Athlon XP 2500+ question

[VM0824]

I've had this processor for a few years now. replaced the stock fan and heatsink with ones from newegg here. I started researching overclocking it lately. being its 1.84 is not very flattering in todays 3.x. so i dont know the first thing about overclockin a processor except that in the research i've done i hear its a very good processor to overclock. a couple of sites told me that i should up the fsb a few mhz at a time, and take a temperature check. btw i believes its 133fsb X 11 stock. i downloaded CPUCool for temperature reference. i was shocked when it sed my stock 2500 with the bigger newer fan was runnin at 55C . and over 60C with load. so even in open air with my room fan on it its still 45C idle. so my questions are

1. y is my cpu so hot and how can i cool it
2. what do i need to do to overclock it (specifics if possible, im not up to speed with this cpu type stuff)

im hopin that CPUCool is just not accurate because as far as i know that is runnin really hot.

thx
Vincenzo

[peat moss]

Is it the Barton core ?

[zapjb]

Imo thats normal. My 2500 Barton is 48C. Ambient temp is 26C.

[Skillian]

My old Barton 2500+ ran at 57C under load for 2/3 years, at overclocked speeds too.

May be a little warm, but it shouldn't really give you any problems.

As for OCing, the first thing you'll want is some RAM that'll go up to 200 Mhz, so you can run the CPU and RAM at the same FSB. Then it's just a case of upping the FSB and seeing how far it'll go.

Lots of Bartons will go up to 3200+ speeds. I ran mine stable for years at 190 FSB, can't remember what speed that made the CPU tho.

[VM0824]

yea its the barton. but yours almost hit 60C with overclockin. mines stock and its still that hott.

[clocker]

VM, you have a couple of issues to deal with and one big decision to make.

The decision is how much effort/money do you want to sink into an obsolete platform.
SocketA is history and successfully OCing your chip is going to require resources you may want to devote to a platform upgrade.

If you decide to continue, the first thing you'll need is a better heatsink- that Spire is only marginally better than the stock AMD unit.

You did not mention what motherboard you're running...that may have to be upgraded as well to carry forward.

The biggest project will be optimising your case to deal with the extra heat that OCing will produce.
Simply slapping in a HSF just don't cut it.

There is a real domino effect that occurs should you decide to pursue this avenue- a better HSF requires better case cooling, the more you OC the better your PSU needs to be and you may have to upgrade the mobo to even begin the process.

How serious do you want to get?

[Virtualbody1234]

The Barton 2500+ was well known to overclock from the stock FSB of 333 MHz to 400 MHz (gets detected as a 3200+).

It was also capable to do so with the stock cooler but the case had to have very good airflow and still ran quite hot (55°C).

Some motherboards were known to report 10°C higher than actual temps. Gigabyte mobos come to mind.

[Skillian]

Like I say, my overclock was stable for 2-3 years, and the only expense I had was a fan adapter to stick a 80mm fan on top of the stock heatsink. This was with a crappy generic PSU and a case with truly horrible airflow.

As for effort, I just whacked up the FSB, tested for stability and that was all the work I did for its lifetime.

This is hardly the recommended way to OC, as people like Clocker will tell you, but it worked for me (as in, I got the extra performance and no reliability issues).

It is kind of an obsolete platform, so I'd say just go for it - or at least try it before you spend loads on expensive cooling and power etc. It's unlikely you'd kill your computer, but it would be a nice excuse to upgrade if you did.

edit: it does appear you're having a few more cooling issues than I did, so it might not be so simple for you. Just thought I'd relate my experience withat same CPU tho.

[VM0824]

i pulled my computer away from the wall and it cooled about 5 degress to about 55C load. all my sys info is attached to my first post. its a dxdiag file and a cpuz file. i guess if its gonna cost money like this to OC i might as well upgrade like clocker sed. but i dont want a 64bit or dual core thing. so ill probably still with sempron. anybody know a good mobo?

[Virtualbody1234]

Why do you want to upgrade? What is the intended use for this PC?


If you decide to upgrade, why don't you want 64bit?

They run perfectly in 32bit mode also.

And great prices: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ice=&maxPrice=