Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: ryukis215 on October 11, 2011, 10:12:38 AM

Title: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 11, 2011, 10:12:38 AM
Hi, i'm new to overclocking so can someone help me overclock my system please, i just need to know what to change the units to or if someone can prepare a tutorial for me that would be great!
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Transfusion on October 11, 2011, 11:01:45 AM
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263753 (http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263753)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161.html (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161.html)
When you are done run IntelBurnTest to check for stability. Also be sure you understand that overclocking voids your warranty.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 11, 2011, 12:19:16 PM
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263753 (http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263753)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161.html (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161.html)
When you are done run IntelBurnTest to check for stability. Also be sure you understand that overclocking voids your warranty.
Thanks for the quick reply, can you also tell me what parts of the pc can be overclocked?
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Transfusion on October 11, 2011, 10:00:06 PM
The FSB(Front Side Bus) controls the CPU frequency, the PCI frequency, the RAM frequency, the HT Link frequency, the NB frequency. You can overclock the PCI-E frequency separately in most motherboards.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 12, 2011, 12:27:30 PM
The FSB(Front Side Bus) controls the CPU frequency, the PCI frequency, the RAM frequency, the HT Link frequency, the NB frequency. You can overclock the PCI-E frequency separately in most motherboards.
Thanks :)
Could you possibly tell me if if one of the settings on here are for overclocking and which ones do what and which one i should stay away from:
1) http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3651/img00022201110101732.jpg
2) http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/2549/img00024201110101733.jpg
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: patio on October 12, 2011, 12:29:49 PM
Overclocking::

                                      (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/patio/mymachine.jpg)
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 12, 2011, 02:32:59 PM
Overclocking::

                                      (http://img.photobucket.c)
Overclocking can be really useful at times, for my cpu i can raise it from 3.1 ghz to 3.7 and mabye more with a good cooling fan,  that's a BIG improvement but yeh you're right, it's very risky.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: patio on October 12, 2011, 02:35:51 PM
The best way to determine this is to weigh the performance gain vs. the cost of the components...
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Quantos on October 12, 2011, 02:36:17 PM
Unfortunately OC generates heat, and like Patio says, heat is your enemy.

If you want more power just pay for more power.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Transfusion on October 12, 2011, 09:28:18 PM
I run my Athlon II X2 240 ( which is OC'ed to 3.71 GHz stable from stock 2.81 GHz) and my Celeron E3200 (which is OC'ed to 3.30 GHz from stock 2.40 GHz) 24/7 Folding@Home (in addition to a GT 430 on the Athlon rig and a GeForce 210 on the Celeron rig.) Temps are perfectly fine, they max out at about 60C (both the CPU and the GPU temps.) The chipset temps are around 36 C, which is perfectly fine. My DRAM speed on the Athlon rig is 1771.6 MHz, on the older Celeron rig, which only supports DDR2, is 930 MHz.

I overclock because I simply cannot afford many of the higher-end CPUs/motherboards/graphics cards.

ryukis215, your motherboard doesn't have that many features, for example it doesn't allow you to change the NB frequency and DRAM frequencies, all of which have great bearing on your CPU overclock. It doesn't allow you to change the voltage, which may be a good and a bad thing...

I would leave the SB overclock and PCI-E alone for now-until the CPU is done then you can start upping those
Okay. To start off, change your HT Link width to 16↑16↓. Then change your link speed to the minimum possible. I would leave the ACC options alone for now till we test for stability and because I doubt AMD has started cripping Phenom II X6s into Athlon II X4s. ACC can be a useful tool in increasing the stability of individual cores, though.

Now for the fun part! Increase your CPU Reference clock(that's what it says on your motherboard) all the way up until you cannot POST. When you find the maximum value that will still allow you to POST, boot into Windows and run IntelBurnTest on Standard, 10 loops. Most likely it will pass. If it doesn't, back down by 5 MHz on the Reference Clock and try again. You can try with Orthos which will give you reports for indivual cores. If a single core fails, enable ACC and add 2% or so to the core that failed, and try again.

When you find an FSB value that is stable, begin upping the HT-Link Speed until you find the highest value that will still allow you to POST. Repeat IntelBurnTest, Standard, 5 loops this time.

I have noticed relatively minor FPS gains(like 5 FPS or so in Crysis 2, 1280x1024 No AA) when upping the PCI-E frequency-on my motherboard I can go up to 150 MHz, and have been running it like that ever since. I had a MSI 760G motherboard that allowed me to set the PCI-E freq. to 700 MHz :o , so I would rather go with a max of 200 MHz. I did set it to 700 MHz once, it posted, but I had a gut feeling if i booted into Windows 7 with its DirectX Aero effects, something would definitely go wrong. If you want to overclock your GPU, use EVGA Precision. I will leave that out for now. A good GPU stability test is FurMark.

A quick google search shows that people have had zero performance gains with overclocking the SB(I have never come across any motherboards which allow you to do that...), so I will leave that up to you.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: quaxo on October 13, 2011, 03:05:40 AM
All I want to say is make sure you fully understand what you're doing before you do it. Make sure you case is ready to vent the extra heat and that your CPU cooler is sufficient to handle the extra heat as well.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 14, 2011, 10:44:23 AM
Thanks transfusion, ill try your tutorial *censored* soon as i fully understand what i'm doing, i don't really wana fry my pc.
@quaxo My pc is made to let out heat, it nearly = to just  the hardware on its on no case + 2 fans on it ^^ i also have this little display screen on the tower that shows me all the deatils of the pc including the temprerature :)

EDIT: Transfusion, i can't seem to change the CPU Reference Clock, however under it theres an option to enable lots of different things like voltage etc,  i think i need to change them?
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Transfusion on October 14, 2011, 11:41:09 AM
You can't change the CPU Reference Clock? That's odd... Have you tried using the +/- buttons on your numeric keypad or the PageUp/PageDown buttons?
The Custom P-States option that allows you to tweak voltages? I would leave everything at default until you have found your max overclock at stock voltages. Do the additional settings also allow you to tweak RAM speed/dividers?
EDIT: What is your motherboard make and model?
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 14, 2011, 12:07:47 PM
You can't change the CPU Reference Clock? That's odd... Have you tried using the +/- buttons on your numeric keypad or the PageUp/PageDown buttons?
The Custom P-States option that allows you to tweak voltages? I would leave everything at default until you have found your max overclock at stock voltages. Do the additional settings also allow you to tweak RAM speed/dividers?
EDIT: What is your motherboard make and model?
I'v tried all the buttons
For the motherboard...
(http://screensnapr.com/e/EQNa3x.png)
also here are the settings that come up also the settings iv set to according to your tutorial:
(http://screensnapr.com/e/GDYBlN.png)

When i bought this computer it came with linux, so  i installed win7 on it, now there seems to be alot of drivers missing and the bios etc is old, my uniblue driverscanner cant pick up any un installed drivers etc :S

If you want more information on the pc you might want to visit this page:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/QUAD-CORE-3-1-AMD-TOWER-PC-COMPUTER-1TB-8GB-DDR3-/150666105455?_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D5%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D3475484326881149633

I really appreciate all the help you're giving me :)
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Transfusion on October 14, 2011, 11:45:43 PM
I went to the BIOSTAR website and downloaded the manuals from here:
http://206.108.48.60/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=495&tab=3 (http://206.108.48.60/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=495&tab=3)

Quote
CPU/HT Reference Clock (MHz)
This item allows BIOS to select CPU Over Clock.

Optio ns:  200 (Default) / 200~600
Custom P-States
This item allows you to select the P-States controlling.
Options:  Disabled (Default) / Enabled
Core FID
This item allows you to select the Ratio/Frequency of AM3 CPU.
Options:  x8.0 1600MHz ~ x31.5 6300MHz (Differed by CPU)
Core VID
This function allows you to adjust the voltage of CPU.
Core DID
This  is the  Core Div id er.
Options:  Divided by 1 (Default) / Divided by 2 / Divided by 4 / Divided by 8 /
Divided by 16
I see. Try setting your HT-Link speed back to default to see if you can modify the CPU/HT Reference Clock. Biostar's motherboards are really odd-they include rather pointless features like core dividers which literally slow down your core speed.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 15, 2011, 01:58:38 AM
It worked and i somehow put HT speed link to minimum and reference clock to max till i coulnd't go any higher, but when i started the pc it said
"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!warning!!!!!!!!!!!"
 "Too many cold reset due to BIOS POST, system might be incorrectely overclocked"
"press 'DEL' to resume"

i think the pc is in danger if i log into windows.
EDIT: i cant log into windows anyway, pressing DEL takes me back to the bios
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: immental1200 on October 15, 2011, 07:17:15 AM
It worked and i somehow put HT speed link to minimum and reference clock to max till i coulnd't go any higher, but when i started the pc it said
"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!warning!!!!!!!!!!!"
 "Too many cold reset due to BIOS POST, system might be incorrectely overclocked"
"press 'DEL' to resume"

i think the pc is in danger if i log into windows.
EDIT: i cant log into windows anyway, pressing DEL takes me back to the bios

Go into the BIOS, reset everything as it was - use the photos you took to remind you what the settings should be at.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Transfusion on October 15, 2011, 07:55:31 AM
Or you can just reset CMOS.
"I think the PC is in danger if I log into Windows."
It won't start smoking or anything; the worst that will happen is a couple of BSODs.
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: ryukis215 on October 16, 2011, 06:25:16 AM
I think i messed it up, i cant log into windows or even get into the bios settings, it just freezes on the screen wehre it tells you what buttons you can press to start up bios etc. :(
and the part where i change the reference clock and ht link+speed, is that part of overclocking and will that void my warranty?

EDIT: i FIXED it, jsut let it cool down and it was orite, what i did was change the reference clock to 280 MHZ, and when it was stuck in the bios i noticed it saying "4.10 GHZ" and now i changed the settings back and it says "3.09 GHZ", meaning i did it correctly but the units were too high?

EDIT #2: I'v sucesfully went from 3.1 to 3.63, although i know i can go upto 3.8 because i'v seen others do it with this cpu but i think ill stay here, big improvement imo :) Thanks transfusion for all the help :) and if there's more i need to do like change voltage or something please tell me :D
Title: Re: How to overclock AMD Athlon ii x4 645
Post by: Transfusion on October 16, 2011, 12:45:13 PM
Yes whenever you run your CPU above stock speeds, it is considered overclocking and voids your warranty.


If you are willing to, you could increase the CPU voltage by +0.1 and try again. I wouldn't go for anything above +0.5. A nasty effect of increasing voltage is the increased temperature.