Tweaking Optimizing Windows.pdf - GEGeek

adequately cooled as an increased voltage results in an increased heat output. See "cooling review" for some tips. In addition, the
colder the CPU temperature is maintained, the greater tolerance it will have for overclocking.
Couple of simple rules I abide by when tweaking the voltage of a cpu:
1. Voltage = Heat - Higher voltage obviously means more heat. Higher voltage may allow you to overclock a CPU higher, but
without proper cooling, the PC will freeze or have other problems farther down the road.
2. .3 Volts over Default; MAXIMUM! - It's a bit conservative for some users, but I rarely push a CPU higher than .3 volts over the
default setting. Not only will it create more heat, but it could possibly damage the CPU. If you want to push your CPU higher, go for
it. Just remember, I don't recommend it. Also, make sure you don't accidently jumper a slocket or a motherboard for something like
two volts over the default value. This could result in instant death for your CPU.
How to change the voltage
What do you do if you get a board without voltage adjustments? Well, there are not many options. If you have an Intel Socket 370
CPU, you can mount your CPU in a socket to slot converter card. This only works if your CPU is a socketed chip and your
motherboard is able to take a Slot 1 chip. Many of today's converters, such as the Asus Slocket II, Abit Slocket III and the MSI
Slocket v2.x are compatible with both PPGA and FC-PGA Intel processors and include jumpers to adjust the voltage of your CPU.
If you use an AMD Athlon with a Slot A interface, you can also use, what many people call a "Golden Fingers Device" (GFD). This is
a device which fits onto a special connector on the top of the CPU and allows both multiplier and voltage adjustments to be made
via a series of switches mounted on the GFD itself. These are fairly simple devices to use, however, remember that the plastic
housing on the back of the CPU must be removed to expose the Golden Fingers attachment. Also keep in mind that a GFD needs to
be powered and most have a plug for a standard 4-pin molex connector (hard drive power plug). More extreme measures can be
taken to change the voltage where it would not ordinarily be supported, such as physically modifying the CPU, however those are
beyond the scope of this article.
Sockets and cpu softMenu II or III voltage
If you're using a slocket (for an FC-PGA based Celeron II), there are a couple tricks you can do with the voltage and FSB settings to
achieve better performance and stability. If you want to set the voltage to what is on the slocket, set the SoftMenu settings to use
Auto or Default for voltage. This allows you to use 1.8 volts or higher on the slocket itself, regardless of what the BIOS supports.
This is especially useful on older Abit motherboards where the voltage can only be set up to 1.7 volts for the Celermine CPUs. For
stability at 100 MHz or higher, set the slocket to 100 MHz FSB, even if you're planning on setting it differently within the BIOS
setup. This seems to make the CPU more stable, at higher speeds (at least, on the Abit Slocket !!! it does).
BUMPING UP THE CLOCK SPEED/USING SOFTFSB
Now that you've nailed the problems, tweaked the voltage, and dealt with the heat, you probably want to overclock your CPU a bit
higher. Instead of using the typical jumpers or the BIOS' CPU clock speed software, consider SoftFSB. SoftFSB is a nifty little
program that allows you to change the clock speed of your CPU (on-the-fly) from within Windows. This has obvious benefits... and it
can often times lead to higher clock speeds than you thought possible before. When you decide to use SoftFSB to overclock your
computer, take the following precautions:
- Save before attempting anything
- Progressively overclock system - go up one speed step at a time to make sure you don't damage the processor.
- Run the stability tests to make sure the overclock was completely successful.
- Want to run your 66 Celeron etc at 100 mhz - have a look at www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/98q2/980514/index.html
Check to see if your motherboard is supported before you start playing around with this program, as it can alter some pretty serious
stuff. Once you're sure it supports your system, run the program and choose your motherboard from the drop-down list. Hit "Get
FSB". Now it should show all the supported FSB speeds. Change the speed of the FSB to the desired clock. Click "Set FSB" and the
new speed should be set. You should probably test stability before deciding on a good speed.
Remember: On most new CPUs, you can't change the multiplier. All overclocking must be done in the FSB (front side bus). To test
to see if you've hit the limits of your L2 cache, try disabling the L2 cache in the BIOS setup and setting the clock speed to
something that was previously unstable. If the option works and the CPU is stable at the new speed, there is a good chance that
your L2 cache is too hot or it's not able to reach the speed you're striving to hit. This is often the limitation on older Pentium II
systems.
Good clock speed and stability
There's no doubt that a higher clock speed is better than a lower clock speed. But you must not sacrifice stability to reach that clock
speed, or the PC will become basically useless. There are various ways to test the stability of a system at a given clock speed, but in
my opinion, the best method is to use the CPU Stability Test. This program simply rules for testing stability. Crank the priority all
the way up and run this program overnight. If the system crashes, you've got a problem.
Recommended settings
There are no unique best settings for every system, however I'll try to give you a basic guideline for overclocking. I'll cover settings
for motherboards with the following range of bus speeds: 100, 112, 124, 133 MHz. If your Motherboard doesn't support the higher
bus speeds, or has some other, not listed here setting, you can still try the rest, get a calculator and figure out the possible
combinations yourself remember it's Multiplier x FSB = Internal CPU speed. WARNING: Please keep in mind that the more
aggressive settings can damage your CPU over time, increase system instability and don't work on all motherboards/CPUs. Just the
fact that the settings appear in this table doesn't mean they are safe for your system and devices, use them at your own risk.
Multiplier
Common CPU/FSB Speeds
100Mhz 112Mhz 124Mhz 133Mhz
3.0x 300Mhz 336Mhz 372Mhz 399Mhz
3.5x 350Mhz 392Mhz 434Mhz 465Mhz
4.0x 400Mhz 448Mhz 496Mhz 532Mhz
4.5x 450Mhz 504Mhz 558Mhz 598Mhz