# Help me overclock my IC7-MAX3



## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

Yeah Its back to the glory days with this one, please help me overclock this babe.
SPECS:
Intel Pentium 4
Windows XP Home Edition SP3 (Build 2600)
CPU Arch : 1 CPU - 1 Cores - 2 Threads
CPU PSN : Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz
CPU EXT : MMX, SSE (1, 2, 3)
CPUID : F.3.4 / Extended : F.3
CPU Cache : L1 : 12 / 16 KB - L2 : 1024 KB
Core : Prescott (90 nm) / Stepping : D0
Freq : 3007.02 MHz (200.47 * 15)
MB Brand : Abit
MB Model : IC7-MAX3(Intel i875P-ICH5)
NB : Intel i875P rev A2
SB : Intel 82801EB (ICH5) rev 02
GPU Type : ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series
GPU Clocks : Core 500 MHz / RAM 873 MHz
DirectX Version : 9.0c
RAM : 3072 MB DDR Single Channel
RAM Speed : 200.5 MHz (1:1) @ 3-4-4-8
Slot 1 : 1024MB (3200)
Slot 1 Manufacturer : PDP Systems
Slot 2 : 1024MB (3200)
Slot 2 Manufacturer : PDP Systems
Slot 3 : 512MB (4000)
Slot 3 Manufacturer : Corsair
Slot 4 : 512MB (4000)
Slot 4 Manufacturer : Corsair

BIOs/Softmenu image:
http://www.3dnews.ru/documents/7035/bios_over.jpg
http://www.meristation.com/EPORTAL_IMGS/GENERAL/hardware/IMG2-119649/overclock.gif

I've never overclocked anything before and I cant find a guide for this particular computer so if someone could please give me detailed instructions that would be awesome:tongue:

EDIT: here is my current sensor readings with factory default settings.
http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/1709/mbm5.png


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## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

I guess I can only edit once, heres more updates on the system info


550 Watt power supply.

There are 5 case fans, 1 exhaust. and 1 PCI fan

there is a northbridge fan like this:
http://img480.imageshack.us/i/jts000601ev1.jpg/

and a CPU fan that looks like this: 









the video card has the ICEQ fan like this









this is the Nzxt lexa s case: 










FAN STRUCTURE:









here is my current sensor readings with factory default settings.








after playing an hour of DIRT2 on max settings with a FPS of 13 the temperatures were mostly unchanged with a 5 degree raise on CPU


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## Aus_Karlos (Mar 10, 2007)

Your Fan system is slightly wrong. Have the two top fans extracting the air. As hot air rises it will be easier to get rid of the heat from the case and the rear fan should be extracting heat aswell.
This should reduce some heat.


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## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

heh i guess relocating my fans would be a good start


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

looking at your specs it looks like you have two different ram sppeds running at the same time. This may cause issues and you might not be able to overclock aswell as if you were running the same speed ram. Also it is generally better two have only two slots filled as having more than two filled can cause voltage problems.

Try raising the FSB by 10 MHz then save and boot into windows, theb repeat, once you have raised by 50MHz stress test for 30-60 Minutes with prime 95 whilst monitoring the temps with core temp or real temp.

Once it wont load into windows up the voltage to the next one see if it boots if not rais the voltage again.

When you have a stable voltage try raising the FSB again and repeat the steps above. Once you get an overclock your happy with stress test with prime 95 whilst monitoring the temps for atleast 6 hours.


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## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

after reading the instructions for prime95 I've decided to run stress tests on the computer before ocing to check the RAM for stability.. will update scores in 1 hour


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## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

1 hour stress test on default


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## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

ok so i attempted to increase the FSB MHz, heres what happened:
first increment went smoothly, now my cpu is reading cpu speed of 3.02ghz and no apparent temperature change.
cool, I'll continue so I go back to softmenu in bios to increase the hz by another 10 and when i go to boot it wont allow me 
where do i go from here? I'm running the cpu on 3.02ghz for the moment.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

you need to increase the voltage to the cpu that will be the vcore voltage.

Although I find it strange that you have only upped by 10MHz and that you are already needing to increase the voltage.


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## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

I increased voltage by the smallest increment possible and i got no better result. I increased it by 2x and I still got no result 
D:
I also noticed that I can only increase FSB by increments of 15, and not 10.
I've been reading into my Mobo and it's actually one of the first overclocking designed motherboards for gamers, so maybe its handicapped itself by being more complex instead of a baisic bios screen? I donno hah.
With the fail-safe settings on my CPU is still overclocked by .01GHz which is a little odd.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

I have been reading that there are issues with the AGP/PCI slot on your motherboard and it will be hampering your quest to overclock http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/motherboards/ABIT_IC7_MAX3_7.html

try manually setting the pci bus speed to 100 instead of leaving it on auto then try and see if it boots with the extra fsb increase.


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## Gack (Jan 16, 2010)

I'm beginning to get scared I might damage my computer. It appears that out that I can't overclock my mobo to the point that it would make a huge difference in gameplay. It was fun to try but I think I'm going to leave it at 3.025GHz  Thanks everyone for the help.


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