overclocking newbie

[rave]

I have 2 questions.
ok...first i wanna say that im overclocking for experience.

lets get to it

1.my mobo(ECS mobo....i know its not the best brand..but it works) manual says i have a maximum FSB of 400mhz...but i dont think im getting that 400Mhz.Is there a way to change it in the BIOS?or do i have to do it manually on the mobo itself with one of the jumper settings?
and by the way, i have tried software like SoftFSB,but it doesnt support ECS so can't change anythin.

2. it comes to my knowledge that all P4 processors are locked so people like me dont fiddle around with it. is thre a way to override it manually or with software so i can play around with the multiplier?

i love this forum....u guys do a great job and ROCK!

[rave]

help me!pls

[mike breck]

Hi rave,

You have a P4 "A" Northwood that has a 100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped) fsb. So the fsb of the CPU is 400MHZ.

However, the bottleneck in the system is your SDRAM which will have a speed of 100MHz (PC100) or 133MHz (PC133).

To get the best performance out of your system, you should be using PC1600 or PC2100 DDR.

As you've said, the P4 multiplier is locked, so the way you overclock is by gradually increasing the CPU fsb from 100MHz.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42291

HTH

[rave]

thanks

[Spyda]

if his board has a 400Mhz limit, and his CPu is running FSB 400Mhz, wouldnt he want to be running PC3200 as it runs at 400Mhz?

SiSoft Sandra constantly tells me that as im running PC2100 my system bandwidth is half of my CPUs cos of my RAM

[glc]

The CPU may be running at 400 MHz but the system FSB is 100 MHz - and that equates to PC1600 if you run the ram synchronous. P4 CPU's are QDR, not DDR like AMD's and DDR ram.

[Spyda]

ah, i thought i was seen as 400Mhz, not 200Mhz x2

[rave]

so pretty much get a PC1600? thanks alot. didi i mention i love this forum?

[Q-Frost]

Wait, If The P4's Are Quad-Pumped 100MHz FSBs ...Then Technically Couldn't You Use PC-100 Ram??

[glc]

Sure - if the board will accept standard SDRAM and the chipset supports it specifically. The SDRAM boards I've used for P4's were designed to run PC133, and run it asynchronous.

rave: If you use PC1600, you will probably not be able to overclock at all. PC3200 is way overkill though.

[reboot]

PC2100 will do, PC2700 if you like.
I find that even most PC2100 will overclock with no trouble.