Okay, not long ago, I was running my Athlon FX-53 on an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum with a 13x multiplier (so it was a 200 mhz overclock) to 2.6 GHz. I recently updated the BIOS, and I've found I can hardly OC at all from the BIOS now. If I'm lucky, Windows will boot with a 12.5 multiplier. I know the half multipliers are faked, so basically I can't seem to up the multiplier at all. Now, here's the other part of it, I can overclock quite well from within Windows. Using MSI's utility CoreCenter, and Clockgen, I can get up to 13x multiplier with an FSB of 205 mhz quite stabily. I'm pretty new to OCing, so I don't know what the problem could be? Is the BIOS just f*ed up and I should report the problem and wait for a new BIOS to be released? Are there some settings I'm forgetting to turn on/off in the BIOS that really help the OCing? Please make suggestions you would consider stupid as well, cause I could be overlooking them. EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure it's unrelated to temperature or voltage, I've played around with the voltages a lot and the temperatures are really cool (at full CPU voltage, it doesn't get up to 55 C, and at regular CPU voltage it's between ambient temp and 40 C).
Id just either get hold of the older bios (and wait for a newer release) or crank up the fsb and lock the memory unless it can handle it. Have you increased the voltage at all ? Please correct me if im wrong as im a self taught computer geek and still noobish with ocing.
Yeah, overclocking did work with the old BIOS, and I have played around with voltages. I sent MSI an email about it, I don't know when/if I'll get an email back, but hopefully they were or now are aware of the problem and will make a new BIOS. I'll push the FSB to its limit, anything else you can recommend (it's not like it's a slow processor , so I have no quirks with waiting for a new BIOS)?
Yup, unless the new bios fixed something you were having a problem with go back to the one that worked.
Yeah, it actually did fix a number of things I was having problems with (I never update BIOS unless I'm having problems with something), notably for some reason I basically couldn't read anything correctly off the motherboard from Windows (speeds, temps, etc.), I'd rather wait for a new one than flash back to the old one.
Well if you wont flash back to the old ones then you can either tough it out and not oc' (or just keep doing it in windows), or start tinkering with the voltages. I'm sure if you searched for it theres some good posts on the subject already.
Yeah, I'm just not gonna OC until the next BIOS, as I said I'm not exactly unsatisfied with an FX-53 . As for voltages, yeah, I've played around and they don't affect it at all.
it was released in an article not far back (Anandtech or Toms Hardware, never sure which) that MSI sort of fudge's what it reports to Windows. Couple this to the fact that the FX series is the worst overclockers since the Celleron300, and you're setting youself up for some weird results. Chances are pretty good, that MSI's older BIOS report their fudge'd numbers to Windows and pretends to run at that speed, but when it was revealed that they were doing that, they updated the BIOS to "correct" it. I know what the BIOS and Windows are telling you, but I'd try benchmarking it in both the OC'd configuration with the old BIOS, and then the standard configuration with the new BIOS. I'll bet they won't be too far off from each other.
