Athlon 2500+ overclock

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DonNagual

DonNagual

Posts: 2,385   +5
My first time to overclock. I have read all the warnings, realize there is a chance that I may end up with a fried cpu, and yet find myself wanting to do it anyways. Part of me hesitates to even ask questions about overclocking, as the general mood of what I have read in this forum is... how shall I say... aggresive when it comes to responding to people like me :giddy: . The ones who know so little about OCing, yet dare to go on.

First question, is the risk ONLY to the CPU? I figure if I burn it, I will just buy an Athalon XP 3200. Wrong? Am I risking more than just my CPU?

My mobo is the Asus A7V600. I know it is not the best OCing board, but not too bad from the research I have done. (Yes, I have been researching as much as I can on this before I dive on in).

My memory is PC3200 400Mhz (2 sticks of 256Mb)

I have the Volcano 12 coming in the mail this week to stick on the cpu and cool it off.

I will have more questions to those who are willing to walk me through this, if there is such a person in here. I figure I am going to take it nice and slow. Tweaking the settings in very minimal increases over the next few weeks.
 
DonNagual said:
First question, is the risk ONLY to the CPU? I figure if I burn it, I will just buy an Athalon XP 3200. Wrong? Am I risking more than just my CPU?
Click to expand...

Any overclocking can damage more than just the component being overclocked. There is always a risk, that the additional stress of overclocking can break something, particularly when o/cing the cpu, where you may need to up the voltage.

As for actually overclocking an athlon 2500+, all you should have to do is increase the FSB to 200Mhz (400Mhz DDR), and if you are lucky it will boot up as a 3200+. If it doesn't boot up then you will have to clear the CMOS, and will need to increase the voltage (from 1.65 Standard) to 1.7 or 1.75.

I wouldn't recommend increasing the voltage much higher, as more voltage = more heat. Some 2500s work fine as 3200s, but others like the one I have tried don't like it, even when running nice and cool (~45C under load) with 1.75V, I could not get it stable, it would run 3dmark fine, but crash under doom3 etc.

As always Your Mileage May Vary.
 
Mine worked the first time. Havent had any problems the 6 months Ive had it. I did increase the voltage to 1.7. I originally used the stock AMD cooer and it ran the same temp at 2500 and 3200(109f idle, 120f loaded). But the fan failed after a month so I replaced it with a Speeze. You have the KT600 chipset and it should work fine.
 
I can feel the flames coming at me for what I am about to write... yet I am compelled to continue! :giddy:

I am about to ask the question that it appears many pro overclockers hate to hear. I appologize in advance.

So I am going to stick on my new fan, crank up the fsb to 200mhz, leave the multiplier as is, crank up the voltage to 1.7 and see if it fires up.

Errr... fires up as in turns on, not fires up as in "ball of fire".....

Yes, I am a fool. But I am hoping to be a fool with an overclocked 2500+.
 
DonNagual said:
I can feel the flames coming at me for what I am about to write... yet I am compelled to continue! :giddy:

I am about to ask the question that it appears many pro overclockers hate to hear. I appologize in advance.

So I am going to stick on my new fan, crank up the fsb to 200mhz, leave the multiplier as is, crank up the voltage to 1.7 and see if it fires up.

Errr... fires up as in turns on, not fires up as in "ball of fire".....

Yes, I am a fool. But I am hoping to be a fool with an overclocked 2500+.
Click to expand...
Was that a question?

I recommend increasing the speed in smaller steps. If the original FSB is 166 MHz, increase it by 5 MHz at a time or so, without increasing voltages.
 
It wasn't really worded as a question, you are right. It was more of a "this is what I am gonna do... how stupid does this sound" kind of post.

I have been researching quite a bit on this, and there are just such an overwhelming number of people saying that there is something unique about the Athlon 2500. Just about everywhere I read, people are saying that of all the cpu's out there, this is the easiest one to overclock. Crank it up to 200Mhz, and you are done. Maybe needing to put the voltage up to 1.7 but nothing more.

So you are saying this is not true of this cpu? I should treat it like any other and be cautious. Probably good advice. Thank you.
 
Well its always wise to increase the settings by small increments as what Mict has mentioned above no matter how overclockable the cpu is.
 
The Barton 2500 isnt really unique. It just has the same core as the 3200. They come out of the same batch. They get their speed rating according to how stable they run at a certain speed. Ive never heard of anyone having a problem OC'ing the 2500. I did plenty of research before I bought mine.
 
You would want to increase the FSB by 5MHz at a time, each step. After it works and posts, up it another 5MHz, until it doesnt. When it doesnt work, remember what speed it stopped working at, you'll have to reset your cmos/bios, put it back upto the non-working speed, and up the volts to 1.7, if that doesnt work, repeat and up the volts to 1.75. If neither work, use the speed that did work on stock voltage. Lower volts (closer to stock I mean) the better.

Then when you find your speed that works, you need to see if its stable. Try running a benchmark such as 3DMark or whats best, download Prime95 and do a stress test (overall/all around settings), thats the best. If its not stable, you'll have to drop the fsb again, 5mhz, until it is stable, otherwise games,etc, will crash on you at any given point.

Hope this helps :)
 
Wow, thank you so much everyone. Extremely helpful information in here, as well as that link agissi.

Question. My volcano 12 has arrived in the mail, and I am going to pop it on probably this weekend. I have been researching how to remove the stock cooler and how to put the new one on. I even watched videos on how to do it (on the AMD website).

But finally, before I move ahead, does anyone have any warnings for me on this from experience? It will be my first time....

One specific question I have is what is the best type of solvent to use to remove the remains of the old thermal pad from the cpu itself? Wife's nailpolish remover suffient?

Thank again everyone. This site rules.
 
Use a flat head screw driver, push down hard, then angle the screw driver so the clips come off the socket. Make sure the screw driver is angled well not to pop off while your pushing down, because a fairly large amount of force is required, and if it slips off, which believe me it probably will, you dont want it going too far out from the socket and ruining some traces (the lines you see on the mobo, which would render it useless).

Rubbing Alchol(major sp) i have found to be the best, but what you mentioned will be just as good.
 
I have three options for installation of my volcano 12;

-fan on full speed all the time
-temp sensor under the cpu, fan speed controlled by sensor
-fancy dial so I can manually adjust the speed.

I am leaning towards the manual control, anyone have any suggestions?

:bounce:
 
---agissi--- said:
When it doesnt work, remember what speed it stopped working at, you'll have to reset your cmos/bios,
Click to expand...

Some questions on this:

1. What will happen if it "doesn't work". Will the computer simply not boot up once I have crossed the line with cranking the fsb 5mhz at a time?

2. If the answer to #1 is "yes", then how do I reset the cmos/bios when I can't boot up? Do I use the motherboards boot CD?

Thanks again in advance everyone. HUGE help to be had on this site.
 
Reseting the BIOS is done by using the ClearCMOS jumper on your motherboard. Unplug the power chord, set the jumper to "enabled", wait a few seconds, reset it to "disabled" then plug the power chord back in.
 
---agissi--- said:
Then when you find your speed that works, you need to see if its stable. Try running a benchmark such as 3DMark or whats best, download Prime95 and do a stress test (overall/all around settings), thats the best. If its not stable, you'll have to drop the fsb again, 5mhz, until it is stable, otherwise games,etc, will crash on you at any given point.

Hope this helps :)
Click to expand...

Sorry for this noob question in advance... :giddy:

OK, so let's say theoretically, I have cranked up the FSB to 200Mhz, and my computer boots up OK. You mention I should test to be sure it is stable. I have used 3DMark before, and I know it gives me a score when the test is complete. How do I know if i have "failed" and my OC is not stable? (other than the obvious smoke coming from my cpu.... :stickout: )
 
These are a few of the many signs that will give a thumbs down when your pc is not stable.

1) Your pc cant boot at all
2) Your pc cant get past the windows boot screen
3) You wont be able to run your games properly
4) Your pc crashes unexpectedly when running simple programs like Word
5) Random reboots.
 
The application (3dmark)/game would crash, the pc would lock up, the pc would crash, program would exit - possibly coming up with an error,etc.
 
Just Overclocked my XP 2500+ w/ Asus A7V600 mobo

After just buying a Barton XP 2500+ and Asus A7V600 mobo thru ebay, I originally planned to use it at stock speed and use it as a small upgrade til next year. But reading about overclocking, I decided to fiddle around, since the ebay purchase for both was relatively small.

My assumption was b/c the mobo and memory(Corsair PC3200 DDR) could run at 200mhz, it's the cpu that needs to be overclocked. Well, after upgrading the bios of the mobo, I left almost all of the setting to 'Auto' and just changed the CPU speed from the preset of 1833mhz to 2200mhz. And guess what, my system is running at fsb is running at 200mhz, cpu recognized as a XP 3200+ running at 2200mhz. From using 'Auto' for vcore voltage, the system has adjusted itself from 1.65v to 1.74v. I have run a number of stability tests and it's running great. Currently, the cpu is running around 48c, so I may look to get a more heavy duty heatsink/fan but overall, I'm happy that my naivity to jump str8 from 166 to 200 worked.
 
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