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Greetings,

I have the Asus A8N-SLI Premium mainboard (BIOS 1009) and the AMD 64 X2 4800+ Toledo CPU. I am also running DDR400 Ballistix RAM.

I am curious about overclocking and would like to give it a try. There is a ton of stuff online about it but there are two issues with that: trusting the source and sifting through all the data.

I have my memory settings entered in manually (with the DDR voltage set to 2.8 and the timing to spec) which results in a system that is so much faster - recall that I complained a bit early on about the AMD.

The other settings I have not tried - like CPU Frequency (currently set at 200), PCI Express Clock (currently set at 100), Chipset Voltage (set at 1.5), HT Voltage (set at 1.2) CPU Multiplier (Auto) and CPU Voltage (Auto). My guess is I would not change the Chipset voltage, but I am curious as to what settings I can use for the others that will give me performance and stability.

FYI - CPU-Z shows my CPU Voltage is currently running at 1.344 V, my core speed is at 2412.4 MHz, multiplier is at x 12 and my HTT is at 201 MHz.

Another question is my memory command rate is set at 2T in the BIOS. I have heard that a 1T setting can result in instability - is this true?

Thanks everyone.

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 2:20 am Post subject:

Crucial Ballistix is good quality RAM. You should try the 1T command rate setting. This one benefits Athlon64 performance substantially. I am running my Patriot PC3200LL at its rated latencies of 2-3-2-5-1T at 200MHz (400DDR).

To overclock, be certain that your PCI frequency is locked, set your RAM from 200MHz (400DDR) down to 166MHz (333DDR), and then crank up your hypertransport frequency (HTT).

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:30 am Post subject:

To lower my RAM - do I change my DDR400 to DDR333 in the memory section of the BIOS? And to change the HTT, do I change the HT Voltage? What voltage should I use?

Seems strange to knock down the memory clock to overclock the CPU. My PCI frequency is already locked (33.33).

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 4:40 pm Post subject:

For starters, leave all of your voltages the same and just change the HTT frequency. We are changing your memory divider to 333DDR so that when you overclock the HTT, the memory does not get overclocked beyond its 400DDR rating. If your memory is exceptionally good (and Crucial Ballistix is very good stuff), you may be able to overclock it just as much as you can overclock the CPU, but starting by lowering the memory speed by changing the divider will take the memory out of the equation and let you find the limit that your CPU can handle.

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject:

I don't have an "HTT" section in my BIOS - would this be my CPU Frequency?

Also, I tried my memory at 1T and my system did not like this. I would not even POST. I also leaned that ASUS' "Crash Free BIOS" feature does not work! Theoretically, to reflash the BIOS due to error or corruption I insert the Asus CD into the CD drive and I am prompted to reflash. This did not happen - I had to clear the BIOS, what a pain.

I suppose this is normal for overclockers - reflash and reset the BIOS I mean.

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject:

You should not need to re-flash your BIOS. You may need to reset your clear CMOS jumper on the motherboard.

Look around, you can find very good overclocking guides for exactly your setup.

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:54 pm Post subject:

I just did a reset only.

I made changes to the HTT - set it to 4x, then 3x, then 2x with no changes what-so-ever to CPU-Z, so I messed around and just changed the CPU frequency and left the HTT to "auto" as with the CPU Voltage and CPU multiplier.

Changes to the CPU frequency did increase my speed, but you are right in that the DDR should be set to 333. It was pretty unstable at 400. I managed to get it up to 2.6 GHz before it rebooted because of Media Center, PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, IMatch and Desktop Universe programs open.

I settled on a CPU frequency of 203MHz and a DDR400. I am at 2.44 MHz and it seems pretty stable with a ton of programs open - the memory is at 203 MHz as well.

Do you think I should set the HTT to 5x (or 4x) instead of auto? How about the voltage and multiplier? It seems to work fine in "auto" mode but I wonder if its best to set these values. One thing I have noticed when searching online is a wide variety of voltage choices: some say auto, others say 1.4, others say 1.366 and I have also heard that Asus over volts the CPU. This is rather confusing...

Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:00 am Post subject:

I think I have it now. I am running a stable 2.64GHz with a 220 MHz bus. I set the CPU voltage to 1.4, the chipset voltage to 1.6, the HTT to 4x and the CPU frequency to 220. I also set the multiplier at 12x. Memory has been set to DDR333 as well.

The CPU temps are running between 42 and 45C and the motherboard is at 41C.