How to Overclock ( noob edition )

Mandrake,

You do remember that I did quote and un-quote " I had a bad CPU " right? lol....

I got rid of it and ordered one yesterday , and it came in today.

Side note: But of course...you are my sensie...don't forget that.

 

Wait I thought that RAM was supposed to stay at 1066? I thought the RAM timings are slowed down at 1333 compared to 1066 (so it's actually slower)???

 

i dunno... u guys are making me confused ^^

 

hey, i used nvidia control to overclock and wasn't sure if it was working. i did occt test, and cpuz was up. they both said that my Q9000 was still at 2000 and not going over, even during the occt test. but as the test was going i tried raising it a little more over 285 and my computer froze. so does that mean it was overclocked and i went to high? how do i tell what its overclocked to if those 2 programs wont tell me?

 

I suggest just OCing in BIOS. I think I had the same issue with nVidia System Tools. OCing in the BIOS is easier and if you go to high you just freeze or blue screen of death

 

usually you want a little larger of a change from stock or the system will act unstable. Try 300 (1200) on the FSB. Most people do 1280 (gives you 2.4 GHz)

 

mine stock says 1267 which says 2.2. is that normal? i thought it was just 2... and idk if i want to do it in bios. if it messes up i have to remove teh bios battery too right? is that hard? (how small are the screws?) are there any risks with bios? and will occt tell me what my overclock speeds are that way? thanks

 

when you use NST it just saves your values to the BIOS and restarts the machine with those values

 

wait, so i got to restart my computer?

 

I think so, but I have never used NST for overclocking....I just use the BIOS

I know with my Asus motherboard on my desktop when I overclock from the software I have to restart the machine usually

 

Hey. I restarted and now when I logg in my screen goes black after a few seconds and doesn't seem to cone back on. I have restarted several time an took out battery and unpluged. My gf did shut it rather hard earlier, And ideas on what to do? Won't even go to sleep when I close any more. I think I hit save to bios upon exit, maybe take bios battery out? How do I do that?
Edit I hit ctrl alt deleate several times and it started flashing blue and black. Is that bsod? Need help

 

just restart the machine and enter the bios and set the stuff back to the original speed

if that does not work then you can pull the BIOS battery but I would avoid that if possible

 

Well it looks like bios is normal. I might have changed something else on nst.

 

possibly

you do not want to change the PCI-e frequency, maybe you did that by accident?

 

Maybe. Any ideas how I could fix? As soon as I logg in ans it starts loading up stuff the screen goes blank. Not off but blank. Could I start in safe mode?

 

you wont be able to access nst in safe mode

try removing the ac power and main battery and hold down the power button for 15 seconds or so with both removed, then put them back and start up

if that does not do it I would pull the cmos battery wait a few seconds then re-insert it

 

Well safe mode came up fine, but I couldn't get to the advanced features in nvidia

 

Well after restarting I had almost oped nst up but went blank as I hit go to default. How do I pull other battery out? Link to a guide?

 

try uninstalling NST in safe mode?

 

As soon as I hit restore to defaults it (crashes?) again. Damn anoying

 

do a BIOS reset by removing the little round battery next to the middle fan on the bottom. It has a 2 wire plug on the motherboard, this is what needs to be unplugged then replaced

 

Umm ok. Those little screws on the metal plate things? So remove the plate covering the fan? K I'll try

 

yes, there are 2 screws that will loosen but stay attached to the plate, remove that plate and you can access the cmos battery

it helps to read the user manual dude....

 

I did when I first got it and right Now I'm at my gf's house using my iPod to write this, lol
No lil screw driver here. Guess I'll wait till I get home. Will that change what nvidia control thing saved? maybe seleatibf it is the way to go. Sigh

 

Umm. It appears to be working now. But I didn't do anything. I'm on battery though. Maybe my 260m is messing up?

 

if you are on battery then it is also running on the 9400m, did you OC the GTX 260m at all? Maybe you have it too overclocked and it is unstable

well on battery I would uninstall NST then reboot on ac adapter and see if it works properly (with both the 9400m and GTX 260m enabled)

 

hey, im wrtiting this on my m17x now. i restarted with 260 on and it seems to be working. what the heck. although as i look up the text is going slow... not keeping up with my typing.. im going to check a few things out.

edit. ok i dont know what i did but everything seems to be working, screen is still up. looks like the 260m is on but im not sure how to tell in windows 7. umm, typing still seems a little laggy.

edit and final thoughts:

all seems well now, i restarted. my 1st cpu was running high and after the restart went back to normal. no more lagg in typing that i see. all seems well. worst part is i dont know what i did to fix it. i dont think i will mess with overclocking any more. not until i learn more about computers. thanks for all your help guys, especially you scook9, plus rep if i can on these fourms. thanks a lot and happy new years. ill be back.

 

is overclocking even necessary? i attempted to do it on my Pentium Dual Core (not alienware.....it hasnt arrived yet, just wanted practice before i messed that up) and according to Nvidia System Tools, my FSB clock was stock at 200Mhz, so i bumped it to 210 and 220 and 230 and it was stable then i bumped to 240 and computer just froze and i had to restart manually. After restart everything booted up then after logging into windows screen went black. Why is this? and how could i go about changing it?

 

and if possible if somebody has a stable running overclocked CPU and GPU for the AW M15x - i7-720/Geforce 260M could i have the specs so i get it right the first time? and with what tools to do it with?

 

You should at least try it on your own first. I know it's your baby and all and you don't want to damaged it. If your OC fails, Someone will help you. Take the first step yourself.

 

i hear ya lol.....how bout programs? so i can monitor stuff...im not really sure what the different ones do and whats the best to have. i would hate to have like 1o different ones and only need 2 or 3

 

The programs that I use :

GPUZ - GPU info
CPUZ - CPU info
HWmonitor - Temperature info
OCCT - Stress Test CPU

 

alright...is FurMark the best thing to use to stress the GPU? or does the GPU not necessarily need OC

 

GPU oc will mainly effect benchmarks, the difference is games is not very big

 

oh ok cool....so then what would be the point in overclocking the CPU? what difference does that make if im only using the system to play games and do school work?

 

Futuremark, 3DMARK06 and 3DMARK Vantage test how well your system performs (CPU/GPU) by score ratings. The score are compared to other systems and from there, you will see where your system stand.

 

Careful though, you can get hooked into benchmarking...

 

I do not get this!

My Q9000 @ 2.5 got me 12666 in 3Dmark06.

Now i have the QX9200, max for now is 2.83, and i STILL don't beat my old score?

 

If you post the score with screen shots of gpuz and cpuz it may give a clue as to what is wrong.

 

This gave me 12434 in 3Dmark06



Might be a stupid question, but how do i know SLI is "on" so to speak?

Before reinstall i had the little nVidia icon with the 2 green stripes in the tray. Not so now.

 

That looks about right to me, trying including your 3DMark score in it as well. Check out my sig and click those scores and you'll see what I'm talking about. Might be able to OC those GPUs even further. Play with that and the CPU to see what CPU OC gives you the best CPU score. Also in GPU-Z Where it says at the bottom NVIDIA SLI Enabled (2GPUS) Thats tells you that your cards are both running in SLI mode. If it said 9400, then you know the integrated card is running. Are you running 3DMark Vantage or the regular 3DMark06? Your scores sound right for Vantage, but low for 3DMark06. What background programs are you running? Try disabling any that are not neccessary, perhaps something else is requiring part of the CPU, leaving it to have to juggle multiple tasks resulting in a lower score.

 

On the bottom of gpuz it says SLI is enabled. Also post your score. That will give a hint if it's a cpu or gpu issue. Plus you might want to try some different drivers. I don't know what the "hot" drivers are right now for nVidia.

Regarding your icon in the systray that is for Hybrid SLI if I remember correctly.

 

That's the thing, this score (12434) is 3Dmark06, not vantage.

Everything on the system is exactly the same as when the 2.5GHz Q9000 pulled of a 12666 in 3Dmark06. Same clean W7 install with nothing running in the background.

And yes Mandrake i remember now, you're right about the icon.

 

Post both scores then, if you kept them.

 

Post screenshots insted of just typing the scores here?

I have the free version of 3Dmark06, so i get the results online and only get to save 5 scores.

 

You can type it in but you need to post the SM2, HDR and CPU score with the final score.

 

Ok, I caved in and bought the full versions of 06 and vantage.

Here's 3Dmark06:



This is a comparioson between my best runs with the q9000 and the QX9200. Every parameter is the same, only difference is Q9000 ran with A02 and QX9200 with A03.

 

It's your SM 3.0 score that looks off which means more with the GPU than CPU. The CPU portion of your score did go up as it should. Were they the same drivers? It could also be the bios flash.

 

Yes Sir, same drivers, same everything.

Going to download A02 and see what gives.

First vantage run here:

 

WOW!

Seems A03 is not good for performance.

3Dmark06 jumped 2000 points for me after going back to A02.