Breathing new life into a BE6

Just finished "upgrading" to a Celeron 1.0A with a PowerLeap adapter on my BE6. I'm currently running the cpu at stock settings to allow the AS3 to settle and to test for system stability. So far, everything is running just fine. Not a single error or hiccup, and didn't even need to re-install Win98SE. I'm definetly going to be overclocking the chip to at least 133fsb. If this chip is a good one, I sould be able to make it to 140 no problem, and maybe even 150. I dont know about you, but a 1.5gig Cele running on a BE6 would be sweet.

I'll update this thread once I start overclocking the Cele.

Cheers.

105fsb, A-Ok

I'm making small fsb changes to the Cele instead of making big leaps. I've gone to the next fsb speed of 105MHz, making the Cele 1.0a run @ 1050MHz at stock voltage. So far its crunched through Seti without a hiccup and ran 3DMark2001SE just fine.

Strange thing though, 3DMark took a big leap in score for just a 50MHz change. At stock fsb, my 3dMark score was only 5308, only 18 points more then my old P3-700 running at 933. Now, with just a 5MHz fsb speed difference, my 3DMark score jumped to 5546! Thats pretty impressive in my eyes, and I've barely overclocked the GF3 card.

The next fsb speed for this BE6 is 110MHz. I'll be doing the same thing again, leaving the voltage stock and running a full wu through Seti, then running a 3DMark benchmark. Hopefully, I wont have to change the voltage, which would mean that this chip sould overclock very well.

Cheers.

Please do keep us posted on your results. I too run a BE6 and am considering the Powerleap Tualatin adapter. You are the first person I'm aware of that is using it on a BE6. Great to hear it is compatable.

Larus

dam i still love mine, haven't played with it awhile though. need another hard drive. by far the best bx board ever.

Thanks guys! I too love my BE6, and since I can't really afford a whole new system for a long time, being able to stretch the life of this sweet board out is nice. This board really is the best board I've ever owned, and the most versitile. According to PowerLeap, thier in the testing phases for a BE6 board. But as you can see here, I'm running it just fine.

So far 110fsb at stock voltage is running just fine. Boot-up was normal, and I added in Sandra burn in to further test stability. I now run Sandra through 10 loops of CPU Arithmetic, CPU Multimedia, and Memory Bandwidth benchmarks. 3DMark is also ran at startup, and after Seti is finished with a wu (average wu time is 6-7 hours).

3DMark again has taken another leap, from 5546 to 5768. Looks like 3DMark keeps jumping 200+ points for every 5MHz fsb speed I move up. At this rate, I'll be close to 6000 points when I raise the fsb speed again.

The next fsb speed for the BE6 is 115MHz. Again, I'll be leaving the voltage at stock settings (1.5V). If everything goes well without having to raise the voltage, then I probably have a good chip. Wish me luck.

Cheers.

Welp, I've gone through 115fsb, and am now running @ 120fsb, stock voltage (1.5V).

3DMark @ 115fsb = 5934

3DMark @ 120fsb = 6129

Seti times have also gone down by almost 30 minutes. Average wu come in around 5 hours, 30 mins now.

The temps are still pretty stable. From 100fsb to 115fsb, the cpu @ burn was never higher then 2C above the board. Now, its 3C above board, which is still very good. I guess the huge heatsink and ducted fan work wonders.

Next fsb speed is 124fsb. If this chip can get to 133fsb @ stock voltage, then this will be one sweet chip.

Cheers.

Mpegger, your results are very encouraging.

A couple of questions: Does the PowerLeap adaptor allow you to still use Abit's Bios (SoftMenu II) to change the FSB and cpu voltage, or must you do that somehow on the adaptor (jumpers?)?

Also, did you use the stock Powerleap heatsink and fan, or add bigger/better ones?

Incidently, I exchanged emails with PowerLeap today. I had thought I might be better off ordering the bare adaptor and buying a Tualatin Celeron cpu at NewEgg, etc and save some money (since cpu prices have fallen, but PowerLeap's prices have not) and use a larger HS/Fan, but they want $59 for the adaptor alone (and $5 extra if you want their heatsink and fan). I think they may have raised their price for the bare adaptor as another source advised recently it was $47.

The PowerLeap adapter controls the voltage of the cpu thru jumpers. In fact, you need to use one of the plugs from your psu to power the cpu. It does not get it's power from the board (as far as I know).

As for the Softmenu bios options, the only setting that has an effect is the FSB option, and the CPU/AGP ratio (I believe that is what its called). However, the PowerLeap adapter also has the option to control the FSB speed directly on the adapter if for some reason the board does't set the correct fsb for the cpu (the P3 Tualatins run @ 133FSB, while the Celes run @ 100). But the PowerLeaps fsb options are extreamly limited, so its set to "Auto Detect".

And as far as fans, I used this one:

http://www.svcompucycle.com/svcompucycle/newsvcgc3280.html

ARGH! I just looked at the page myself and their on sale!!!
Chit! Oh well. I purchased that h/s with the YS-Tech 48.5CFM 80mm fan. Be aware however, that the fan and h/s will NOT fit on the BE6 board! You will have to trim some fins on the h/s to allow clearance for the greenie, so a dremel will be very handy. And as far as the fan goes, I made a hole in the side of my case, and also made a duct to get the airflow directly over the h/s. With that setup, the cpu barely goes over the temps of the board.

And yes, thier price is kinda expensive. Hoever, the pin/wire mod isn't too difficult, but from everything I've read, its pretty much hit and miss on wether the cpu will work with your board or not. With the PowerLeap, I figured that at least I would be able to use the cpu on the board without any major worries.

As so far so good. I think being able to slowly raise the fsb speed has allowed the cpu to get "accustomed" to being overclocked without any changes in voltage. I still haven't had a chance to goto 124fsb speed yet today (too busy), but I may do it before I hit the hay.

Cheers.

124fsb and running rock solid! Seti has crunched a couple of wu's, Sandra went through 15 loops, and 3DMark showed a small improvement (6175). I've played RTCW for a couple of hours, and even ran 3 copies of Dungeon Siege at the same time with no problems.

I'm running @ 124fsb with the PCI bus @ 1/4 speed (31MHz) just to be sure none of my PCI cards trip up, although I have ran them as high as 44.3MHz for months and didn't even know it. And I'm still at stock 1.5 voltage! I guess slowly upping the fsb and getting a retail cpu instead of a oem helps. Not to mention the huge h/s and fan. Next stop, 133fsb!

Woohoo!

Mpegger, did you get your cpu from Powerleap, with the adaptor?

Impressive O/C with no voltage increase so far.

Nope. They dont carry the 1.0a Cele. I bought the Cele from NewEgg.com. Not the best price around, but man, thier service kicks a... errr, rocks!

Besides, they had the best price around for a stick of Cas2 256mb Crucial, even cheaper then Crucial.com, and I needed one. So I killed 2 birds with one stone. If your in the market to buy anything online, I definetly recommend NewEgg. I dont think theres been one complaint from anyone here about them.

I'm going to leave the board @ 124fsb over the night and try for 133 tommorrow. I'll update the thread again probably Thursday when the boards been running @ 133 for a good long time.

Cheers.

Sounds good. I totally agree about NewEgg. I've used them several times and service was always top notch, and usually a great price too.

Say, how much did Powerleap charge you for the bare adaptor?

Larus: If I remember correctly, it was $59 for the adapter.

And my trip up to 133fsb is currently on hold because of instability.

124fsb @ 1.5V works fine. Been running my system like that for a couple of days. Last night I tried 133fsb for the first time. Everything seemed normal at boot up and Windows loaded fine. However, Sandra would hang randomly when running the memory banwidth test, which eventually would cause the system to crash. Upping the voltage to 1.55 and 1.60 did not make any difference. Although Windows loads fine and seems to run fine, programs would crash randomly. System is unstable @ 133fsb.

I've backed the fsb back down to 124MHz, but I've kept the voltage @ 1.60. I'm going to attempt 133fsb again probably this weekend, but will keep this setting to allow further burning in of the cpu. Hopefully this will make a difference, as I dont really want to go any higher then 1.70 volts with this cpu. Damn, and this proc was doing so good so far. I'm wondering if a re-install of Windows @ 133fsb would be warranted as some have had success overclocking thier Tualitins to higher speeds once they've done a full install of Windows again. Further testing will tell.

That sounds like a good plan. Mpegger. Good luck.