As most of you know, (those who care anyway), I have a new toy(s) to play with. I installed a GA-7N400 Pro mobo, a matched set of Geil 3500 ram sticks, and a "good" 1700XP processor. I will use this thread to document my trials and tribulations as I attempt to get a an amazing OC out of this combo.

After wrestling with the damn raid function on this board for 24 hours, I finally got XP to recognize the array. The drivers from the Gigabyte web site and the driver disk did not work. The raid is provided by ITE, a company I have never heard of before. I finally ended up finding their web site in Taiwan and found some updated drivers, then the raid installed smooth as silk.

I set everything to default in the bios except the FSB, which I set at 166. One very strange thing I did with this board that I had never done before was flash a new bios from within windows. Tres Cool!

Even though I have run at much higher clock speeds on other boards, this one feels faster. There is no hang time when starting applications. So far I am liking this board a lot. Here is what the board recognized my CPU as with the bus speed adjusted:

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Cant wait to see if you hit 2.4ghz with that board and cpu BA

Well, they say 3 times a charm, so heres my uber 400mhz system bus with my 2000+ XP AIUHB procy

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Where'd you get your "good" 1700? Any particular retailer or just luck of the draw? I've been looking to find one but I'm never sure if I'm getting the right core.

SVC has guaranteed good stepping for $63.

www.svc.com

BA,
Is that the GoldenDragon series of ram?

No, it's not the Golden Dragon, just good old Geil.

Here is attempt number two. I had some problems reaching this with 6-2-2-2 settings, so I slowed it down to 7-3-2-2.5. Seems pretty stable and it got here with very little effort. CPU internal diode reads -10C so all is good.

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730MHz OC at -10. Sweet. How much voltage did that take? What's the max fsb on the new board?

I have the voltage at 1.62. I don't know what the max is yet, but the settings go way beyond 400. I am going to try to up the FSB next.

Curse you and that damnable Vapochill.

I changed my mind with the FSB thing, I decided to try to max the CPU out. Voltage is at 1.65 and timings are relaxed.

Hawk, I'm sorry bro. I wanted to hit 2.4GHz for you but couldn't because I would need a 14.5 timing setting to get there. I hope the pic below is good enough for you.

Sensor 1 is die, 2 is board, 3 is under socket.

You'll notice that the processor has heated up to -9C.

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BA, i must have missed how you made your proc that cool.

http://www.pcapex.com/modules.php?s=...icle&artid=128

thats how.

so thats the max you can it BA? I think you could crank ot up a little morer is it the board holding you back?

aahhh, thats pretty sweet.

It wouldn't give me 16X or higher, but I think I still have my RAM a little too aggressive. So I decided to switch gears and see what the FSB would do. Here is my first attempt to get beyond 400.

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It would post at up to 450, but wouldn't load Windows. I loosened up the ram settings as much as possible, but still no go. I think I found the limit to the FSB there.

I decided that the settings below is where I'll run at. Memory is at 6-3-3-2 so it is pretty quick. Voltage is at 6.25.

I'd like to thank you all for tagging along on my little OC adventure, I had been biting at the bit to get this system together, and I am not disappointed. I will continue to play with this setup but I'm amazed at what I was able to do with it.

This new board that Gigabyte has rocks, the Geil RAM rocks, and the 1700XP CPU is the best damn value available to date. If you have an AMD based system, do not hesitate, order it NOW! Ensure that it has the JIUHB stepping...I got mine and Putwig's from SVC. They guarantee the proper stepping.

Ya'll have a nice day.

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Congrats.

Of course you realize you're setting yourself up as a target. Once I get Optimus up and running I'm gonna be gunning for you.

Seems to me that one very intelligent chap, putwig was his name I think, predicted you would crack 2.5 GHz.

I can't wait to get that new board from AntiM, I predict I will get to 2.0GHz with water cooling in place.

Well, im not too dissapointed you hit 2.5ghz there BA, I forgive you this time Pretty Impressive there. That vapochill is really nice. Im just happy I could reach the magic 400Mhz DDR fsb myself. Mind you I only have hynix PC2100DDR ram...

BA, what drives are you using? IDE or SATA? If SATA, could you post some HD scores?

I was thinking of using SATA drives in Optimus and would like to hear some opinions form those using them.