Overclocking Memory?

[Bob The Great]

ok. The words that pop into my head when I think of overclocking memory is "fire fire fire"!

But really. Can it be done? I have pc-100 mem (1-64mb no warrenty 1-128 mb stick lifetime warrenty). My motherboard has seperate bus speeds for my CPU and mem (I currently have a P-3 @ 133 and my mem @ 100).

If it can be done.
1. Should I? I was thinking of taking my non warrentied stick out. Would the speed increase make losing 64Mbs worth it?
2. Would my lifetime warrenty cover spontanius combustion from overclocking?
3. Would it speed stuff up much?

Thanks!

[Jason Crowell]

If your BIOS supports it, then you can speed up the system bus speed. Since the CPU multiplier multiplies the system bus to get the CPU speed, it will speed up the CPU too.

It will heat things up though, so make sure you have adequate ventilation, and do it in small steps.

1) Unless you get some truly amazing overclocking done, leave the 64 MB stick in.
2) Overclocking usually voids warranties, so that won't help if your computer does a remake of "The China Syndrome".
3) Yes, even if you just get a little bit out of it.

[Bob The Great]

I currently have a double fan heatsink on my CPU, two case fans blowing in, and my power supply blowing all the hot air out. Should I pop in another fan? Or am I cool (heh)?

What I would be doing is incresing the memorys BUS speed from 100Mhz to 133. Right?

For the cooling problem. I'll just leave the heater off and open all my windows! What's a little loss of vital funtions for a fast computer! heh

Thanks!

[tkray]

It really depends on your motherboard. A lot of the new ones support independent adjustment of bus speeds for memory, cpu, and the pci bus. You should check you documentation if possible to confirm this. I have a stick of Kingston 128MB pc100 that runs fine at 133. I also have a generic stick of 256MB pc100 that doesn't boot at 133.

[radman3d2]

Get Sandra, at least it well tell you the specs on your ram. http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10102-108-35399.html?tag=st.dl.10102.upd.10102-108-35399

I have PC100 also, 2 64Meg that well go to 124MHZ and 2 64Meg that well only go to 100MHz.

[bjfelger]

PC100 RAM is almost always viable, in worst case scenarios, up to 112 MHz.

Better to get PC133 RAM and underclock it. For one thing, underclocked PC133 is more reliable than PC100 RAM run at the recommended clock speed. It's also cheap as dirt now.

For the guy who got his PC100 RAM up to 133... what brand did you use? That's quite a meaty DIMM stick!

-- BJ Felger

[giant69]

Im running PC100 RAM in my system at 133 FSB with no problems. Its Crucial brand, CAS 3. My machine will boot at 140 but wont load Windoze 2k. I guess its time to get some 133 so I can go up to 150 (hopefully)!
My specs,
Abit BE-6 (1st version)w/latest BIOS
P-III 550 @ 733 1.6v with GORB H/S-Fan combo
2 x 128 Crucial PC-100
Guillemot Geforce 256
Soundblaster Live!
Toshiba 12x DVD
H.P. 9110 8x4x32 Burner
Im pretty happy with the performance but I feel with better RAM that I can hit 800 with this thing!! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

[Bob The Great]

Ok my ram specs are 1x128 Mb cl3 upto 100Mhz
1x64 cl3 upto 125Mhz. I'm guessing the 64Mb flys and the other one fries. Right?

Also. My motherboard is kinda stange. It does most of the settings itself. Like it atomaticly sets the best voltage for your CPU. Kinda nice. But kinda not. If you really want to mess with the settings. So when you say to speed it up a little. The only settings I have are 66-100-133. Should I pop it into overdrive and see what happens or just work on my video card?

[tkray]

I listed it in the post, Kingston Value ram, pc100/128MB, runs stable @133.