Overclocking a old PC.

[youllbelost]

How can i Overclock a pentium 4 1.6 Ghz (Code Name Willamette).
Award Phenoix BIOS v6.0 PG.

Plz any help will be appreciated.

P.S. its my Mom's PC. Please guide me through a stable overclock.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

You'll probably want to provide more information such as the motherboard model, CPU model, etc.

On top of that, despite the CPU being slow to begin with why the need for an overclock? Chances are the computer is bottlenecked by something else such as the RAM.

 

[youllbelost]

You'll probably want to provide more information such as the motherboard model, CPU model, etc.

On top of that, despite the CPU being slow to begin with why the need for an overclock? Chances are the computer is bottlenecked by something else such as the RAM.

Just about to dump the crap. so need to make use of it.



Plz ask for any details you need.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

You'll probably want to provide more information such as the motherboard model, CPU model, etc.

On top of that, despite the CPU being slow to begin with why the need for an overclock? Chances are the computer is bottlenecked by something else such as the RAM.

Just about to dump the crap. so need to make use of it.



Plz ask for any details you need.

Can you provide me with the other system specs such as the amount of RAM, speed of it, what graphics its using, etc?

Like I said, depending on the system specs overclocking the CPU may not make much of a difference if lets say your RAM is whats bottlenecking the PC.

 

[madtownidiot]

In old computers like that, the IDE HDD is usually the bottleneck.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

In old computers like that, the IDE HDD is usually the bottleneck.

Depends on the speed/cache on that Hard Drive as well. I suspect RAM here as most older computers tend to have DDR RAM or DDR2 667 which won't receive that much of a boost from an overclock. Especially if you are also lacking in the amount of RAM.

 

[Hopalong X]

Most of those prebuilts have locked Bios for the CPU and Ram.
You can see the info but can't change it.

 

[madtownidiot]

The willamette series of cpus got their start in 2000. The 1.6GHz P4 was released in july 2001. Most systems from that era were throttled by the typical HDD.. which had a maximum transfer rate of about 8 MB/s. I would be surprised if it even had DDR.. which didn't exist until 2004

 

[youllbelost]

Can you provide me with the other system specs such as the amount of RAM, speed of it, what graphics its using, etc?

Like I said, depending on the system specs overclocking the CPU may not make much of a difference if lets say your RAM is whats bottlenecking the PC.

plz ask anything else u want

 

[youllbelost]

 

[Layback Bear]

Over clocking that computer if it allows the OP to do that IMHO will do nothing but create more heat. While its creating heat it will just shut down. It's got more bottle necks than a case of bottle beer.

 

[madtownidiot]

It can be overclocked.. if the bios supports it, but you would only be able to get about 1.9 GHz max from it.

 

[youllbelost]

It can be overclocked.. if the bios supports it, but you would only be able to get about 1.9 GHz max from it.

Would be too much happy with that.
I'll post the bios settings but i dont know how to make out a screen shot of the same.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

I figured it had a DDR stick in it rather then DDR2. In my personal opinion you'd see little to no improvement with overclocking it unless you could add more RAM. I'm sure others would disagree but that is my opinion on it.

 

[youllbelost]

Thanx for the help anyway, dude.
Lets see if i can, by the end.

 

[madtownidiot]

It's not as old as I thought, but still workable..If you raise the FSB clock to about 125 MHz (maybe 133 at the most) and the vCore to about 1.9v you might get about 1.9, maybe 2GHz but that's about as far as you can safely go with it. I would strongly recommend raising each setting in the smallest increments possible then testing for stablity, but don't try any higher setting that that, as the IDE clock is determined by the CPU clock and that is your main bottleneck. If it were a Northwood, you'd be in better shape, but all of those old P4s have locked multipliers, which really limits what you can do. One thing to warn you about, the willamette P4s run hot, so if you are able to OC, watch your temps very closely

 

[youllbelost]

It's not as old as I thought, but still workable..If you raise the FSB clock to about 125 MHz (maybe 133 at the most) and the vCore to about 1.9v you might get about 1.9, maybe 2GHz but that's about as far as you can safely go with it. I would strongly recommend raising each setting in the smallest increments possible then testing for stablity, but don't try any higher setting that that, as the IDE clock is determined by the CPU clock and that is your main bottleneck. If it were a Northwood, you'd be in better shape, but all of those old P4s have locked multipliers, which really limits what you can do. One thing to warn you about, the willamette P4s run hot, so if you are able to OC, watch your temps very closely

Report you back in some time

 

[Layback Bear]

If you do decide to over clock please monitor the temperatures. With stock cooling you could be making a toaster.

 

[Hondajt]

How much money do you want to spend? The stock cooler will not be able to handle much. An inexpensive $25 aftermarket CPU cooler can do a much better job, and allow for a higher overclock.

Also, I think you can do more than what they are saying. I bet you could get 2.2 out of that. The FSB is probably the only real tool you have to overclock, so increase that and watch your temp's! Raising the voltage is fine, those things are beasts, but do be careful. If you really want more info, there are forums actually dedicated to overclocking.

 

[madtownidiot]

How much money do you want to spend? The stock cooler will not be able to handle much. An inexpensive $25 aftermarket CPU cooler can do a much better job, and allow for a higher overclock.

Also, I think you can do more than what they are saying. I bet you could get 2.2 out of that. The FSB is probably the only real tool you have to overclock, so increase that and watch your temp's! Raising the voltage is fine, those things are beasts, but do be careful. If you really want more info, there are forums actually dedicated to overclocking.

Actually, it's impossible to get more than about 1.9 - 2.0 GHz out of a 1.6 GHz Willamette, even if you used liquid nitrogen cooling, because as I said before the CPU clock determines the IDE clock, and if that goes too high, you get all sorts of BSODs, if the system will even start. As a matter of fact, most other overclockers who have had experience with the 1.6 Willamette recommend not going over a 10-15% overclock because it will cause the southbridge to overheat. It would be in fact be cheaper to find a Northwood and use a much higher starting point before overclocking than improve the cooling capacity enough get anywhere significant with the 1.6 Willamette