I have all the parts in to assemble my first custom computer minus the processor. I want to overclock it to a point where it is very stable. Here are my guts of it.
Abit BE6 mobo
AHA-3950U2 SCSI card
Quantum Atlas 10k ultra 160 hd
Diamond Viper V770 32MB Ultra TNT-2 4X agp
Pionieer DVD-103S Atapi DVD drive
LS-120 floppy
Micron PC-133 128MB x 2 memory
Sound Blaster Live Value
USR 56k V.90 internal modem (not winmodem)
Now I need the processor, but I need one that is stable beyond 600MHz for o/c. Also does anyone know how well my setup will handle overclocking. This will be my first attempt at o/c so I want to do it right
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If God didn't want us to eat cows....He wouldn't have made them out of meat!!!
Why did you get a BE6 if you are going to use a SCSI hard drive?
As far as processor, you can try a Celeron 366 on an slotket adapter, but you would be lucky to see over 600. Your best shot would probably be a PIII 550 because the 500's will generally make it almost to 600 but not necessarily beyond. The 550 should make it to 616 or 645 with adequate cooling.
While I have seen mobo's with built in SCSI, I do not like the performance (and price) of mobo's with the built in unit. UDMA/66 also sux compared to SCSI > so I opted for a PCI SCSI card.
If it doesn't work to well......oh well, I'll donate the beast to my wife with a PIII 600 cpu and try another setup with a P3B-F mobo.
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If God didn't want us to eat cows....He wouldn't have made them out of meat!!!
When overclock your processor you overclock all your pci and agp perefirals. Agp and pci speed are proportionate to your fsb speed. This what I think your agp and pci will be running at with different memory speeds.
* this are what I would go for.
your tnt2 might not like 89+Mhz. keep to 124Mhz or below and you should be fine. As far as Iam aware SCSI harddrives in general don't like been o/c Try and keep between 31-37Mhz.
c366 5.5*66 =366Mhz
c366 5.5*100=550Mhz
c366 5.5*112=616Mhz
c366 5.5*124=682Mhz
p3500 5*100=500
5*120=600
5*124=620
p3550 (same as c366)
p3600 6*100=600Mhz
6*110=660Mhz
I would get a c366 or p3500,p3550. Swiftech are selling pretested c366@550-645Mhz(100-117FSB), p3500's@600Mhz(120FSB), p3550's@645Mhz(117FSB)However you must also buy the peltier cooler that comes with it, although this isn't such a bad thing.
Performance of the celeron is is about equal to a p3 if they both have the same clock and memory speed , e.g p3 550@645Mhz(117bus)= celeron 366@645Mhz(117bus). This can only be achieved by o/c. If the software is optimised for the p3's instruction set then the p3 will be quicker.If not then you will get about the same performance.
Thanks for the advise . My mobo has the option to down clock the AGP (2/3), but after reading the manual, I do not think I can down clock the PCI >:[. I am aware that the P3B-F can do both, but I also hear it is still to "new" and has conflicts with alot of hardware. Should I didch the scsi and put it in my HP and buy a DMA/66, or should I experiment with it and see if it will work with the o/c'ing?
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If God didn't want us to eat cows....He wouldn't have made them out of meat!!!
Before I posted my reply I had quick look at anandtech's review of the BE6. He said it automatically uses a 4 divider for the pci above 124Mhz. Here's the link
It would be a shame to fry a top of the range SCSI. I could be totally wrong here but a hard drive cooler might help. I think there a discussion board for hardrives on anandtech bbs. Someone there should be able to give soom sound advise.
Myself I wouldn't risk taking a good hardrive like yours past 37Mhz. I think that only rules out 115,117& 120Mhz bus, assuming I've read things correctly at anandtech. So you've still got plenty of options.
Alternatively you could try an athlon. To o/c it you increase the cpu multiplier not the bus speed so your scsi will be fine. I think overclocking the athlon requires soldering some pins!!!!!! so you might want to wait until a better way is found to o/c the athlon.
If you don't mind taking the risk then go for it, however if your strapped for cash then don't bother.
There seems to be some confusion over an overclocked PCI bus. This will not damage your drives! While theoretically you could damage a PCI card that way, within these limits, it aint gonna happen. All that can happen is you will trash your data and sometimes need to reformat.
The interface is being overclocked, not the actual drives. This can make it unreliable, that's all. In fact with SCSI, the interface to the drives is not even effected, just the interface between the controller and the system.
It's very true though that SCSI cards are more sensitive to this than most other PCI cards. That, by the way, is one reason why onboard SCSI can actually be better. Especially from Asus.
Thanks for the help , I read up in my manual more and whenever I change the FSB, it automatically changes the PCI bus speed to get it as close to 33MHz as possible. So if I went to a 124MHz FSB it would bring it down to 31MHz..I do not think that 2MHz will affect the SCSI to much.
ASUS and SCSI huh...well the SCSI I have is surely PCI..but like ASUS uses, it is an Adaptec. So I expect no conflicts. If there is, I will stuff it into my wife's computer and she can benifit her tired computer. (I do think it transfers too much data for a P133 though..if that is the case ill give her my HP 8290)
What I am worried about is my video. I sure hate to see that beauty goto waste
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If God didn't want us to eat cows....He wouldn't have made them out of meat!!!
V770 is supposed to support AGP 4X, which is 132MHZ ... So you should not have any problem with the card... Not sure how BX chip handles higher (than standard) AGP clocks....
Well my mobo supports 2X AGP...and like you say, 4X AGP on the card. But what does all this mean? I just ordered the stuff because it sounded good and has good reviews. This is my first computer im gunna build myself that has the sole purpose of overclocking the hell out of it. Other computers I built were never overclocked (except of a P166 at 200 because I set the wrong jumpers )So far it looks like I can get upto the low to mid 700MHz range, but I have yet to build it.
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If God didn't want us to eat cows....He wouldn't have made them out of meat!!!
Going all the way back to one of the earlier posts on this topic, where you say that you don't like the pricing of a mobo w/ on-board SCSI, I don't understand that. The lowest price I could find (on Pricewatch.com) for an Adaptec AHA-2940U2W (80MB/s) card was $190. Add in a $100 mobo and that's $290. You can get mobos with Adaptec's on-board version of the same SCSI (80MB/s) for this price or less, and it would be easier to configure.
DrFoo, you appear to like Asus mobos with SCSI. What do you (or anybody else) think of the P2B-LS, with 80MB/s SCSI and 10/100 ethernet on-board? I've found this for around $315. Is it very overclockable and stable, and also, does it work with the Pentium-III (Asus' website and other reviews only mention the P-II). Thanks!
A trick to discover if newer CPUs are suppported is to check the BIOS update pages. This from Asus:
P2B-LS BIOS Ver. 1009. 05/10/99
1.Microcode update for Intel PentiumŪ III 550 CPU upgraded to revision 005.
2.Fix for serial port failure running Windows 2000.
3.Added keyboard wakeup item with three choices of key combinations for models with W977 I/O chip.
4.Fix for CPU clock detection error when speed > 512MHz.
5.Upgraded L2 cache reference code to Revision 3.4.
6.Added microcode update support for PIII C0 stepping. (550MHz part)
I have never personally overclocked one of the SCSI P2B models. After all, they are mostly used for servers and I tend to be very conservative with those.
Basically the entire original P2B series is quite similar though. In fact, the SCSI models tend to be even better made since they are considered high-end server products. I have no doubt you would be happy with it. I wish I could afford one for myself. Maybe one day soon...
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