New Kit !!!!

[MOMOMARK]

Hi all,

As a new member and new to overclocking I would very much like help with the following....

asus k7n8x
xp2400.
2x256 corsoir3200
maxtor plus 9 80gb
gf3 64mb
innovatek water kooling kit

1. what bois setting should i be using ?

2. Should I be aiming for 2.4 or 2.5mhz clocking ?

3. I did not buy a "flow control" with my water kit .....but do I really need one ???

4.What setting for my gf3 card should I be using

As my last kit was a 800mhz slot a athlon you can see the reason for so much advise.

mommark

[mdzcpa]

Hi MOMOMARK...welcome to the board:)

For the Asus A7N8X and the XP 2400 you'll want to run the following:

You'll find that the XP 2400 will have all low (12.5 and below) multipliers available in the BIOS without having to unlock the chip. So to begin with, drop the mutliplier to 12 and up the FSB to 166mhz. This will give you the same stock 2.0ghz chip speed for now. Run the memory in "synchronous" mode and set the timings to CAS 2, 7,3,3.

From there begin upping the FSB one increment at a time. Increase your core voltage a little along the way to maintain stability. If your chip reaches it's OC limit before your FSB does, drop the multiplier another notch and up the FSB again. Try to find the sweet spot. For an XP 2400 on the A7N8X I'd shoot for a setting 12 x 188 or so (2250mhz). You'll find the A7N8X does not like much above the high 180s/ low 190s FSB wise before little errors start popping up. But every mobo is different.

If you want more CPU speed, and the chip can take it, try running 12.5 x 188 for 2350mhz. You'll have to test and see. Maybe even higher would be possible.

For the GF3 card, get powerstrip or NVMax and just up the core and memory frequencies until you have problems...then back it back down a few notches for safety. Use 3DMark 2001SE to test the performance and stability f your settings. That would be about it for overclocking the card. Make sure you set the A7N8X BIOS to AGP x4 and 128 Aperture. You may also want to lock the AGP bus at 66mhz.


I'll let the others cover the water cooling questions:)

[Farabomb]

:beerm8s:Welcome MOMOMARK :beerm8s:

I think the flow control is just a wheel that spins in the water stream to show that there is flow. Is it needed, no but it is a saftey measure, I don't use one. My friend has the innovatek system and he's really happy with it and I like the waterblock that they ship just watch out for buildup. If that bock gets cloged you can't get apart to clean it. Try and use distilled water/antifreeze mixture and watch for corrsion.

Along with the progs that Mdzcpa has mentioned there is also a registry hack that gives you gives you clock frequency adjustment in the advaced settings in control panel. I know it works with GF4 cards I'm not sure of GF3 ones though.

Mdzcpa's spot on with his advice and if you follow it you should have that setup screaming in no time.

[Mr Gung-Fu]

For a comparison -

Ive got the XP2400+ and an ASUS A7N8X with two 256MB blocks of the Corsair xms3500.

Ive found the chip wont run stably just over 2300MHz and not at all a little bit higher than that. Ive got 12x multiplier with a fsb of 186MHz. The memory is in sync at Cas2 4 2 2.

I had to unlock my cpu to get the multipliers of 12.5 and below but not for the multipliers above. I recon it'll be the same for you. If you want to unlock its easy-peasy :D cos u only connect one pair of bridges with conductive paint without the need to fill any holes cos they are on the end of the row so u make a 'U' around the hole between the pair of bridges.

Im gonna try to get 12.5 with the same fsb (maybs a notch higher too) when i get my 220W pelt replaced - cos it was faulty.

One word of warning. I read a review of the XP2400+ saying they got a fsb of 210MHz on air with no probs. Not likeing someone doing better than me i tried to equal it and corrupted enough files on my HDD that i need to reinstall the OS :( . This was with multiplier at like 9 or 10. I wont be doing that again (for a while
:rolleyes: ).

[MOMOMARK]

Thank u all for such a fast response ...

there was one or two more things I would like to now ...

1. So whats with the antifreeze ?...

I thought I would only need distilled water and my addative (bought with my cooling kit) for the cooling

Is it better to use d water mixed with antifreeze ??
and why not say car rad coolant ?

What mix should I use ???



2. Lowering the mutiplier helps by ???

momomark

[Drake]

Anti freeze helps ward off corrosion and living things in your water. I'm not sure on an exact ratio, though.

Lowering the multiplier reduces the clock frequency which the chip actually runs at, and with that comes a reduction in heat and need for extra voltage.

[Farabomb]

Car radiator coolant works fine. Just don't drink it :D

[Mr Gung-Fu]

Clockspeed is multiplier times fsb.

You get a clockspeed of, say, 2GHz @ fsb of 133.

If you lower the multiplier and increase the fsb to still get 2GHz then your system will run faster than before. fsb goes a long way to the speed of a system.

Just make sure your system can handle the high fsb!

[MOMOMARK]

Just a big thanks to Mr gung fu and Drake for your advice.

If there is anything else you feel mite help me in the setting up of my kit I would be greatfull for your advise as I will check back later.

momomark

[MOMOMARK]

Hi again .
Got my 2400xp today and looking at it I am thinking .."were do I unlock it " ????????
If Mr gung fu could help me out here which which bridge I unlock or maybe I could see a picture ????

momomark

[Mr Gung-Fu]

i dont have a picture but you will find some on this forum. I think there is a "unlock TBred b" thread somewhere.

Its easy tho. For me it just invloved a match stick cut into a point, dipped into some conductive paint and a magnifying glass to see what i was doing.

You only have to bridge one connection. The last (nearest to the middle) L3 one to be presise.

Some ppl fill the gap between the connections but u dont need to cos its the last connection, you can just paint a 'U' around the gap.

[Farabomb]

I'm not sure but you may not need to unlock the chip.

I know on some KT400 boards this holds true and it may apply to Nforce2 boards but don't quote me ;)

[Drake]

I think nForce2 boards only unlock multipliers 12.5 and above. Then again, I'm as unsure as Fara so don't quote me either :D.

[EDIT]: Based on what mdzcpa said in his A7N8X First Impressions (http://www.liquidninjas.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2094) thread, I don't think the nForce2 chipset unlocks your proccy :(.

[Mr Gung-Fu]

i went into it in a little bit more detail above but my xp2400+ was unlocked by the NF2 for mults above 12.5. I had to unlock it to get the lower mults.

Got it on 12x 185fsb atm.

[MOMOMARK]

Mr Gung-Fu could you tell me if you are using windows xp ??

and do I need sp1 downloaded and installed before I can get the drivers to install ???

I'm reading good and bad about sp1 and since I have not got it installed is it something I must install before the asus drivers will work ???

momomark

[Mr Gung-Fu]

I got xp yep.

The only thing SP1 does as far as the board is concerned is add USB2 support. However, you can get USB2 by using the drivers on the asus cd. The drivers will work with or without SP1.

So the choice about SP1 is yours. I got it and had no probs.

[Drake]

The first time I installed SP1 it completely thrashed my HD and all of the data was unrecoverable. The second and third time were no problem, so I'm willing to bet that the first time was my fault.

[MOMOMARK]

Thanks again Mr gung fu ........

Hope you all have a good "Liquid ninja " ´christmas ......

momomark.

[Farabomb]

You too monomark :)