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Hey guys, I'm looking to get slightly better performance out of my system, and thought overclocking it would be good. I have an Asus M2A-VM motherboard, along with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (AM2 socket, 2.0GHz). I am also running 3 GB of ram, DDR2667 PC5300. I feel I have efficient enough cooling, and the computer will be used for games, internet, media, Photoshop, etc.

Would it be best to overclock via the bios, or software? I have no idea which settings to adjust, so if I could get some insight that would be great.

-Matt

 

Start by going to the bios and finding the FSB and the HT(HyperTransport) multiplier, then lower the HT multiplier so the HT clock doesn't max out before the CPU. Now change the FSB by a few increments and boot to windows and run prime95 with error checking enabled, if you have an error or windows won't boot go back to bios and raise the CPU voltage(Vcore).

What type of cooling do you have? If it is the stock, I wouldn't push it too hard. Also, how is your memory configured? Do you have 3 1GB sticks? Overclocking with mis-matched memory modules can sometimes limit the speed of your overclock. Also make sure not to increment too much at once.

In addition to bluemeanie, you may want to change the ratio of the memory as you increase your FSB. This will keep your memory from being the component to crash your computer.

I have a similar setup to you. I have the same CPU as you and had it up to 2.7GHz with only a slight VCore increase.
 

The processor heatsink and fan are stock, but I have a 120MM fan in the front, and an 80MM fan in the back pushing air out. The PC stays really cool, the processor stays right around 35 degress celsius. I have 2 1GB sticks, and 2 512MB sticks for the ram, but they are all DDR2 667 5300.

Here are my adjustments that I can do:

My multiplier for the CPU only goes up to 10X though.
 

For the DRAM configuration, I have it set to DDR 667.

Let me know what settings I should use with the options I have available. I also have QFAN control on (otherwise my processor fan stays at 4500RPM).

-Matt 

I'm pretty sure the CPU multiplier is locked by AMD. Only the black editions are unlocked so just leave the multiplier option to Auto.

The first step you should do is to increase the CPU Frequency by a couple of Mhz at a time. You can increase maybe at a 4-5 Mhz increase to probably around 225-230Mhz, then I would start doing increases of 2Mhz at a time. If you increase with too big a jump, you could burn something up. Usually after every increase, I try to run something that will stress the CPU for awhile. You can download a benchmarking program and let it run for about 10 minutes.

Once your computer starts freezing after an increase of Mhz, you can do a couple of things, but only do them one at a time. You can either set your memory to run at 533 to reduce the memory speed (this is to make sure your memory is not crashing your computer) or you can increase the CPU voltage (this is if your CPU is crashing your computer).

Also check to see if there is a setting to change the HT multiplier somewhere in the setting.

Be patient and don't rush the overclock.