Asus M2N-E

[Methious]

Hey I just got A:

Asus M2N-E with an AMD 4200 X2

I'm looking for an OC from 2.2 to about 2.6 I'm not really interested in stretching the envelope, just a decent stable overclock in the 2.5 to 2.6 range.
For cooling I have a Media PC Ice Tank backed by a 120 mm thermaltake exhaust fan. At 2.2 under load I've never seen it over 33C. Probably because i have 2 120 mm, front pulling in cool air, back pushing it out.

My rigs specs are below in detail.

I know it's not the best MB, and the ram is lacking, I'll be replacing the ram soon, and i have a 3800 x2 to put on the board when I sell it lol.
I got through about 4 puters a year.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[geokilla]

Whatever new RAM you get, make sure that the RAM can operate at 1.95V or under since that's the highest vdimm the BIOS allows.

As for overclocking, it's stuff like lower RAM multiplier/divider, slowly raise HT bus, then when it's unstable increase the vcore little by little. Be sure to lock the PCI-E frequency and to change the Hypertransport from 5X to 4X. I think that's the main stuff you need to know.

To test the system for stability, run Orthos for around 15 min everytime you raise the HT bus, then once you found a good overclock that you like, run Orthos for 24 hours, then run Memtest.

I think that's it. Hope the others can help as well.

[Methious]

Whatever new RAM you get, make sure that the RAM can operate at 1.95V or under since that's the highest vdimm the BIOS allows.

As for overclocking, it's stuff like lower RAM multiplier/divider, slowly raise HT bus, then when it's unstable increase the vcore little by little. Be sure to lock the PCI-E frequency and to change the Hypertransport from 5X to 4X. I think that's the main stuff you need to know.

To test the system for stability, run Orthos for around 15 min everytime you raise the HT bus, then once you found a good overclock that you like, run Orthos for 24 hours, then run Memtest.

I think that's it. Hope the others can help as well.

Appreciate the advice, I thought I looked and hypertransport wouldn't go any lower than 5x, will look again as we have virtually the same mobo/cpu. I just did an upgrade yesterday (lightscribe, 320 gig sata, and went from a 3800 x2 to a 4200 x2) so i'm letting it seat before I tinker. I only went to the 4200 cause it came in a puter I got free (gotta love that), the old 3800 I had cranked to 2.5 G running at 33C at idle. Today I kinda wasted after I finishd fixing a couple puters I half lifed the afternoon away lol.

Appreciate it dude thanks!

[Methious]

Well I finally set down and tinked with the settings and achieved a 2.2 to 2.5 stable overclock on the Asus M2N-E 4200 x2.

CPU 238 X 11 (multiplier) (Wonder is 250 X 10 would give any differences?)
FSB 238 (obviously)
Vcore 1.3125
Mem Volt 1.9
Idle temp 32C
Torture temp 49C
Air Cooling w/icetank

Will Post CPU-Z after while.

Appreciate the help, tips and reads. Went to 2.5 no problem even with cruddy ram. Orthos/Memtest stable 8 hours, might try for a little higher later on.

Laters

[Zertz]

Did you drop the HT link to 4x ? If not, that's probably what's holding you.

[Methious]

Yea I dropped HT to 4, nothing really stopped me I was aiming for 2.5 - 2.6, well nothing stopped me except my better half came home lol. Under full dual core load I was running 49-50C (both cores 100% utilized) so under normal use I could go higher cause your really not going to see 100% except stress testing. I'm gonna let it run a day or two, play Half Life 2 Orange box a little and see how it runs before I step it up any.

I'm running cruddy ram right now (Transcend) so pushing it much past where I am might be a trick.