stubborn P3B-F

[Beak]

Hi everyone,

This will be my first post, though I have been lurking and searching for a while. Hopefull these are the 'right' questions: I can't seem to get my P3B-F w/ PIII 800 E to clock faster than 110 FSB(!) That gives me 880Mhz (weak). My bios is 1006, my mem is PC100, I have a globalwin cooler on the chip, and a honker fan in the side of the case. Other components are:
3x128 'mix and match' mem sticks
Millenium G400 AGP Dual Head
Pinnacle DV500
SB live
Adaptec 2940UW
NIC of some kind.

There is a board jumper to set voltage to 3.65 instead of 3.5, would this be smart, I don't want to fry my vid gear?
Are there memory settings I don't know about?
Cach latency?
Something? Help!

I've got it to 115 FSB but not stable, vcore is 1.8 and no difference. It is running a bit hot (50c).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-----------------------------Beak

[FrankMasterFlash]

In the BIOS go to Advanced then to Chip Configuration set the ram to CAS3-3-3-10 if that doesn't get it to work it could be that your ram can't handle any thing above 110mhz FSB. Heat might be an issue, 50°C is a bit warm. With your FSB at 115 that puts your PCI cards at 38mhz which it kind of high so you PCI cards might not like that. SCSI cards & NIC's hate higher PCI speeds. Try one stick of ram at a time to see which ones will do above 110mhz FSB

[Beak]

Hi, Thanks for the reply. I tried the mem setting suggested, but no help. May have made things worse, I didn't really do any extensive testing. You are definately right about SCSI cards not liking high speeds. 110 FSB gave me ****e when doing a tape backup to my Exabyte last night. The SCSI card bios install (when booting) goes much faster if the FSB is at 100. This saddens me! Is there not a way to reduce the PCI speed or change the multiplier? Beta BIOS? Should I upgrade the SCSI BIOS?

Thanks Again,

Ciao,
------------------------------Beak

[AoD]

Welcome to the forums Beak. Now as for the PCI bus. That's a problem with some cards which as stated SCSI cards usually HATE faster PCI speeds. Try removing that and the NIC and see if you can get higher, if you can, you know your problem. As for voltage, I wouldn't pump it up until I hit over at least 100mhz+ the base clock with instability. You just have to do the old trial and error method to see what will work and won't. Maybe it's the SCSI or NIC cards, you don't know. But you would have to keep trying to fidn your problems. :)

Good Luck.

-AoD

[#3# RIP]

Beak I have the same set up. Can only get mine to 920 (8X115). If I try to step it up it wont boot. Not quite an expert like some of these guys but I like that I can get it that high @ 1.65v. What kind of memory do you have???.
Try 8x112 first and see if it goes.. I burned in for a week before bumping it to
8x115..

[#3# RIP]

Dont give up on that board..Theres alot of people that would argue that your
P3BF is in the top 5 BX boards ever made. Anybody else out there like there BX chipset YET?????

[batboy]

If CPU load temps are in the 50 degree range, you probably have a heat problem. You would think that GlobalWin should be cooling better. Maybe try reinstalling it and use a good quality thermal paste. Don't use that crappy heat tape that comes with the cooler.

Are all of the RAM slots full? If so, try removing one of them. For some reason, many motherboards don't overclock very well with all the DIMM slots full. The RAM BIOS settings of 3, 3, 3 should give you the best stability.

At 115 FSB, many of the PCI components start getting flakey, especially SCCI and NIC as already mentioned. My experience has found that 112 FSB is much more tolerable to many PCI devices.

[Beak]

Hi again,
Thanks you all for you insights. I still can't really get more that 110. 112 is OK but then some apps crash. I'm using Sandra burn-in wizard, is there a better way? My mem banks are not full, there are 3x128 PC100 DIMMS in slots 0-2. The 3-3-3-10 settings do seem to help. Sandra reports that the mem is good until 125Mhz at CL3. I don't know what CL3 means.
The real worry is the SCSI card, since my sustem disk (Cheetah), my video disk (Barracuda 50), scanner and Exabyte are all SCSI devices, I can't really pop it out and check.
Seems like I'll have to live with 110 FSB.
The globalWin surprised me, too. I used "Artic Silver" grease, too. When I popped the chip in stock, when I first got it a month ago, it was running 70c! with no overclocking!
Got plenty of air. Hmmm. Still if anyone can suggest a good/better burn-in method that might help get me to 112.

Thanks again,

-------------------------------Beak

[batboy]

The program Prime95 is good for "burn in" also, but Sandra burn in wizard is fine too. Those big heavy FOP heatsinks take some practice to install properly. The first time I put mine on, it moved around too much when I was clipping the fan on, which squeezed too much of the Arctic Silver out. Try reinstalling it with a medium layer of paste. Not too thin and not too thick. Be real careful and gentle when you put the cooler back on. If done right, that FOP will cool really nice. CL3 is the same as CAS-3 whick is what you now have your RAM timing set at in the BIOS. But not all PC100 RAM will be stable at higher FSB speeds. I had some PC100 RAM that liked 112 MHz, but was flakey at 115 MMHz. Generic PC100 RAM might not even reach 112. Chances are it's a combination of heat, PCI cards, and/or memory that's holding you back. First, try the burn in some more and try reinstalling the heatsink, since that's free and easy. Good luck.

[#3# RIP]

All those temps are way too high. Man 70c that is either wrong or your chip will have a short life. With a little help from some guys on here mine is as low as 25c(idle)----37c(full load). Are you using Asus Probe?? Some guys flame this monitor but I find it very helpful....

[klosters64a]

The PCI Bus of P3B-F's is at, or very near spec at the "cardinal" FSB's of 66, 100, 103, 124 and 133 Mhz. For some reason, you have the choice of spec or ridiculously high PCI freqs at 124 and 133 Mhz, FSB. 124 Mhz FSB is a great choice, your PCI bus is running at 31.0 at that FSB, unless you demand 41.3 Mhz.

You mention that you have a honker fan on the side of your case. You'll need to put a honkin' HSF combo on your processor as well. While Intel publishes 80-85C as the max permissable temp for P3's, they are lying through their teeth. I toasted a P3E by allowing five brief excursions to 56C. When I see 50C in MBM, my stress level hits the roof. I'm "blessed" with P3E's that run hotter than a lot of people's do. Lucky me! Oh well, the ca2 stepping isn't a cool one.

To top off the P3E 800 sitch, I'm afraid that they are not enthusiastic OCer's. 124 Mhz FSB will be a real accomplishment. Best of luck!