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Mike360000
03-28-01, 03:44 AM
I just purchased a 1 gig slot P-3 Sat. Retail box. Put it in Abit BE6-2 mobo and oc'ed to 1140. Would do 1170 and run Windows until I played a game of Uneal T. After about 1 round I got either a freeze frozen screen, no control or I got thrown back to desktop. What is that a sign of? My V card will handle these speeds cause I have had it above this b4.) 1140 was where my computer ran stable without problems during long games of UT. Temps, at 1160 never went above 41C, that I noticed, so the processor stayed cool.

1st problem running at 1140, I noticed that my drives,
especially my LS-120 was real slow and unresponsive. Then noticed my Firewire ports were not working. Checked all the numbers and found my PCI buss was low, 1/4 divider equalling 28.5 mhz. Went to a 1/3 divider and got a 38 mhz PCI buss speed.

I had upped my Vcore voltage to 1.75 volts hoping that would help. It didn't. I am still running Vcore at either 1.75 or 1.8 v. Processor stays just about as cool.

Wooe was me! Started getting Checksum errors. Crashed my computer several times before I got a handle on it! Lost my CD Rom drives and had to reinitialize my BIOS several times. Figured my PCI buss was too high at 38 mhz.

Back to 1140 and 114 fsb speed divided by 1/4, still no go on my LS and Firewire. Although the Firewire card and LS drive did behave at 115 fsb.

This got me to thinking. The processor running extremely cool, but the L2 cache would not be cooled much from the stock Intel heatsink and fan. 1st question I wondered about; Was the L2 cache overheating causing my problems after a certain time in UT?

I had an AMK 2X60 heatsink ordered. I thought maybe it was a good idea to put it on the 1 gig and see if that helped my computer become more stable at 1150. ALL I needed was 1 more mhz of fsb speed!

AMK came today. 1st I tried to remove the factory pins by using a small screw and pushing the pins out as described at Overclocking.com. I didn't have much luck trying this as it seemed to take *much* more pressure than I was willing to put on the pins to remove them. I have a fairly well equipped shop, so I drilled out the pins on a drill press. Was another way described to remove them, if one had the nerve. I had more nerve using the drill press than excerting all the hand pressure it would require to remove those nasty pins!

Anyway I didn't have any problems drilling out the pins. I never touched a thing with the drill bit, other than the pins themselves!

I removed the tape from the AMK and applied some Radio Shack thermal compound and mounted the heatsink to the processor. Good

All that is left is to install all this back into the computer. No problem!

Fire up the computer expecting it to start Windows at 1140 with 1/4 divider. It gets to Windows and hangs! It did it a second time.

Huum; What's wrong here? It ran fine b4!

I'm getting nervous! Did I kill my processor with some static electricity? I kept myself grounded while working with the processor. Constantly touching a nearby grounded copper water pipe.

I drop my oc'ing back 110 and do a 1/3 divider! Windows starts in safe mode! I immediately restart in real mode.

My 2nd question is a real killer; What is going on here?
After 2 hours testing different oc'ing combos, I find the best my processor will now do is 1100 with a 1/3 divider.

Problems showed up on starting Windows, 1 checksum error, 1 scan disk error, hangs, blank screens! The checksum error I understood, PCI 2 far out of time, at 1120, 112/4 for a 28mhz PCI speed. However I also got a Windows Protection fault at startup trying 115/4 for 28.75 PCI buss speed! Now this was the speed wanted, as both LS drive & Firewire card would work here!

Frustrating! Put on a new and better heatsink and fan and then get less performance!??!
Was I right in assuming what I did about the L2 cache?

Any comments?

Mike Lamb

markedmundb
03-28-01, 12:55 PM
Hmm, interesting problem.

Firstly the L2 cache on all p/// 1Ghz (even the slottie type) is on the CPU, just like a CuMine FCPGA one.

Did you ensure that the CPU was clean of Intel's thermal goop, before you put yours on (Rubbing Alcohol or Acetone is a good cleaner)?

Did you put too much goop on?

Is the Contact between CPU and Sink tight?

I'm thinking it's probly heat-transfer related. After removal of the Sink and replacement I had problems getting my old Celly to run at 850. The most I could get was 83FSB to Windows (BH6 board). I removed the sink, wiped the coating of Silver goop off the Sink, replaced it on the CPU (CPU maintained it's coating of goop), and it fired up at 850.

Too bad on your peripherals flaking out... What brand are they so I can avoid them in future?

Daniel ~
03-28-01, 09:50 PM
Moved post to "Intel CPUs" I think you question will get more play there.":O}

Mike360000
03-28-01, 10:59 PM
Hi'ya Mark,
I thought I had read that it was better to have the whole slot card cooled instead of just the processor? Anyway the AMK heatsink had slots in its' base for air to blow through to keep the rest of the slot card cool. My thinking was, that maybe it was something on the slot card heating up enuff to cause the hangs.

I did clean the processor off with alcohol and q-tips. Came quite clean. And nope I didn't put much thermal paste on, actually less than was on it.

The only thing I did notice about installing the new heatsink, was it Didn't fit as tight as any heatsink I had previously put on.(I have put on a dozen or so.) Yet I thought the fit tight enuff because the heatsink didn't move around. (Also the temps now read about 12C than with the oem heatsink.)

Another thing I noticed was the slot processor with the AMK heatsink DOES NOT actually latch into the Abit board's slot arms. The processor is just stuck in the slot. I wouldn't think this would matter though.

Concerning your BH6; How tight was your connections? Before and after your problems?
(Heatsink on processor.)

As for my peripheals devices, I have an Actiontec Firewire Card and a Mitsubishi
LS-120 drive. However I would think that
a + or - variance of 5 mhz buss speed is pretty good.

Today I found out that I can't run UT at 1110mhz (real bummer backwards.) It now hangs towards the end of a match. This again appears to mean that something is heating up over time. Also I have had problems booting up into Windows running at 1120mhz. Currently running 1110mhz. Had to turn the voltage back up to 1.8v. Still got to try UT at this speed and voltage, 1110mhz.

I am seriously considering removing, cleaning and reinstalling my heatsink though. As that is about all there is to try.

I will add one other thing. In all the heatsink/fan combos I have ever installed, I have NEVER had the first one to gain me any extra speed over what was already installed! Only thing I have ever gained is *some* lower temps, under *some* conditions.

Cheers,
Mike Lamb



markedmundb (Mar 28, 2001 12:55 p.m.):
Hmm, interesting problem.

Firstly the L2 cache on all p/// 1Ghz (even the slottie type) is on the CPU, just like a CuMine FCPGA one.

Did you ensure that the CPU was clean of Intel's thermal goop, before you put yours on (Rubbing Alcohol or Acetone is a good cleaner)?

Did you put too much goop on?

Is the Contact between CPU and Sink tight?

I'm thinking it's probly heat-transfer related. After removal of the Sink and replacement I had problems getting my old Celly to run at 850. The most I could get was 83FSB to Windows (BH6 board). I removed the sink, wiped the coating of Silver goop off the Sink, replaced it on the CPU (CPU maintained it's coating of goop), and it fired up at 850.

Too bad on your peripherals flaking out... What brand are they so I can avoid them in future?

DocClock aka MadClocker
03-29-01, 05:14 AM
Could be that your new heatsink needs to be lapped, (smoothed) there are tips on lapping somewhere on the main page, I think, and Ditto what the other person said

Mike360000
04-08-01, 02:52 AM
OK I think I got everything going, finally.

Lot going on that kept me from posting back earlier.

First, found out my LS drive wouldn't work properly with my Kenwood 72X or Plexy 10x12x32. Got the LS drive working on 2nd IDE port as master. Still my statements about buss speeds holds true. Found out my Firewire card was sensitive to voltage and wouldn't work over the default. It to is still bound by the same buss speed resrtictions. The good part is they are both working correctly/dependably now.

I did remove, clean and reinstall my AMK heatsink. This time however I bent the clip to make a tighter fit. This is where I gained my original oc'ing speeds back, and matter-of-fact, I am now running very stable at 1160mhz with my last tweak-below.

However about 4 days after doing this re-installing of the heatsink, the clip had actually loosened up enuff to cause me to have to cut back my oc'ing speed. This time when I removed the heatsink I added a very thin piece of hard plastic. This made a fit that was a little tighter than what one would see from oem installations.
(Seems the AMK clips are very flimsy and/or weak, as I have noticed this on both the AMK heatsink/fans I ordered.)

The thing about this heatsink/fan issue is, my temps were actually showing lower with the AMK from the moment I put it on, yet it wouldn't oc as much as the oem until I redone the attachement and made an even tighter and cooler fit?!

Everything has stayed tight this time and my temps run a consistent 27-31C. Also I ended up having to up my Vcore voltage to 1.80v. It just won't run stable at 1160mhz with 1.80v.

Another note, going to 1170mhz and I cannot even reliably boot into Windows.

Anyway just wanted to say, thanks guys for your help with my problem.

Cheers,
Mike Lamb

P3-1g at 1.16g
BE6-II r2
3 Maxtor 40g 7200rpm hdd
Plexy 10x12x32 cd burner
Kenwood 72X
LS-120 drive
Tandem(2) US Robotic extenal modems
Cirque touchpad(no more mice!)
VooDoo V5 PCI
SB Live X-gamer
320m Corsair Ram
Firewire ports
few other extras

Lancelot
04-08-01, 03:12 AM
It's not heat or your cache. I ran into the same problems with my system, I couldn't get higher than 126Mhz FSB until I found out a few things. Increase your PCI latency to 64 (mine was@32). Increase your RAM cas setting from 222 to 333 (if you have a iBX based board, memory access will still be about the same as a Via based board at 222), set the CPU cache latency to 'default' but leave the 'in-order-ceue-depth' at '8', NOT '1' cuz this will severely decrease your performance. I can run 131Mhz FSB at just 1.75Vc after changing these settings, and booted up with 133 and 140 (1120Mhz!!!) with the ceue depth at '1'. I hope you also have these settings in your BIOS, good luck!