I've been contently running my 1.2 T-Bird at 1.45 (12.5x116, Soltek SL-75KAV board), but with temperatures running to 55ºC I decided that replacing my cheap cooler was in order. This was done using a Taisol CGK760092, which has received favorable reviews and comments in several places.

In the process of removing the old cooler, my screwdriver slipped and hit the board. No visible damage, but who knows?

Now I am running with the new cooler (installed by a technician) and Arctic Silver (prepared by me), but for some strange reason there is no improvement in temperature. I may even say that it is running one or two degrees hotter than before. That is not the main problem, however.

On the first day, whereas everything looked OK at 1.2GHz, and I could overclock some, if I exceeded about 1.35GHz I got the message ROM CHECKSUM ERROR. Now, I can understand that perhaps I broke something with my slip of the screwdriver, but then why would it work at 1.2 - 1.35?

After another day of playing I managed to increase my overclocking a bit, but still not to the levels I was consistently able to achieve previously.

Given the fact that everything is running fine when I am not overclocking (and, to a degree, even when I am), I must assume that the board, CMOS, BIOS, and whatever else are all OK, and that the BIOS ROM CHECKSUM ERROR message is misleading. It could very well be a manifestation of whatever problem is caused by the excessive speed.

I can think of one other possibility, and that is that I have made a bit of a mess when applying the AS2 on the CPU (good thing I'm not a brain surgeon), and perhaps shorted something in spite of an attempted cleanup. I suppose I will have to try cleaning up the surface a bit better and see if that helps.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Bill

The screwdriver incident could be causing trouble...also check mjc's topic Extra Crispy Athlons (http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000386.html). AMD recommends thermal phase change tape, rather than regular thermal tape or thermal paste. The paste types have caused problems with other machines we've seen recently, it gets squeezed out of it's original location and into the components, apparently shorting them out.

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Good link, thanks.

For what it's worth, I have made some progress, and actually managed to reach my previous overclocking level. Again, to me this implies that there is nothing broken.

I am beginning to think that probably due to poor preparation (e.g. failure to remove all the guck left on the CPU from the old cooler's thermal paste), the cooler is not doing its job adequately, which results in an excessive temperature buildup during the boot process. I have been using VCOOL to control temperatures, but this only kicks in, of course, once Windows is up and running, so that if I don't boot (Win2K) fast enough (e.g. when playing in the BIOS), it is too hot for Windows by the time I get there.

Sandra memory benchmark is running a bit slower than before, though, even though multiplier and FSB are the same. Strange.

Thanks again.


[This message has been edited by bxf999 (edited 09-28-2001).]

I have 2 comments.
The first is in regard to the cpu fans.
It should be installed to start the second the power button is pressed.
I’d also double check the air flow over the CPU.


2nd That Little tap with the screw driver may have broken the surface skin (Insulation ) of the PSB causing a signal leak

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To ERR is HUMAN
To REALLY screw things UP, YOU NEED a COMPUTER !

You got lucky in the fact of the screwdriver. It seems all is okay. The thermal tape option is the best route to go. I have clocked a 1.4 athy up to 1.65 ghz. That system is a test bed not my regular system. If your system runs hotter with a proposed new cooling solution, you can touch the heat sink with your fingers. If it isn't hot then you need better thermal connections between your heatsink and cpu. Another recommended solution is about a week after you install your heatsink remove it and then reapply your thermal grease. The grease sometimes gets air pockets in it after the initial install.

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Tim Jones MCSE

Yes, I believe you are absolutely correct. I have made some more progress and actually managed to reach 1.45GHz, as before. However, with somewhat less stability, which I believe is due entirely to inadequate cooling.

The heatsink is in fact a bit too cool to my liking, confirming your statement about improper thermal connections. I will follow your suggestion and give it a work-over.

Thanks,

Bill

Hi,

I will admit to not being adept or knowlegeable regarding OC of Athlon cpu('s).

However, I would like to know how whatever possible advantages of OC'ing an already very fast chip (upper end of the spectrum available today) 2 or 300 Mhz??

Please advise, as it has always seemed to me that any increase would have to be at least 1/3 more than the original speed to justify the OC process to begin with.

?

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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

A recent thread in one forum (can't recall which) conducted a survey as to people's reasons for overclocking. Certainly some, if not most, of the responses referred to the fun and challenge element, and this is in fact the case with me - I do it simply to see what I and my hardware can achieve. As you point out, it is difficult to justify the excercise in practical terms when your CPU is already darn fast. Having said that, it is worth noting that if you work with images of 40 Mb or more, some single operations can take a measurable amount of time to complete, and I can appreciate that for people who perform such operations frequently, a reduction of 20-30% in time is not insignificant. The same could be said for other CPU intensive work, such as that involving lengthy computations.

On the other hand, if, for economic reasons, one chooses say, a 1.2GHz instead of a 1.4, then it could be argued that overclocking the 1.2 to run at 1.4 represents a saving corresponding to the difference in price between the two.

This is just my two cents, and I'm sure there are several other possible answers to your question.

As a separate follow-up to my earlier comment about Sandra memory benchmark running slow: in the process of trying to solve the BIOS CHECKSUM ERROR, I had reloaded BIOS defaults, and then forgot to change DRAM CYCLE LENGTH from 3 back to 2. All is well now.


[This message has been edited by bxf999 (edited 10-01-2001).]

Thanks for your quick reply.


At the risk of sounding tedious, and with understanding your reply, it would seem to me that the chances of frying the CPU far outwieght the possible benefits of a minor increase, unless someone has unlimited money supply... in which event they should purchase a faster CPU (for a higher price) to begin with??

I would be interested in viewing your Sisandra results (for comparison) to see the difference between your OC'ed and my non Oc'ed Athlon.

(even though mine is not as fast to begin with, this is only for my own personal comparison) {{(if you find the time)}}


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[This message has been edited by sea69 (edited 10-01-2001).]

I don't really think that overclocking results in toast all that often unless something drastic happens. It is generally conceded that the life of components decreases with an increase in voltage and heat, but if this decrease is, for example, from a 10-year life to one of 4 years, well, after four years it is probably time for another upgrade, so it becomes a moot point.

I will see what I can do about the pre/post overclocking Sandra figures - will take me a day or two as I am not at home right now. Keep in mind, though, that the differences will reflect MY system, and cannot be directly compared to yours, as the performance is influenced by the various components, not just by the CPU. I suppose you should be able to examine the difference between my OC'ed and un-OC'ed figures and estimate how the difference would apply to your system.

understand that last part.. but the results will tell me the differences of the systems.....

additionally, an Athlon chip can be 'toast' in under 10 seconds, if not properly cooled.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif



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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

...regardless of whether or not you're overclocking!

Overclocking is fun but guess what , you end up paying the same amount of money that you would pay if you just bought a faster processer.More fans bigger heatsink fan, modification to your case, bigger power supply.Believe me its not worth the hassle.Listen to sea69, he is right.Also you have to get better ram, another cooler for your video card,and a cooler for your hard drives, so youll end up paying about 300 more dollars,just for the overclocking.And believe me after all that it will not be stable and your gonna really be mad after that.Yeah you might boot at1.6 but you ll never be stable.But like you said its fun and challenging so go on and try it, but i gurantee you , you will pay more.Then only true way to overclock is get a peltier watercooler and do a voltage mod on your board by soldering something to it, but then youll definately be paying 500 dollars just for that and youll need to get 2 power supplies.

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Sledgehammer will save the day!

I don't disagree with what you say, Diurnal, but you are targetting the wrong person. I am not that heavily committed to overclocking, and, as a matter of fact, I don't necessarily run all the time at the maximum speed that I manage to achieve. I'm just having a bit of fun, without any real practical purpose. My only extra expense to date was the better cooler, which set me back about $25, and yes, if I really NEEDED more speed then I would simply buy a faster processor, etc.

As for the Sandra numbers that SEA69 wanted to see, I have the following (note: these were obtained on Win98SE - some of the tests produce different results on Win2K):


- - - - - - - - - - - Normal (12x101)- - - - -Overclocked (12.5x116)

Memory speed- - - - - - - -134- - - - - - - - - - - - 155

CPU Benchmark- - - - - - 3379/1667- - - - - - - - - 4069/1984

Memory Benchmark- - - - - 485/578- - - - - - - - - - 546/641

Multi-Media Benchmark- - 6594/8203- - - - - - - - - 7946/9890

The above are an average of two tests.

So, is it worth the bother? That's for each individual to decide. As for me, it is just something to tinker with. I don't see any difference when I play FREECELL or HEARTS, and I haven't timed any of the things I do on PHOTOSHOP. Perhaps I save a couple of seconds here and there, but in the end, it doesn't really matter.

Enjoy!

Bill

[This message has been edited by bxf999 (edited 10-02-2001).]

bfx999-

allow me to re-elaborate. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

As I said in my initial reply to this thread, I would like to know more about the OC (benifits- pro's and cons) because my 800Mhz (supposedly) can be oc'd safely to 1.2ghz.

Wasn't really trying to be criticle of your efforts, was just pointing out the few things that I did know.. I have many times wondered/thought about 'playing' with mine as well.. it's just that this machine has been so totally trouble free that I really hesitate to mess with it.

The money is one thing, but for me, no amount of money can buy peace of mind... and so far I haven't felt the risk worth the possible gain.

As I said, my intention was to gather more data for my own evaluation.

At just a glance, I can see that your numbers are much higher than mine are!

Will post back later with mine and perhaps anyone interested can give a few tips on safely improving my performance.

Thank you for your reply to my question.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

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[This message has been edited by sea69 (edited 10-02-2001).]