PIII's loosing steam over time???

[Yomama]

On the overclockers website there was a similar posting exploring this item in November. I have not heard much more about this phenomenon, but may be with this thread we can reopen the discussion.

I have a retail PIII700 CB0 stepping. When I bought it in July, it would go up to 1035, and make 1GHz easily and stable, although it required about 1.9V to do that. I am thinking that 1.9V is not a problem as long as you also provide the chip with sufficient cooling - in my case the Alpha PAL 6035, and even in summer in a not air conditioned house, the chip temps did not exceed 44C.

Well it turns out that the chip seems to slowly deteriorate. In November, despite the fact that ambient temperatures had dropped quite a bit (from the 80s to the 60s), I could only run it at 980 reliably, and now I am down to 966, still at 1.9V. Albeit this is a drop of merely 5MHz in the FSB, it concerns me.

Of course I am looking for explanations and a possible cure/prevention. So far electromigration may be a suitable explanation - rather than sudden death, do certain chip structures get "worn down" by applying too much voltage/temperature?

I welcome any inputs on this topic.

Yo

[Tim-]

One thing that can have an affect is the thermal grease used on the cpu die. Some types dry out over time and their efficiency gets poor. Have a peek under the heatsink and see.

[Yomama]

I will do that - but it is unlikely to be the heatsink compound - otherwise the CPU temperature would have gone up. My CPU temperature actually went down from about 44C to 38 or 39C.

Thank you for your response though

Yo

[rebel]

I've got a similar problem, but 4 no reason today it went back 2 original speeds, interested in any solutions u might find cheers

[DaveB]

Not in my experience. I've been running a PIII 700 SL45Y cB0 FC-PGA on my Soyo SY-6BA+IV board since June. I ran it at 970 MHz till October, and at 994 MHz since. The CPU has always been totally stable. The core has been at 1.95V since I upped it to 994 MHz in October.

I do run Rain 2.0 though. It really relieves the stress on the CPU when you're not doing much. Right now the CPU temp is at 19C while I'm typing this. The Alpha PEP66 and Arctic Silver themal compound doesn't hurt either.

[Yomama]

I am constantly cracking SETI units, so my CPU really gets stressed all the time. Rain would either slow it down or do nothing.

[Yomama]

Bump

[SpeeDj]

Yo (Jan 19, 2001 06:48 p.m.):
I am constantly cracking SETI units, so my CPU really gets stressed all the time. Rain would either slow it down or do nothing.

I would have to disagree with that, I run seti, fold@home and Rain and rain does not hinder the performance at all. I am actually able to report a much more stable system by using rain on a constant basis. I would highly reccomend it.

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

Hey speeddj, most cmos clear jumpers are usualy neer the cmos itself..and will usualy say "clear" or "clr".
I hope this helps

[Canadian Mafia]

This happened to a friend of mine with an Athlon 700 at 1ghz. He found that by disabling the cache it would run at that speed. He then ran it at 700 for a week and slower worked up to 1Ghz. To my knowledge it has been running at that speed since.

[Yomama]

SpeeDj (Jan 22, 2001 04:43 p.m.):

I would have to disagree with that, I run seti, fold@home and Rain and rain does not hinder the performance at all. I am actually able to report a much more stable system by using rain on a constant basis. I would highly reccomend it.

Can you quantify your findings? How fast was seti b4 rain and after, and how high were your temps b4 and after?

Thanks

Yo