1700+ & General Comments

Hi all

I just have a couple of comments so i thought id post - Ive been lurking in the background reading and thought it was time to dive in and ask a few questions of my own

Anyways on with the main post.

I had a Vantec Aeroflow, a pretty good Cooler yeah? Well it was letting my CPU temp reach 62*c load. I took it off and re-applied the Arctic Silver many times - It didn’t help. I even bought Arctic Ceramique and that didn’t bring things down much either.

I have 5 case fans. A large case (Antec Plusview 1000AMG) and I have tidied and tidied the cables until I can’t tidy them anymore.

I recently bought an SLK-800 with a Tt Smartfan II (at great expense i might add) and that’s running at full speed. My temp is currently at 56*c (Im running HOT CPU TESTER in the background for about 2hrs) according to mainboard monitor which is rather higher than what HMONITOR and other programs have reported but… hmm. Anyhow. What am I to do? Ive changed CASE’s twice to lower temps and yeah I am running 2.49ghz @ 1.9v but with 5 case fans, an SLK-800 and a FULL SPEED SmartFAN II sat on it, should I really be getting 56-57*c load???

I don’t want to slow my PC down, but I don’t want to have a CPU that last’s 2 months either. Suggestions? Apart from buying a firearm and putting it out of its misery? Im currenty trying to get 2.5ghz, i know 2.49 is close but i want to be on the nose . Not having much luck though so far though dispite my best efforts

One last thing, to people who have had a CPU die on them had it take anything else with it as well? Just wondering if the worse came to the worse and my CPU did give it up that it wouldnt take anything else expensive with it like the mainboard lol.

Ta

- Rob

Non brand name power supply is what takes your components out, not CPU.

Did you Prime95 Torture test that overclock?

Two schools on voltage.

1. Highest 1.8x V
2. Say it's OK to go higher.

People post that their systems can't OC as high as they used to when they do more than 1.8x on permanent bases with air.

What are your temps with lower Vcore?

What is the case temp (not cpu), you have fans blowing in from the front and out the back, right?

Finally, full specs please....

_____________________
2100+ AIUHB 0248 MPMW
256MB Crucial PC2100 + 2x 256MB Kingston (Hynix chip) PC2100 @ 6 3 3 2
[152] FSB x 15 = 2280 MHz @ 1.8 Vcore with memory frequency at 100% [152] @ 2.77 Vdimm
37(min) C to 46(max) C Winter ; 42(min) C to 50(max) C Summer
Epox 8RDA+
Thermalright SK-7 with variable speed 80x25mm YS-Tech FD1281259B-2F
BFG GeForce4 Ti4200 8X 128MB; Antec SX-835II case ; 350W Antec SmartPower SL350
Five 80x25mm Ultra Quiet 18CFM Case Fans (NMB C3110KL-04W-B19)

Ah good point, i thought id added my signature on this forum which always has my specs in. Anyway here they are. Always helpful lol.


XP 1700+ (DL3TC,JIUHB)
Thermalright SLK-800A w/ Tt SmartFan2
1x512Mb Corsair XMS3200
Abit NF7-S v2.0 (Iceberq on N/B & HeatSink on SB)
Sapphire Radeon 9600Pro, Overclocked too 561/708 (Iceberq4 & RAM Sinks)
Antec PlusView 1000AMG w/ 5 LED Case Fan's
450w Antec SmartPower DualFAN PSU
Windows XP Professional SP1

I have 2 fans at the front drawing air in, one on the side panel drawing air in (onto the mainboard and graphics card) and 2 at the back expelling it. My case temps are 33*c or less. Im just testing out 2.5Ghz @ 1.93v at the moment and its @ 55*c (200mhz fSB). With lower vcore well lowest ive seen it was about 36*c but i really havent spent any great time @ 1.4Ghz. It was basically 'Test CPU works' 'Overclock the ****e out of it'

That vantec was giving me those temps @ 2.42Ghz at 1.85v btw.

As for prime. I dont use Prime95 anymore, so no i have no idea if its stable on that. I tested it with Hot CPU Tester for 2hrs and it was fine (i will try it in 3dmark and games too when im happy with the initial numbers). I only play games mainly with this system you see - Nothing critical. I personally dont care if Prime95 fails or pass's though as ive had Prime95 pass and then 3dmark fail and vice versa. IMO prime95 is suspect for a stability test but thats just my 2c

As for the voltage... yes ive had mixed opinions in the past. Ive seen people tell me temps kill CPU's - not voltages. They run at 2.0v+ quite happily. Then ive seen the no more than 1.85v crowd. I personally just want to sort the fact from the fiction finally.

Here's what is likely to happen if you Prime95 Torture test for 12 hours:
(you'll probably fail)
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=225246

Running 2.x Vcore on permanent bases is simply not a good idea no matter what anyone tells you.

lol yeah ive already seen the 24hrs or Prime95 crowd Ive had Prime95 pass a few hours fine. Then 3dmark bomb out instantley. Then have Prime95 fail after a few mins and 3dmark go fine. Hot CPU Tester does some kind of prime testing and im sorry i just dont personally trust Prime95's results. I mean if you upgrade from an older version u can suddenley find yourself unstable where the previous version primed for hours.... nah thanks. Incidentally id never run prime for 12hrs lol, my system isnt even on for that length of time.

My idea of stable = it plays games.

Like i said im not too fussed about prime95

OK your opinions are certainly respected, good luck with "if it plays games - it's stable" theory.

If your system is stable enough for what you want to do, then have fun with it. However, calling Prime95 "suspect for a stability test" is unwarranted.

Prime95 does very precise floating point calculations and it is a very well-coded program. If none of your computers can pass a Prime95 stability test that just means you don't have any stable computers; it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Prime.

Many people here have overclocks that can't run a Prime TT for very long, so no one's going to tell you that you have a lousey machine. However, I would strongly recommend that you not participate in any projects like Folding, SETI, or GIMPS if your computer can't run Prime95 indefinitely.

Your idea of stable gets you a corrupted hard drive. Have a happy reformat.

NookieN said:

If your system is stable enough for what you want to do, then have fun with it. However, calling Prime95 "suspect for a stability test" is unwarranted.

Prime95 does very precise floating point calculations and it is a very well-coded program. If none of your computers can pass a Prime95 stability test that just means you don't have any stable computers; it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Prime.

Many people here have overclocks that can't run a Prime TT for very long, so no one's going to tell you that you have a lousey machine. However, I would strongly recommend that you not participate in any projects like Folding, SETI, or GIMPS if your computer can't run Prime95 indefinitely.

Click to expand...

Hmmm well thats just my personal opinion on it - I dont feel its unwarrented and im not calling Prime95 suspect because none of my machines can pass the tests. On the contry im calling it suspect because when i CAN pass the tests for hours at a time i can run 3dmark or start up a game and get a nice reset. Prime95 is great at testing just one part of a system, and again, IMO, not giving the whole story. I dont participate in ANY folding projects, if i did then things like 24hrs of Prime95 would be important to me. I prefer (as a full stability test) HOT CPU TESTER which has its own Prime cacluation test.

"Prime Test

Finds first 10,000 prime numbers. This Module is very CPU intensive and is very useful for finding mathematical flaws and errors, and specially, for testing overclocked CPU, and/or maximizing heat production. "

My system is for gaming - Thats it. I know when ive gone too far because HOT CPU Tester fails after 6-60mins.

Originally posted by Lithan
Your idea of stable gets you a corrupted hard drive. Have a happy reformat.

Click to expand...

Urrrm no it doesn't. Not that it matters as i usually reinstall monthy anyhow. But thanks for the informative input.

Aside from the Prime95 debate, one thing to try when pushing your CPU _that_ high, is may be pick up a Vantec Tornado. Use it on your heatsink and you should see dramatically lower temps over the SF2. And, yes it is F R E A K I N L O U D!!! But this will give you a chance to find how high you can possibly go on air.

One thing to keep in mind - when you are changing heatsink fans back and forth, may be re-apply the AS3 just in case. Some people use Tornado's for benchmarking/testing and go back to a SF2 for daily use.

Well thats what im doing mainly - im trying to get the best 3dmark in my GPU class. So that means going all the way on the CPU (which incidentally was bought from a store PRE-TESTED to 2.4ghz at least) and so Prime95 passing or failing is the last on my mind. If its good enough to get through an hour or so of HOT CPU TESTER then its good enough to run 3DMARK without any fear of instability induced artifically lower scores.

Im looking for a 24/7 overclock in the background of this. However for my longterm overclock i wont be using anything less than 2.4ghz and that still produces temps in the 50's at load. Which confuses me greatley.

toast > prime95. toast makes my cpu a good 5° hotter than prime, says a thing or two.

Making a CPU run hotter doesn't mean it can detect problems. Prime does stress a CPU and it will detect errors in its calculations. Toast just runs in an endless loop with some ASM commands that make the chip run very hot, same goes for CPU Burn. Which I have, and also have the source code for it. Its just a loop. Doesn't say anything really

I can't stop laughing every time I see XJ's avatar.

Ahh that wonderful night after a few too many at the pub. Eh, XJ?

I know why you are running hot, because you are running 1.9 Vcore. With my air set-up I don't go above 1.8Vcore. It's just asking for problems.