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Overclocking hurts performance???

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Jokerman

Jokerman

Grizzled Veteran
Dec 18, 2006
754
0
#1
Well I just took my first dip in OCing and toyed with nvtune. I did the 3 hrs fine tuning and ran the HL2:LC video stress test- stock speeds gave a solid 55.08 avg fps but the overclocked sys yielded 44.07 avg..- an 11 fps drop?? how can it be?

The auto tune did the following changes (proxies- Im writhing from memory)
CPU core: 2200--->2500Mhz
FBS: 200--->229 (RAM was already on min 200 so of course it grew the same)
PCI-E bus: 2500--->2900
RAM latencies: 3-3-3-5-11---->3-3-3-5-12 but there were many changes to paramters Ive never even heard of (like read to write cycle and such like).

And thats all I can remember right now- I wouldve expected no change at worst, but a drop?..
 
#5
bloodypotato said:
It might be your power supply, and with the increased power needed, it starts to overheat, puts out less, therefore underclocking the parts by giving them to little power. Then again, I just pulled that whole idea out of my ***, so it's probably wrong.
Click to expand...
On some CPUs if they get too hot (overclocking can surely cause this) they will automatically "downclock" themselves to protect from damage. Or if you aren't overclocking but your CPU heatsink is all clogged up with dust your CPU will run hotter than it should. Since summer is here it's something to look out for. Sizzle sizzle CPU
 
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#8
Quietus said:
On some CPUs if they get too hot (overclocking can surely cause this) they will automatically "downclock" themselves to protect from damage. Or if you aren't overclocking but your CPU heatsink is all clogged up with dust your CPU will run hotter than it should. Since summer is here it's something to look out for. Sizzle sizzle CPU
Click to expand...
Not sure offhand which cpus do that(think Intels do), but I just completely cleaden my cpu, heatsink, and fan, and cleaned/reapplied some Liquid Silver, not a big temp drop, but noticeable. Dust is the PCs worst enemy.
Recce said:
I know nothing about overclocking, but do you want to increase the RAM latencies, or reduce them??

And once again, I know nothing about overclocking.
Now if you had performance problems with a database, I'm your guy :D
Click to expand...
Latency is the time it take for info to get through RAM, its similar to processing speed(not clock speed) on a cpu. Heres a couple pages to explain better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_latency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_latency
 
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#9
Whats your full system spec? There might be a guide somewhere just for your type of mobo - should make it easier for you to overclock in the bios. Like someone else said, it does sound like its being downclocked automatically because its hit a certain temperature level. Most overclocking people turn that crap off and monitor temps themselves. You can turn it off in your bios. My Intel Core 2 Duo tends to go up to around 60 celcius (slightly higher sometimes). Get Core Temp if its a C2D and theres probably a temperature guager with the software for your mobo..usually Core Temp shows temps a bit higher than other software..not sure which is the most accurate though.
​
 
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#10
KrazyKraut said:
How about you return to the original setting and do the tuning by yourself, step-by-step. This way you should easily find out what went wrong and where, without the wild guessing. <-That was a lot of "w"s for one sentence,
Click to expand...

Yes, I know thats the right way to do it, but as a complete noob, nvt is not a bad way to start. Basicaly it does just that- raise a paramter a notch, run a benchmark/ stress test and so on. You can sit and see what it does and how the different clocks link to each other and such like.
Its a good way, if not to learn OCing than at least to get more familiar with the different concepts till you got more confidence to mass with the BIOS itself.

Recce said:
I know nothing about overclocking, but do you want to increase the RAM latencies, or reduce them??
Click to expand...

Naturally youll want to reduce the latencies but some cases calls for relaxing (increasing) them. Usually, for stability's sake,- if you increase the speed of your RAM, youll need to relax the latencies.




melipone said:
Whats your full system spec? There might be a guide somewhere just for your type of mobo - should make it easier for you to overclock in the bios. Like someone else said, it does sound like its being downclocked automatically because its hit a certain temperature level. Most overclocking people turn that crap off and monitor temps themselves. You can turn it off in your bios. My Intel Core 2 Duo tends to go up to around 60 celcius (slightly higher sometimes). Get Core Temp if its a C2D and theres probably a temperature guager with the software for your mobo..usually Core Temp shows temps a bit higher than other software..not sure which is the most accurate though.​
Click to expand...

The mobo is ASUS M2N-E. A quick fishing in google revealed nothing. The ASUS manual is a pile of hastily written junk and searching in the BIOS showed no clue.
So if anyone knows plz let me know.

And btw, just that youll all know- Im not OCing to squeeze a little more. In terms of fps Im quite ok with what Ive got- its just that I get ****load of stutters and nothing is more important to me than smooth gameplay.
Ive exhuasted all the software solutions and fixes, specific or general, so now Im trying to poke the hardware- in hope Ill find a cure or at least a diagnosis so Ill know what part to upgrade/ replace.
 
Upvote 0
#13
melipone said:
You have an 8800? Stutters for most people..best thing you can do is turn World Detail down to Low or get Vista 32bit (x82 i think its called). Starting to doubt there'll ever be a fix for XP​
Click to expand...

Oh no, melipone, Im not talkin 'bout RO in particular, Im well aware of the 8800/ xp dirvers issue and I know exactly on what maps and what loactions I should expect to get a bumpy ride.

My issue is an all around stutter, a kind of a micro-hiccup-frames-skip thing, I get it in RO as well but more rarely and more subtly. In more demanding titles (AKA Oblivion, HL2:1/ LC, CoJ, M:TW2 and of course the jewel in the stutery crown- STALKER) its a nightmare and I tried EVERYTHING.


Than why am I posting here??

1. guru3d are not very helping. Neither does extreme sys and Hardforum. Bethesda were the best, and there I got the best advices- but not a cure.
2. Overclockers UK banned gmail and yahoo accounts, I happen to have my 2 emails there and Im not in the mood to open a new account in hope this one is ok with them.
3. I like you, guys.
4. Out of habit. :D
 
Upvote 0
#14
Hmm, could be a few things really. The most obvious one for me is that you have some kind of virtual memory problem. Is it set with the min/max the same? Is the virtual memory (pagefile) fragmented? Its usually best to have the pagefile on a separate hard disk to your main one and just have 100-200 or so on the main drive. You could rule the virtual memory out by setting it as 0 and see if you still get the stutters (some games will not work with 0 as virtual memory though).

I would disable the downclocking thing too to see if thats causing it - if it changes the CPU speed on the fly maybe it would have to pause to do it? Think its listed as Vanderpool Technology on my p5b-deluxe. Here's a guide I used for mine (assuming you have an intel core 2 duo). Maybe its quite generic and you can apply some of it to yours? Just don't put up the voltages so much like they do - theres no need to pump up the volts like in that guide unless your just trying to find the absolute max you can go..you would then test with reduced volts and take em down as much as possible. The PCI-E frequency doesnt need to be so high either

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=115217&highlight=p5b+overclocking
​
 
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#15
I do NOT recommend it if your pc is running everything at the moment.
The risk of killing your cpu is not worth the 10 to 25% gain.

Unless you know you are buying a new cpu soon...

If you wish to persist, Make sure you have

A QUALITY CPU FAN With some SEXY LOOKING Quality Heat Sink.
A stock cpu fan is Crap, even when you don't overclock.

Quality RAM such as Kingston.
If you overclock using some generic brand name ram.. azen or something like that... The pc will not be as stable.

In my time I have
Clocked a k6-233 to 266 => Got old
Clocked a Celeron300 to 450 => Lack of surge protector.. PS blew and fried it all
Clocked a Celeron 850 to 1180 => CPU Died (Overclocked Geforce2MX200(Died))
Clocked a Celeron 900 to 1200 => donated cpu, bought a 1000Mhz p3 (Overclocked MX400(Died))

After that, moved to AthlonXP2400 => no clock, donated the cpu, its still running for a friend and plays RO very well

AthlonXP3000 => secondary machine
Mix old parts to make newer
Athlon64x2 3800+ 939 => Main for now.

So, my point is, you are better off not overclocking, making your hardware last as long as possible !

It's still fun to do...
But if you do it... DO IT RIGHT
50$ FAN and Kingston Ram is a Pre-requisit !
 
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#16
melipone said:
Hmm, could be a few things really. The most obvious one for me is that you have some kind of virtual memory problem. Is it set with the min/max the same? Is the virtual memory (pagefile) fragmented? Its usually best to have the pagefile on a separate hard disk to your main one and just have 100-200 or so on the main drive. You could rule the virtual memory out by setting it as 0 and see if you still get the stutters (some games will not work with 0 as virtual memory though).​







I would disable the downclocking thing too to see if thats causing it - if it changes the CPU speed on the fly maybe it would have to pause to do it? Think its listed as Vanderpool Technology on my p5b-deluxe. Here's a guide I used for mine (assuming you have an intel core 2 duo). Maybe its quite generic and you can apply some of it to yours? Just don't put up the voltages so much like they do - theres no need to pump up the volts like in that guide unless your just trying to find the absolute max you can go..you would then test with reduced volts and take em down as much as possible. The PCI-E frequency doesnt need to be so high either​

Click to expand...

Hmmm.. Im a graduate of Korush Ghazi's tweaker guide companion for xp...well, actually I went through less than half of it, but it was the half covering the page file settings so I got that one right.
I have one HDD with two partitions (running at 7200rpm) and an AMD athlon 64x4200+.
If I knew half of what I know now I would go for a RAID 0 combo with a 10,000 RPM speed and definitely get one of the Intel C2Ds.
I guess thats what happens when you are lazy and trusts others to do the thinking for you.

That link looks like a great guide but my BIOS has only a few things of that list and nothing close to what I need. Ill try to update it and search further more for the auto downclocking disable option thingy...this ASUS manual is so unbelievably usuless- take for example this explanation of an IDE device option- the PIO Mode: " (the PIO Mode option) sets the PIO mode for the IDE device.", which follows after is a list of config options.

Some thorough manual.
 
Upvote 0
#17
Ah thought you had an intel. Anyway I remember people talking about a stutter bug with some AMD dual core systems (assume you have dual core) - there was an update that fixed it or something. Just googled and found this - Dual Core Optimizer:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html

Just googled AMD Dual Core Stutter

These came up near the top and mentioned that optimizer thing:

http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/ftopict-1049.html

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=983781

​
 
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Upvote 0
#19
I am an Ex-Moderator/Lead News Editor for overclockersclub.com. So I may be helpful to your situation.

Anybody can OC but to OC with Finesse is an Art. First you need to educate yourself about OC'ng BEFORE you venture into OC'ng. You must know EVERYTHING there is to know about ALL the components you have.

You must OC ONE component at a time, starting with your CPU. Doing so will be easier to troubleshoot. If you OC more than one component at a time, it will be hard to tell what happened or what you need to do. So start with you CPU first. With everything at there defaults, you should have your CPU's VCORE at 1.65. Start by raising your FSB at 1-2 increments at a time. At every step you increase you should TEST your clock by running a test program of your choice. I use 3Dmark05 (Paid version) as one. Once you get your ceiling, or you get unstable, you can either 1.) Stop and lower the FSB by 1-2 increments. Or 2.) Increase the VCORE. Increasing the VCORE will generate heat so make sure you have good cooling. Then you can continue with your OC.

When you find out what your CPU can handle/do then you can proceed with the next component (memory)

This is just a quick run-down but I can't stress enough that you need to know your RIG very well. You need to know everything that is needed to know about OC'ng before you start. You can't just jump in with both feet and expect to get the results you hear about. I've been OC'ng for many years so I do know what there is to know about it. Also, everybody will get different results no matter what. It doesn
 
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#20
Jokerman said:
...If I knew half of what I know now I would go for a RAID 0 combo with a 10,000 RPM speed and definitely get one of the Intel C2Ds.
...
Click to expand...
I saw some article(almost postive it was a PC Gamer) that said they did some tests, and found out, to thier surprise, that RAID wasnt making any significant difference in games. I looked for it before, but I cant seem to find it anywhere.
 
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