K, downloaded and used the program 11b recommended, and it's pretty cool. So far I got this out of it with regard to my ram:




the PC3200 stuff then means that, according to Satis' graph, it could take up to 200mhz, right? Heh...I won't take it that far, but I might switch to 166mhz.

m, I also just noticed that the program is giving me a lot of flak for 'overclocking' my shit...but 133mhz is hardly going nuts. Maybe my CPu fan has died or something, I'll probably downgrade for a while again to be on the safe side. (to 100 mhz again I mean)

I'm not sure why it's complaining about overclocking. You don't seem to have anything overclocked that I saw.

Found the problem: the sandrasoft thing must have been misreading sensors; when I did a check for mobo temparature in there it said 188° C, hahaha. If that was the case, my board would have been a molten nugget by now.

So I installed Asus' own heat monitoring utility to be on the safe said and it gave me normal readings of aroubd 45° C at rest. So my bad. Well, sandra's.

I also put my pc another frequency higher, 166mhz. Running at 2.08Ghz now, so far everything seems to be normal with a rest temp of 49°C for the CPU. I think 166mhz is the normal rate anyway...


I'm now thinking of going another step, 200mhz. But my ram (as we've established) and my mobo can handle it (checked that), how does my CPU play in this? I mean, does it have to be able to handle it as well, or is this already considered overclocking in a way?

if it's not rated for that speed, yea, it's overclocking. If it's rated for the speed...nope. What speed is your processor? You may have to lower the multiplier or something to keep the processor from getting clocked too high.

And what happens if you inadvertantly overclock it and the machine can't handle it? High heat, wierd graphical artifacts, memory and other errors, machine locking up, windows blue screening/freezing, and very very very rarely something blows up/craps out. Usually the blow up/crap out happens when you're runing components too hot, though.

Mm, I didn't even bother trying to put it a 200mhz, because I noticed my pc was running real hot at 166mhz while playing an averagely taxing game. During the game I was constantly at 68-70°C, which is dangerously high (apparently, did some checking on the net). So I went back to 133 mhz. So either my CPU was built for 133 anyway or I need a better fan...one thing's certain though, i'm buying a grade-A fan for my next machine. I want the CPU to freeze rather than swelt.

I'm hoping 133mhz will give me max temps of around 60° C...should be the edge of what's considered safe. Could be that I've been fooled by a bunch of easily-scared internet dudes tho, so waddayathink, 60-70° dangerous? I general.


Btw, thanks for all the input so far

60-70 celsius? Hell yea that's dangerous. My machine at home runs around 90-100 fahrenheit, which according to google is....32-38 celsius. So, yea, you're not doing too well. Your CPU cooler/thermal paste must suck ass. May I suggest...


...buy some arctic silver and a decent cpu cooler. Otherwise you may be causing harm to your CPU. How's the rest of your system temperature? Do you have case fans?

I now changed back to 100mhz...cos I was still hitting the 60-63's while gaming in 133mhz. Man, you're right, my cooling equipment must suck enormous ass.

Thing is, when I went into my BIOS to change the mhz frequency again after seeing my CPU temp at 52 or something on the Asus monitoring tool; I was that BIOS gave 37° C for CPU heat...who would you be more inclined to believe, BIOS or sensor-reading software from the manufacturer? I guess the former, in that case I might not be in too deep shit if I don't tune stuff up too much.

Erh, other temps, let's see...mobo 35°C at rest. I think it's been around that all the time, even when I was gaming at 166mhz. No, I don't have no chassis fans. Only fans I have is the CPU and power supply ones.

I suppose I'll check out your tips...But I'm afraid I can't afford anything right now, down to 100 bucks for the rest of the month. Guess I'll keep gaming at an absolute minimum, heh.


P.S. what are these voltage readings about (12v, 5, 3.3)? Just wondering.

EDIT: I also checked my HD temp through a program called speedfan, it gave me a 48° C as temperature. It read my CPU and mobo heat the same as the asus tool, though. But I'm suspicious of the mobo ALWAYS being 35°C. On the bright side, I got one of them CPU overheat protection thing so chances of me frying anything all at once aren't too great. It's been ages since I had an autoboot/shutdown. *touches wood*

touches wood? Don't do that around me, mister. (I think 'knocks on wood' is the phrase you're looking for)

Anyway....dude, you seriously need some case fans. Your case is running as hot as my CPU. That's pretty screwed up. You case should be a couple degrees over ambient and that's it...you can't tell me your house is at 35 celsius. I bet that's why your CPU temp is so high. Do you have spots for 80mm fans? One or two input fans (no output) would make a world of difference. My machine has two inputs on the front, one input on the side, and two outputs on the back. Not including PS fan, of course.

As for not frying your shit....you may not "FRY" it, but you're shortening component life by running it so hot. You run a higher risk of catastrophic hardware failure. So be careful and keep backups of your data.

hehe, k. In Dutch 'holding wood' exists as a proverb, hence the confusion.


And mm, it is pretty damn hot in here though. We're suffering a heat wave atm and houses here (intermediate climate, cold winters) are severely isolated so the heat stays in once it gets in. I bet in Texas where it's a lot hotter on average walls aren't isolated this much and you have airco or summit.

But that doesn't change the fact that I idd need some coolness. I could find a fan, screw off the case side and have it blow on it, that would be a start. Think just taking a panel of it (without fan) would help too? I'm just looking for short-term solutions atm, like I said I can't afford anything. (how lame is that)

I've been having probs recently that may be related, but I doubt it. Internet explorer (just that) that keeps on loading without opening, sounds like a windows problem to me. Afterwards I had a few strange startups and now windows starts up really slow. Once I'm there everything's pretty fine tho.

In any case, I'll be making backups tonight.

yea, if you have no case fans at all, take the side off. Better than what you have now. You can watch the BIOS temperature to be sure, if you want.

I checked BIOS a bit ago for temp and it gave me something that went back and forth between 32° and 46-48°. Like really from one end to the other and back, not very funny stuff.

I think something's already a goner, tbh. Since the windows explorer keeping on loading problem windows takes twice as long to load, maybe even thrice. It sucks, but I guess i knew it was coming so I can almost have a laugh over it (almost ). And I get choppy performance with my mouse, sounds, video...general slowness really.

I guess it's one of the big three: mobo, CPU or HD. I wager the latter, but meh. I'll defrag sometime and see what it does.

EDIT: wow, taking of the panel is a difference of 10° C! jesus christ...why do PC's even have panels?

Keeping the thread alive, minor question:


could my sucky use of IDE cables (ie putting several pieces of hardware on a cable that aren't supposed to go together) cause things such as

-slow-ass startup
-choppy performance
-very slow writing to disk

?


Or should I look elsewhere for frytastic things? Just that all my problems started shortly after I took out the old HD and reorganized things down there. (no, not there, I meant in the case)

shouldn't really matter too much. Typically I try to put hard drive(s) on one cable/controller and cd-roms on the other. However, you shouldn't really notice much of a slowdown unless you're ready from the CD and trying to write to the drive at the same time, and even then you may not notice much.

Oh, btw, on the case thing...in a proper case setup, you want the side of the case closed. In a proper setup, you have several input and exit fans...having the case closed improves airflow through the case from the fans...in a proper setup, taking the side off would actually increase the temperature of the CPU/video card.

However, you don't have a proper setup, so that's a moot point.

Seriously, do I need to pack up some 80mm fans and ship em to you?

Hehehe, no thanks, that won't be necessary. I'm getting paid in a week's time so I should be good for a little pc-shopping. I want to be ready for Oblivion, and I think something's gone awfully wrong on this one.

I'd like to have the new one before I start messing this one up though.