P5GD2 Deluxe overclocking: meant to work?

[SteveG]

I just finished putting together a new PC for my daughter's family.
It's gone pretty well. BTW, if you need a new monitor, the Samsung
910T is VERY nice. Lots of good reviews, including Consumer Reports,
and they're right. But, that's not my problem...

My problem is that overclocking doesn't seem to work at all. The
configuration on the MB is:

- ASUS P5GD2 DELUXE, BIOS ver. 1007
- ASUS EN6200TC128/TD/16M Geforce 6200TC PCI Express x16 Video Card
- Intel Pentium 4 630 Prescott 3.0GHz, 2Mb L2 Cache
- Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) (I picked this
memory since it is on the Asus QVL for this MB)
- ENERMAX EG425P-VE ATX12V 420W PSU

Prob'ly not relevant, but just in case:
- 2 Seagate Barracuda ST3160827AS 160GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard
Drives
(I installed the drives as one mirror volume using the Southbridge RAID
function (ICH6R). I turned off the Promise and ITE RAID chips in BIOS.
The machine boots off this mirror set.)

As long as keep the CPU and memory speeds at default (200 on CPU, SPD
on memory), everything works fine. 386MEM testing runs overnight, all
tests, no errors.

Any time I try to overclock the MB using either AI Booster or in the
BIOS using NOS, the MB won't boot. This is true at even the smallest
overclock percentage.

Are there manual memory timings I should be using instead of SPD?
Manual voltages?

Thank you in advance for your help.

SteveG

 

[Paul]

I just finished putting together a new PC for my daughter's family.
It's gone pretty well. BTW, if you need a new monitor, the Samsung
910T is VERY nice. Lots of good reviews, including Consumer Reports,
and they're right. But, that's not my problem...

My problem is that overclocking doesn't seem to work at all. The
configuration on the MB is:

- ASUS P5GD2 DELUXE, BIOS ver. 1007
- ASUS EN6200TC128/TD/16M Geforce 6200TC PCI Express x16 Video Card
- Intel Pentium 4 630 Prescott 3.0GHz, 2Mb L2 Cache
- Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) (I picked this
memory since it is on the Asus QVL for this MB)
- ENERMAX EG425P-VE ATX12V 420W PSU

Prob'ly not relevant, but just in case:
- 2 Seagate Barracuda ST3160827AS 160GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard
Drives
(I installed the drives as one mirror volume using the Southbridge RAID
function (ICH6R). I turned off the Promise and ITE RAID chips in BIOS.
The machine boots off this mirror set.)

As long as keep the CPU and memory speeds at default (200 on CPU, SPD
on memory), everything works fine. 386MEM testing runs overnight, all
tests, no errors.

Any time I try to overclock the MB using either AI Booster or in the
BIOS using NOS, the MB won't boot. This is true at even the smallest
overclock percentage.

Are there manual memory timings I should be using instead of SPD?
Manual voltages?

Thank you in advance for your help.

SteveG

That BIOS has way too many adjustments for the clocks
(Async this and that.)

A simple test, is set "AI Overclocking" to [Standard] or
[Manual], which ever setting causes a bunch of new settings
to appear. There should be a "CPU Frequency" field. The
manual says the "+" and "-" keyboard keys can be used to
change the value.

Bump up the frequency a few MHz, save, and exit, and see
what happens. The hardware components in the system should
be tolerant of a small change like that. That will at least
prove you can run the processor a bit faster than before.

Use a memtest86+ test floppy as a boot device. You can
boot into memtest as a way of proving stability. That
is better than booting into Windows and corrupting the
hard drive. (When overclocking, there are frequency limits
for the various kinds of storage devices. Overclocking
that causes the SATA 100MHz clock to change, or the
PCI bus clock to change, can affect your storage devices.
If doing overclocking experiments, use a "disposable"
Windows boot image on a spare hard drive, in case it gets
corrupted.)

Does Asus overclocking work ? Yes, but sometimes the memory
operating frequency is reduced by the Asus settings. A
real overclocker optimizes both CPU and memory operating
conditions, and Asus tends to concentrate on just the CPU.

Maybe "AI Overclocking" [Standard] plus "Overclock Option"
[Overclock 5%] will work ? I would avoid the NOS option,
until you've at least got some small amount of constant
overclock to work. NOS adjusts operating conditions as a
function of CPU loading, and would likely give you a cooler
running computer. But if a basic constant level of overclock
is not stable, NOS isn't going to fix that. NOS will just
make it a niusance, by crashing the computer the first time
you attempt to run the CPU at 100% (causing NOS to crank
up the CPU). Leave NOS "out of the loop" until you get
a basic overclock to work.

You can use a program like CPUZ, while you are in Windows,
to see what changes the BIOS settings are making. That
will also make it easier to learn how to overclock
manually.

Paul

 

[SteveG]

I will give this a try. Still, how odd that an option on an Asus board
using components they have "tested" and "approved" requires so much
knowledge not in the manuals. I take it memory timings are no longer
to be played with. That's a change from the P4C800 Deluxe I have from
just a couple years ago. Life goes on.

Thank you again for your advice.

....Steve