Overclocking with ASRock

[Terry G]

Looking to see if anyone has been successful in overclocking with the ASRock
X533 Motherboard using the Via P4X266E Chipset.

This machine is run inside my arcade cabinet and so far it's been great, but
I have a few games that are running slightly under the full 60fps and I know
with a little more processor they will run at full speed. Instead of buying
a new P4 processor I thought I would try overclocking. The same games run
full speed on my P4 2.26 with 512 of PC1066 memory on an Asus MB. This is
quite a better set-up, but I believe the Celeron can do the trick with a
little more speed.

I am using a 2.4Ghz Celeron. I've tried to simply set the FSB jumper from
400MHz to 533MHz, but the computer does not boot at all (no bios screen or
anything).
The only other settings I have are the CPU Host Frequency which when set to
manual will allow you to change the Actual Frequency. It defaults to
100MHz, and I have tried it at 133Mhz. At this setting, the computer also
does nothing when powered on. So I have to clear the cmos to get it back.
The last setting is the SDRAM frequency which when set to auto, it defaults
to 200MHz. I am running 512MB of crucial PC2100, so I manually set this to
266MHz. This does not seem to make any difference on its own.

So I have tried all these combinations, 533FSB, 133 CPU frequency, and 266
RAM, and still nothing happens when I boot the computer. I have also tried
533, 100, 200, and 533, 100, 266 with no success. I am assuming the FSB is
the most important thing to change. I also tried leaving the FSB at 400,
running CPU at 133 and RAM at 200 and 266, but the computer still would not
boot.

It could be possible that this particular MB just does not overclock,
although I have read a few posts where people have overclocked the ASRock
MB's.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Terry G]

I can't adjust my core voltage, that could be the problem. I will see how
fast I can get it running by playing with the cpu frequency at the stock
core voltage and leaving at the 400FSB. I'll just move it up at 5MHz
increments or something like that. Good to hear you got it running so fast.

How would you compare your Celeron running at 3.19Ghz to lets say a P4
2.4Ghz running stock? I did look at Tom's hardware review and it still
seemed as if the P4 outperformed the overclocked celeron in many tests. I'm
not quite sure what I need the processor to do. I guess I need raw
processing power, not really anything with graphics or 3D stuff. I'm
thinking of just purchasing a P4, but if the celeron runs as good or better
than a P4 at the 533 bus speed, that would be a cheaper way to go.