# [SOLVED] AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)



## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

So, I've been fiddling with my processor and seeing how far I can push it... I have an AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939) processor, which is 2200 MHz, 1.3 volts stock. I've overclocked it to 2813.8 MHz, 1.4 volts. I haven't adjusted anything other than the front-side bus and voltage. It's temps are 45 degrees idle and 55 degrees on load. I've gotten it to around 2950 MHz, but it wasn't what you'd call stable during stress tests... Though, the temps never got above 60 degrees, amazingly. Thanks arctic silver!!! I assumed the fsb was stressing the memory and didn't wanna mess with it, at the time... So, if anyone has overclocked this same processor, what were your results? My ultimate goal is a stable 3000 MHz! I know it's probably only a dream, but what are we if not for our dreams? I appreciate all replies and thanks in advance for your time!


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

thats a big goal for air cooling ............. I am afraid there are alot of tid bits you left out of the equation


which cpu heatsink / cooler do you have 

which make and model of ram

which motherboard make and model 

power supply make and model 

everything will need to be just right to get to 3.0ghz

have you bumped the memory voltage ?

how long have you run the stress test before you declared 2.8ghz stable ?


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Let's see...

Masscool AMD K8 Cooler Fan, but of course I'd get another if I really go for 3000 MHz. It's effective, but I'd like the added security of a higher quality cooler. Oh, with Artic Silver... Of course!

I have 2 x Patriot Memory 1 GB PSD1G333 PC2700 (running at 133 MHz, due to modified timings, 2.0-3-3-6). 

MSI RX480 Neo2-F (MS-7151)

Vision Orion Power 585 watt.

Memory voltage is unchanged at 2.5 volts.

My initial stress test was with Burn In 2008. I did a four hour stress test with accuracy check. Then (for good measure, he, he...) I ran Burn In 2008 with no accuracy check (for max temp production), Fur Mark's stability test, Video Card Stability Test, and ATI Tray Tools' artifact scanner all at the same time... Is that overkill? lol... I did that for another four hours and that's stable enough for my needs! I had something else running, but can't remember for the life of me...

Additional Notes...

HIS Hightech H165PRQT512GDDN-R Radeon X1650PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI-E x16. GPU overclocked 150 MHz, memory overclocked 100 MHz. I disassembled it and replaced the thermal paste with Artic Silver. And it has the IceQ cooler, which seems to do a fine job keeping it cool.

Vista Ultimate SP1 32bit (4.3 Windows Experience Index).

And I always use the cpu diode temp instead of cpu temp, so my temps are always a little higher, since it's reading from the core and not from around the socket... (i.e., I'm fairly idle right now and my cpu temp is 31 degrees, while my cpu diode temp is 42 degrees...) Call me paranoid, but I like to keep an eye on the hottest parts!

Case cooling... My power supply has two 80mm exhaust fans, I have three 80mm exhaust fans in the case itself, and a high air flow 120 intake fan in the front of the case. Heat has never really been a problem for me, sense I built the old pc... Ah, the memories... 

That's all the relevant (and irrelevant) info that I can think about for now... Please continue with any ideas or personal accomplishments! Thanks, again!


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

well actaully I am kind of surpised you got that far ................ impressive


you ram is economy grade and speed ............ I am confident to achieve 3.0ghz you will need to have ram capable of handling a voltage bump to 2.75 

what is your HTT multipler set at now

download cpu-z and give us a screenshot of each tab please

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245595-29-3700-224fsb


I personally would not venture past 1.5 volts on the cpu ..............

I really think some DDR-400 performance ram would help your endeavor but I dont know if spending money to achieve 200 mhz is worth the effort ................ I dont think so

what are you trying to achieve ............. better gaming or impreoved overclocking expereience ?


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Well, I'll answer your last question, first... What am I trying to achieve?... I took apart my first computer at the age of 8. By 14 I was repairing and upgrading computers for friends and family. At 19 I built my first custom PC, albeit on a tight buget. I'm 24 now, and I'm still using that PC, in fact I'm on it now and it's the PC that we're discussing, granted, it's been upgraded many, many times. But, as for your question, neither... I just enjoy the challenge of pushing my equipment to the depths of their potential... I know it may sound kinda dumb, but it's a hobby and one that I love deeply.

Patriot ram is economy, but I believe it could handle the voltage. I have upped the voltage before, but just to see how far it could go, that was a year or so ago and I'm not sure how high I went. I'll have to check, later on. I do intend to get some better ram... I was looking at some corsair xms, a while back and I've always trusted corsair's products. In fact I have their flash drive that comes in the aluminum tube... It's awesome... I even washed it one time and it still works fine. 

Bus speed is 255.8 MHz, multiplier is 11.0, and the HT Link is 1279.0 MHz. As you can see, I upped the bus to increase the core speed.

I've used CPU-Z for a few years now. It's one of my favorite tools and great for quick system info. I'll upload the screenshots in my next post. 

I believe that you're right about not going past 1.5 volts. I'm at 1.4, now. When I went to 2950 MHz, I was at 1.45... I'm hopeful that I could get that extra 50 MHz at 1.45... It's just the stability issues... I may up the ram voltage a little and see if I can push it...

In short, the only reason that I want to get to 3000 MHz, isn't for the 800 MHz, but for the gratification of being able to do it. My performance is fine. Take Far Cry 2 for example. On very high settings, my fps is 22 outside. On normal, it's 31 fps... Both are very playable for me. I just wanna say I was able to do it! I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say. Thanks again for the help. If anyone has any other ideas or experiences, then don't be shy, speak up!


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Here's the screenshots:

View attachment 42782

View attachment 42783

View attachment 42784

View attachment 42785

View attachment 42786


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Sorry about the post above. I thought if I attached them, it would show the images, but I've fixed that problem... Here they are. Sorry for the quality, I reduced them to save on bandwidth.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

well; I understand your mission


bump the memory voltage to 2.75

cpu volts to 1.5

drop your HTT one notch ....... I suspect you are on "5" (fsb # x 5????)

drop that to "4"


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Bus speed is 255.8 MHz, multiplier is 11.0, and the HT Link is 1279.0 MHz



you want to avoid exceeding 1000 by much at all ................. drop your HTT multiplier to 4X


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Sorry, it's been a couple of days, but I've been having some problems... First got the bsod IRQL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS. Now I have random boots. Sometimes it'll happen while booting up, sometimes after everything is up and running for a few minutes or even hours... Sometimes, it doesn't even reboot, but freezes, which could indicate many things. The processor temps and usage are fine, so I doubt it's that, since I've been running at this frequency for over a month. Could be some flaky memory, but it's not related to the usage, as I only use around half at any time. Maybe my radeon's being pushed to hard. Then again, maybe it's my power supply breathing it's last breath... Regardless, I've got a lot of troubleshooting to do, and not much free time to do it. So, I'll time this time to thank you, linderman, for your time and effort. It seems that whenever I post a problem or question you're among the first to answer, so thank you! If you happen to come across an idea, that I already don't have about my current problem, feel free to post it in this thread, as I'll try to check in every day or so. Thanks again, linderman! Later... And wish me luck!


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

good luck isolating your problem ...............


test your memory first ....... with memtest 86 (free) only test with one stick of memory at a time .......... two hours per stick 


keep us posted with your progress


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Alright, memory's fine... I booted it up today and it failed to start, because hal.dll was missing... I'm beginning to wonder if a virus got past my anti-virus, hardware firewall, and software firewall... Stranger things have happened... The PC started up on the second try, strangely enough... I haven't began to troubleshoot this one, which is what I'm about to do, so I don't have any thoughts as of now... I'll keep you posted.


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Ok... I thought about the hal.dll issue and decided to run system file checker. It came back fine, so that's not a problem... Still thinking maybe virus or spyware, so running thorough virus scan and spyware scan...


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

Ok, now something even stranger... It just crashed while running a virus scan and i rebooted and noticed that everest wasn't showing my temps... I went in the preferences and checked to make sure they were checked, but they weren't even there... Maybe there's a problem with everest, or maybe my processor's giving up... This is getting very confusing... I'm gonna drop my overclock back down to 2.6... I've been running at 2.8 for over a month and my temps are fine, but it's the only thing I can think of at this point...


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

you may need to perform a win xp "repair" install to correct the HAL.dll problem (hardware abstract layer)


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

The hal.dll problem seemed to be a one time thing... I have windows vista ultimate 32 bit... I dropped my processor clock to 2.6 and my temps are back in everest... that's one of the strangest things I've seem in a while... I'm gonna run it like this for a couple days and see if it's stable... well, so much for my 3.0 dream... lol, maybe after I do another round of upgrading... wish me luck!


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*



> well, so much for my 3.0 dream.


dont blow up your rig trying to squeeze the lemon too hard. be happy with what you accomplished.


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

lol, yeah... i'll just start on my new rig soon... this one's getting old, anyway... maybe i can get a processor to 4.0!!!  Just kidding... Thanks for all your help. I'm running anti-spyware, now, then anti-virus, then i'll stress it and let you know what happens.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

actually the E8500 or E8600 ...... will get to 4.4 / 4.5 ghz ROFL


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## chrispm84 (Mar 28, 2008)

*Re: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego S939)*

I'm not really an intel fan... I've always been the guy that supports the underdogs... What would happen if amd went under?... It's a scary thought... right now amd is intel's only "real" competition... In fact I got very worried after they acquired ati... that was a bad decision at the time, but they've been doing a pretty good job, so let's hope that they stay up and running for a long time. I'm sure you know, but the main reason I'm a fan of amd is their shorter pipelines... less frequency, but a lot more efficient... I may just get a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 939 to hold me over, til I build my next rig, which won't be too long, I hope... As for my problem, the decrease to 2.6 seems to have fixed the problem... I don't think it's the processor. The processor is usually the last thing to fail on a pc. At least that's been my experience with building, upgrading, and repairing many pcs. Probably it had something to do with my why too high HTT... I knew better, but my board doesn't allow me to modify the HTT... Maybe I'll get a DFI board for my next build, I'll have to look into it and see if they support amds, which I'm sure they do... Anyway, thanks for all your time and effort. If you ever need anything, just ask! Have a good one, I'm sure you'll see me when I try to get my AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 939 to 3.0... just kidding... lol! Later!


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

hey............. thanks for a great discussion ........ I enjoyed that ray::wave:


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