My first attempt at overclocking a Duron... – 4138 days old

[KaraK]

OK guys last weekend me and MD got my poor ole Duron 600 and tried to crank the Mhz. We took of my POS stock HSF and after application of some ASII fitted a 1.4Ghz rated Cooler Master that we had spare.

The chips was already unlocked courtesy of the previous owner (thanks CC nice job). So we just sat there and played with the DIP switches on the mobo. We got the thing to POST at 909 (9*101) but it was having none of booting to Windows so we brought it down to 900 and again no windows, down at 850 (8.5*100) it would boot windows but as soon as UD fired up it locked, down we came to 800 (8*100) where it was been running stable as anything ever since. No changes were made to the voltages so thats the next thing I'm going to try...

The specs of the system are:

Duron 600 (-> 800)
Asus A7Pro Mobo
128MB PC100 no-name
TNT2 M64 AGP
SMC 10Mb NIC
30.4 Gb Western Digital UDMA33

Here's a photo of how we were set up, the old HSF is in the top right corner, and the case is off to the left.

[KaraK]

heres one where you can see a close up of the mobo and the case:

[KaraK]

another cool shot of the mobo:

[KaraK]

here's a shot of the temps while it was running like that, this was at full load running UD for about 1hr 21mins:

[KaraK]

and heres a shot after its been running couple of days in the case:

[catcorpse]

outstanding that made my day . Glad to see that the old beast still could run. I upped the voltage alittle and FSB, that's how I got it to run stable over 900 (and a good HSF) Glad to see it being put to use.

[floppybootstomp]

Looking good. I'd definitely up the core voltage to around 7.0 and try a little higher.

That temp, -32C - eh?

[KaraK]

fbs.. think I got one of the sensors wrong in the MBM settings

I'm certainly gonna try pushing the v-core a smidge whe I have a mo

[prod]

Make sure you put in a couple case fans before you start playing with the voltage. You are already at 35 and 45. If you put the voltage up to 1.8v or so you can count on both case and cpu temps to go up 5-7 degrees C. Thats a little too warm with the current cooling setup. But if you top out the voltage, theres a good chance of hitting 1gig.

[ImaginAsian]

Core Voltage to 7.0V??? Not even my beloved Alpha 8045 could cool that kinda juice

And prod's got the right idea...that Duron should be able to hit 900-1G pretty easily. Remember mine? 600@1.05 at 1.85V using an Alpha PEP66

Maybe when you get the Senfu that will help you also!

[TJM4FUN]

Yeh, up the core to 1.75 and try it, seems on mine it made the differnce to go over 1 gig. Goiong higher than that did not get it any faster. as to cooling it, I have the forged all al taisol with a 26cfm fan, and tmps are usually 48c or lower, depending on room temps.
Solid as a rock at 1066mhz on a 600 mhz die.

[floppybootstomp]

7 volts eh? That'd be fun Sorry chaps, typo, should obviously have read 1.7V. Doh.

[KaraK]

thanks for the advice guys... I think I might have to wait until I get the Senfu before I push it then

[026TB4U]

K,

You should be able to push it higher without additional cool. Keep it under 50C and you should be ok. 600 Durons are good overclockers. I had mine at 950 and I think Flops had his a little higher. I was using a Taisol at the time. Good luck.

[DeathStar]

If that's an early 600, it should go much higher; A friend and I took one to 1100+ @1.85Vcore with watercooling on an ABIT KT7A with Tonicom RAM. It's a tough chip and still runs to this day.......You have done well so far, young Padawan!

[prod]

Yep a lot of durons 600-900 are interchangeable once the bridges are connected.
My 800 runs at 933 fine with the voltage at 1.65. No extra cooling needed, just power supply and volcano2.
To get just 66Mhz more (1 gig) I tried 1.7, 1.75, no help at all. I had to set to 1.8 (reads 1.87 in bios) just to push it that last bit. Tried briefly at 1.85 (1.92 in bios) and it didnt get me any farther.

[KaraK]

things have been a bit hectic this weekend so I havent had chance to push it yet but I'll post as soon as I've tried more

[KaraK]

ok I tried pushing the vcore on the damn thing and managed to get it at 1.63V (according to MBM)giving me 850, couldnt get it any higher no matter what I tried, it wont even POST at 900 now, which is exceedingly strange since it did before....


anyhow I've got it running UD as we speak so I'll post soon with the new temps and wether it is stable

[floppybootstomp]

What's the BIOS say the voltage is?

[KaraK]

1.58...

UPDATE: I tried pushing the FSB but it just BSODs as soon as windows loads even at 101

[floppybootstomp]

I'm hardly the most experienced on this overclocking thingie but I'd say you need more vcore voltage or some better quality RAM.

I don't think any of your cards would protest at 101FSB.

Can you take the volts up higher, say, to 1.75V?

[KaraK]

at the moment it is full loading at 49C so I'm kinda loath to push the volts any more at the moment. I might try it just to see if I can get it running, however I'm dubious - really I need an FSB of about 104 to really make a worthwile difference to the Mhz.. after all I only got a multiplier of 8.5 (8.5*104 = 884) ... any thoughts from our hardened OC'ing crew ?

[prod]

Hmm, isnt the default voltage 1.6v? It is on my 800.
If you are getting 49c at 1.63v then there is something wrong with the cpu cooler.
Its either a really poor performer or it isnt mounted correctly. I would take it off and try again, make sure it is flat on the die and you use the proper amount of thermal compound. If that doesnt work, you better get yourself a real heat sink.
I have a lowly Volcano 2 with the 31cfm fan and it keeps me running 1000, 1.87v at 51c full load. It was the cheapest cooler I could find at the time The Volcano 6 is the cheapest now, it should be fine for you.

[ImaginAsian]

What's your I/O voltage? Set it at 3.4 at the very least. You have an Abit right?

Also, put MD Drive Strentgth in BIOS to LOW. That will let your FSB to go higher.

[floppybootstomp]

Previous posts show the mobo is an Asus A7 and the in/out voltage to be 3.4V.

Karak:

I'd try reseating the heatsink and upping the core voltage. Taking it up to 51C is OK for a while, probably OK permanently, I've run CPU's for months at up to 52C.

btw, you get that e-mail?

[KaraK]

flops nope.. no e-mail so far

As for the Duron it's gonna have to take a back seat for a while.. work is pressing atm

[KaraK]

Originally posted by prod
Hmm, isnt the default voltage 1.6v? It is on my 800.
If you are getting 49c at 1.63v then there is something wrong with the cpu cooler.
Its either a really poor performer or it isnt mounted correctly. I would take it off and try again, make sure it is flat on the die and you use the proper amount of thermal compound. If that doesnt work, you better get yourself a real heat sink.
I have a lowly Volcano 2 with the 31cfm fan and it keeps me running 1000, 1.87v at 51c full load. It was the cheapest cooler I could find at the time The Volcano 6 is the cheapest now, it should be fine for you.

I'm not too shocked at the temps... the HSF is just a Cooler Master DP5-6I11A and the case its in is really bad, the PSU sits right over the cooler (by about 7mm) and there are no case fans. The temps were ok when it was running out of the case (see 4th post)

Also am not sure what the default voltage is all I know is that if I leave the volts at Auto then it is about as stable as an elephant on a tripwire

[prod]

Do you have one of those dual fan power supplies you can put in there?
If so, then turn the fan around to suck air off the sink, I bet you will see some good temps.
I hate those damn compact cases, is it an Inwin?

[KaraK]

here I am after a week of coursework hell so revive the good ole Duron thread...

first things first, prod: the PSU doesnt have a 2nd fan and the case is some no-name midi tower I picked up about two years ago


Right on to the update...

Tonight me and MD got a tad bored and decided to try oc'ing my T'Bird 800, so we did the pencil thang, slapped it into the Asus mobo from the above setup and gave it a whirl. to cut a long story short we got it to POST at 997 but it wouldnt boot windows, so having given that up as a bit of a lost cause I decided to re-fit the T'Bird to my primary rig and put the Duron back in the Asus, I went put the chip back in applied some ASII and fitted the HSF (a slightly different Cooler Master - rated 1.2Gig) and set the DIP switches back to 850, or at least I thought I did, I actually got it wrong and set it to 900. so imagine my shock when I fired the rig up read the BIOS and saw 900! It wouldnt boot to Windows so I reset and popped into the BIOS, sure enough the vcore was at "Auto" so I set it to 1.70 and let it boot, hurrah! it booted to Win2k, ran stabely for just under 3 hours at full load then BSODed - the temps were at 52C by the way. So when I rebooted from the BSOD I upped the vcore to 1.75 and let it rip. It appears to be stable at this but then this has only been for 40mins so far. Now for the bad news: the new load temp is 54C, and I'm not impressed. 52 was ok but 54... isnt that pushing it a bit ?

My only problem now is that I'm severely limited when it comes to cooling supplies. My HSF arsenal consists of:

1 dodgy no-name HSF that has a 50mm YS-tech fan and no performence.

1 Cooler Master (1.4G) which is currently being used for my T'Bird 800

1 Cooler Master (1.2G) which is the one on the Duron atm

1 Senfu Copper HS (1.5G) which is currently confined to its box because the damn fan is too loud for me to sleep with it on and I need my rigs crunching cancer.

I cant afford to get myself a new cooler, I am hoping to get a quieter fan for the senfu (I ordered a Thermaltake 60mm the other day but there has been a problem with my card so I need to get that sorted on monday) so when that arrives I could try that on the Duron..

[KaraK]

UPDATE: Not keen on the idea of leaving it at 54C overnight so I've set the vcore back to 1.70, here's hoping it doesnt BSOD

Also it is behaving very strangely when I try to power it on, for some reason it needs me to hit the reset button a couple of times to fire up and it appears to be losing the CMOS settings.

EDIT: I'm a little concerned by all this strange behaviour, I'm gonna shut it down overnight and investigate properly in the morning