer is easy, maximizing it is were the talent lies.. So I have yet to really wring out my custom build, but flies!

Any help would be appreciated!

Can I use the second drive in the Dell (320) gig 90% free as my main drive to speed it up?
 
id say dismantle, dust it, clean it the best you can with a air compressor or something, and possibly add new thermal compound to the cpu heatsink, and put it back together, dell typically makes a nice quiet heatsink that will do the job of keeping the bugger as cool as possible with as little noise, so i think just leaving it in the standard configuration and tweaking small things should help it alot

the big drives density may help boot times, but honestly unless your experiencing alot of disk I/O all the time, i dont think it will affect it a whole lot.
 
Thanks for the advice! I have actually done excatly that, also added a small 80mm fan I had laying around to the front of the case to pull air in so the cpu fan can exhaust it out, has a rotary control on the back in a pci slot.

Right now I am just downloading and running, malwarebytes, super antispyware, ccleaner, combofix, amd going to give revo uninstaller a shot too for some sticky programs. Not sure what else I can change?
 
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