Overclockin AMD XP 2100 [Archive] - The PC Guide Discussion Forums

rahulkothari

09-07-2003, 02:39 AM

For overclockin you need to change multiplier settings in bios ... but wait for the experts to answer this one precisely.

Regarding page file settings...

How big should the page file be?

There is a great deal of myth surrounding this question. Two big fallacies are:

The file should be a fixed size so that it does not get fragmented, with minimum and maximum set the same
The file should be 2.5 times the size of RAM (or some other multiple)

Both are wrong in a modern, single-user system. A machine using Fast User switching is a special case, discussed below.)

Windows will expand a file that starts out too small and may shrink it again if it is larger than necessary, so it pays to set the initial size as large enough to handle the normal needs of your system to avoid constant changes of size. This will give all the benefits claimed for a ‘fixed’ page file. But no restriction should be placed on its further growth. As well as providing for contingencies, like unexpectedly opening a very large file, in XP this potential file space can be used as a place to assign those virtual memory pages that programs have asked for, but never brought into use. Until they get used — probably never — the file need not come into being. There is no downside in having potential space available.

For any given workload, the total need for virtual addresses will not depend on the size of RAM alone. It will be met by the sum of RAM and the page file. Therefore in a machine with small RAM, the extra amount represented by page file will need to be larger — not smaller — than that needed in a machine with big RAM. Unfortunately the default settings for system management of the file have not caught up with this: it will assign an initial amount that may be quite excessive for a large machine, while at the same leaving too little for contingencies on a small one.

How big a file will turn out to be needed depends very much on your work-load. Simple word processing and e-mail may need very little — large graphics and movie making may need a great deal. For a general workload, with only small dumps provided for (see note to ‘Should the file be left on Drive C:?’ below), it is suggested that a sensible start point for the initial size would be the greater of (a) 100 MB or (b) enough to bring RAM plus file to about 500 MB. EXAMPLE: Set the Initial page file size to 400 MB on a computer with 128 MB RAM; 250 on a 256 MB computer; or 100 MB for larger sizes.

But have a high Maximum size — 700 or 800 MB or even more if there is plenty of disk space. Having this high will do no harm. Then if you find the actual pagefile.sys gets larger (as seen in Explorer), adjust the initial size up accordingly. Such a need for more than a minimal initial page file is the best indicator of benefit from adding RAM: if an initial size set, for a trial, at 50MB never grows, then more RAM will do nothing for the machine's performance.

Bill James MS MVP has a convenient tool, ‘WinXP-2K_Pagefile’, for monitoring the actual usage of the Page file, which can be downloaded here (http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks). A compiled Visual Basic version is available from Doug Knox's site (http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm) which may be more convenient for some users. The value seen for ‘Peak Usage’ over several days makes a good guide for setting the Initial size economically.

Note that these aspects of Windows XP have changed significantly from earlier Windows NT versions, and practices that have been common there may no longer be appropriate. Also, the ‘PF Usage’ (Page File in Use) measurement in Task Manager | Performance for ‘Page File in Use’ include those potential uses by pages that have not been taken up. It makes a good indicator of the adequacy of the ‘Maximum’ size setting, but not for the ‘Initial’ one, let alone for any need for more RAM.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

What about Fast User Switching then?

If you use Fast User Switching, there are special considerations. When a user is not active, there will need to be space available in the page file to ‘roll out’ his or her work: therefore, the page file will need to be larger. Only experiment in a real situation will establish how big, but a start point might be an initial size equal to half the size of RAM for each user logged in.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Should the file be left on Drive C:?

The slowest aspect of getting at a file on a hard disk is in head movement (‘seeking’). If you have only one physical drive then the file is best left where the heads are most likely to be, so where most activity is going on — on drive C:. If you have a second physical drive, it is in principle better to put the file there, because it is then less likely that the heads will have moved away from it. If, though, you have a modern large size of RAM, actual traffic on the file is likely to be low, even if programs are rolled out to it, inactive, so the point becomes an academic one. If you do put the file elsewhere, you should leave a small amount on C: — an initial size of 2MB with a Maximum of 50 is suitable — so it can be used in emergency. Without this, the system is inclined to ignore the settings and either have no page file at all (and complain) or make a very large one indeed on C:

NOTE: If you are debugging crashes and wish the error reporting to make a kernel or full dump, then you will need an initial size set on C: of either 200 MB (for a kernel dump) or the size of RAM (for a full memory dump). If you are not doing so, it is best to make the setting to no more than a ‘Small Dump’, at Control Panel | System | Advanced, click Settings in the ‘Startup and Recovery’ section, and select in the ‘Write Debug information to’ panel

Source: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

alex666

09-08-2003, 12:46 AM

ausieolie2, greetings.

Re. your question about ocing a 2100, it depends on your mobo, type of 2100 (Palomino or t-bred, and what version of the latter), and so forth. I have a soltek mobo with a t-bred 2100 version b cpu that me and others, on the soltek portion of the amdmb.com forum, have been able to overclock without really overclocking. I know that sounds weird, but basically it's true, as many of the version b chips are able to run at 333mhz, and the drv5 soltek mobo was designed to run with fsb of 333 without overclocking the agp and pci buses. And it runs cool, too, with just good cooling equipment, nothing extravagant like water cooling or anything. But setting the fsb to 333 (166) and getting everything to run correctly took a lot of experimentation by some folks with these really weird bios settings, skew settings. Not seen on a lot of mobos to the best of my knowledge, and virtually no information about these settings provided by soltek (who otherwise are an incredibly supportive company to the consumer).

So, if you want to oc a 2100, I'd suggest finding a forum for your make of motherboard and go from there. I also would strongly recommend doing lots and lots and lots of homework before trying to oc (as I recall, overclocking generally is viewed very cautiously at the PC Guide), as it is easy to screw things up. I spent almost two months before setting up my current system. My video card cost me way way too much to risk getting fried for a few extra mhz or a few extra points on some arbitrary benchmark. Good luck.

marty