constant change of FSB

[mangojump]

does anyone know if constantly changing the FSB damages your CPU?

ie. when MSI's dynamic overclocking is turned on in bios

thanks for any help in advance!

 

[WarC]

It shouldn't. As long as the FSB doesn't go too high, to a point where the cooling on the processor is insufficient and it overheats. It shouldn't, though.

Are you having trouble with an MSI board? There have been issues dealing with faulty capacitors on some MSI boards.

 

[mangojump]

no trouble, just thought i'd squeeze some extra juice out of ma-baby, was just wondering if the dynamic overclocking will save the CPU in the longrun (only overclocking when necessary) or damage it (constant change of FSB)

the other option is just to change the FSB in BIOS and have it constanly overclocked

which do you think will be more benificial to my beloved machine?

 

[WarC]

I'm not too sure, I've never had experience with a feature that dynamically overclocks the FSB. I'd say as long as your fairly comfortable with the heatsink you have on your processor, go for the dynamic overclocking. If your not happy with the results, try it manually.

Generally if your going to see problems with the FSB speed you've chosen it will be pretty noticeable right away, either the system won't boot or instability will be apparent after running some benchmarks.

sisoft sandra and 3dmark are two pretty decent benchmark utilities. They are designed to test different things, but both will tax your system pretty heavily.

 

[mangojump]

cheers mate, i'm usin a nice shiny new Akasa AK-675(cools up to 3.4P4) on a P4 2.53 so should be alright heat-wise, although......

I have heard that the dynamic overclocking is controlled by the heat of the processor and not the actual cpu load or power consuption. and so I am a little worried that if my comp is in a warm room and left on for long periods of time (which it is) then this might lead to an exponential rise in both FSB and heat.

theres nothing in the manual that says there is any prevention against this possible problem...

think i'll do some more research into the matter, thanks for your help, keep it comin!!

 

[gotrootdude]

If your talking about the type of clocking that notebooks perform when heating up, that clocking is done by changing the multiplier, not the FSB. Most notebooks run a FSB that cannot be changed.

A high FSB can cause other components in the PC to fail, so it's important to have quality components. The majority of today's PC's allow for some sort of thermal protection for the cpu in the bios, so the cpu itself isn't what I'd personally be worried about. Be worried about your vid card and drives..

If you wish to overclock, then I'd do it continually, and use the bios' thermal protection. If it crashes, then you've got it set to high. After overclocking, you should tax the system anyway to find out where the temps are maxing out. When windows crashes due to overclocking, it shouldn't affect the protection afforded by the bios.

 

[mangojump]

thanks gotrootdude, i'm deffinitely changing the FSB not the multiplier,

i read somewhere that it helps to set the speed of the RAM at one lower than it normally runs (333Mhz instead of 400Mhz) is this to ease the strain on the RAM? does it work?

 

[gotrootdude]

Optimal performance is always when the memory speed matches that of the FSB. Although if you are getting crashes, then lowering the memory speed using the adjustments available in the bios may solve the problem.. It is true that faster ram will run at a lower speed, and normally will offer better stability at the lower speed. Although if the ram is rated for 400mhz, then it should run at 400mhz with no problems, otherwise, you got ripped off.