HELP!!! My PIII 700 E is STILL trippin...

[Deez]

Okay, I posted 'bout a week ago about my PIII 700 running stably at 980 MHz, but at an extremely high 2.33 V vcore. I tried burning it in for about a week or so at default FSB and 2.0 V, and running Prime 95 24-7...and I haven't been able to drop my voltage a bit! As a matter of fact, I think it became more unstable at higher speeds...before, it was completely stable with case open and air cooling. But now, I have a dual fan drive bay exhaust system and a housefan aimed at the open case just to keep it running 100% stable! Any more tips on how to drop that vcore? And would raising the I/O voltage potentially help? I don't wanna kill my chip!!!

[[OC]_SR20DE]

If you havent bumped the I/O voltage (VIO) up after you overclocked to that speed, you really need to bump that VIO now.

Have you tried to increase the VIO by at least two notches and lower the Vcore a few at 980mhz??.. If not, try that.. yes.. 2.33 Vcore is way high. Increase the VIO until it gets stable. Mine is most stable at 1.90Vcore & 3.80Vio to run 1064- 1071mhz.

[Falkentyne]

First of all, let me tell you something.

Go look at the Absolute Maximum Vcc for that CPU, on Intel's processor page. You will see that you are over the maximum.

What this means is this:

You *ARE* damaging the processor. *ARE*.
Which explains why its becoming less stable.

2.33 vcore is borderline even for the Katmai P3's, which ran at 2.0v !. In fact, there were a few issues with a couple of people actually damaging the L2 cache by pumping the voltage too high. Although that might have been related to the i/o voltage and not the core, although the reviewer said his cpu didn't work after he ran the core at 2.3. (this might have either been on oc.com or hardOCP.

What you need to do is go BACK to the highest speed that you are stable at, @ 1.85v, and stop aiming for 1 ghz, as its out of reach without extreme cooling (peltiers, watercooling, liquid nitrogen etc).

Unless you want your CPU to die...

[Spacepiston]

Yes, raise your I/O voltage a few notches. It made my system stable.

[cw823]

That's a tricky one. That's too much voltage for a PIII...you'll dramatically damage the life term of the chip. My 700E did 1050 out of the box. No voltage increase. up to 1.75 for 153mhz fSB>....but chip maxes out there.

Darn PIII cores.

[Deez]

Damn...I wish I could increase the I/O voltage, but I don't know how to on this Abit VA6. My Be-6II has all that in there (Softmenu III and all), but it died and I'm only using this POS mobo temporarily 'til I get my replacement back from Abit. So I guess I'll just cool my overclocking heels for a while, until I get my new mobo. Thanks for the suggestions! Chips are a terrible thing to waste...