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Chaintech VNF3-250 impressions and questions

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spazzmattah said:
That's awesome Cordial. You know, if Prime runs for hours I wouldn't worry about that temp reading.

Let me tell you something. The other day I went to Chaintech website and downloaded the 7/29 BIOS. I had a heck of a time flashing that thing. When I was finally able to flash it, my temp readings was all screwed up! Idle temp was like 62 degrees C. I thought well the reading has to be wacked cuz I didn't change a thing, it's still running the same 2.56 GHz with the same cooling and everything. So I launched Prime 95 and after 10 minutes Windows frooze! I didn't even bother troubleshooting this crap. I reflashed the 3/8 BIOS back on right away and voila! My temps were normal again (40/49 idle/load), and Prime stable again. Just a little experience I'd like to share. So the original BIOS seems to be the best for my board.

Hmm first I ran prime for almost an hour without and errors, but when I restart my comp (installed some program, so I had to) and when it boots up, prime crashed in like 5 min..and I closed up prime and then back on ran for another hour without problem. I had to shut it off because I was using my cousin's video card..my card is still not here yet. Once I got my 9800pro I'll see how far I can tweak this system. Btw I've used the stock 3/8 bios and it reported as 23 idle and 29 load, and 5/1?/04 bios as 60 idle 70 load lol and this one as 52 idle and 66 load whoa this thing is so off, I used WinFlash to flash the bios and it worked like a charm, took me like less than 1 mintue to flash a bios. I might try out the 3/8 bios tho when I got my vid card.
 
CordialSpam

Cool and quiet is a cool feature which kicks down processor speed and voltage when your not doing much..like word, web browsing and stuff... makes chip use as little as 15W allowing fans to kick down a notch and naturally lowers power bill and heat generation. Chaintechs does'nt work AFAIK.:(
 
CordialSpam said:
Hmm first I ran prime for almost an hour without and errors, but when I restart my comp (installed some program, so I had to) and when it boots up, prime crashed in like 5 min..and I closed up prime and then back on ran for another hour without problem..

I've had similar experience all the time with Prime95. Where it would run for an hour or two, and you think, ahh pretty stable. Then you play games and do some benchies for a while, then launch Prime95 again and it would crash within minutes. Then you reboot and it would run an hour or two again. But usually this means that your PC is not 100% stable. If it doesn't crash within an hour or two, just let it keep running, chances it will fail later on (less the 8 hours). However, if it keeps going beyond 8 hours I think it's pretty stable, and you should tryto OC some more :). But if it crash within 8 hours, I'd say back off on something or control your temps.
 
spazz and Cordial

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit, but I'm new to a lot of this (in actual practice anyway), and feel more comfortable in this little corner of the forums.

Anyway, if I read your system specs correctly, you are both running your RAM async in order to get those CPU cycles up higher. I thought this was something of a no-no. Do you see real-world (or at least PC/3DMark) improvements doing this versus your best overclock 'insync'?

I have Corsair Value at 1T/2.5/3/3/7, and with that at 1:1 I've only been able to get up to 10x215 stable (10 hrs Prime95). 10x220 was unstable. These are at default voltages (haven't tried upping those yet). And I think I'd be held back by temps at this point.

-evanwink
 
Anyway, if I read your system specs correctly, you are both running your RAM async in order to get those CPU cycles up higher. I thought this was something of a no-no. Do you see real-world (or at least PC/3DMark) improvements doing this versus your best overclock 'insync'?
Hmm don't know what you mean here.

I have Corsair Value at 1T/2.5/3/3/7, and with that at 1:1 I've only been able to get up to 10x215 stable (10 hrs Prime95). 10x220 was unstable. These are at default voltages (haven't tried upping those yet). And I think I'd be held back by temps at this point.


Yea you might want to try to set your divider to 200/166 instead of 1/1. I doubt that Corsair values can handle 220 speed or up, you might want to try raise your voltage a little bit and see what happens. And I don't think a few mhz raise on your memory will have any difference..probably slightly but not noticeable.

Anyways what motherboard are you using? VNF3-250 right?
 
yes, I'm using the VNF3-250, which is why I hope it isn't too bad to be in this thread with all this.

About the async RAM issue... I mean that I thought you took a big performance hit if you didn't run it at 1:1. Take a look at this sticky in the memory section (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=257741). It all is good reading but skip to the "Dealing with Memory Speeds / Frequencies" section to see what I'm talking about.

p.s. don't mean to steal your sig colors, but those are FoghornLeghorn's colors, and he would be my avatar if I was allowed one.
 
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evanwink said:
Anyway, if I read your system specs correctly, you are both running your RAM async in order to get those CPU cycles up higher. I thought this was something of a no-no. Do you see real-world (or at least PC/3DMark) improvements doing this versus your best overclock 'insync'?

-evanwink

Evanwink,
The Athlon 64, unlike other Athlons and Intels, has memory controllers built on the CPU. Data from memory that the CPU needs do not go through the chipsets like other platforms, it goes directly to the CPU. Thus running the memory asyncronously has little to zero performance loss.
 
Thanks spazz... I figured I was missing something. That's great news since I wasn't able to get the greatest memory and it would bottleneck me quite a bit otherwise.

-evanwink
 
hawtrawkr said:
lol i was just thinking to myself that i hadnt ever even tried the cool and quiet feature. :beer:


If you are overclocking...forget Cool-n-Quiet. On mine it will work...until it drops down in speed, and then tries to go back up when it needs it..it crashes/hard locks.
 
Stock 64 HS w/ Smart Fan 2

Hiya,

I picked up a Thermaltake Smart Fan 2 and now have it replacing the stock fan on my 64 3000+. I'm a little dissappointed as I only see a 1C improvement (maybe 2C) from the stock fan at full load (with the SF2 full on). I see no noticeable change at idle. Maybe I was expecting too much? This is at 10x240 with default voltages (Vcore=1.52 for me). Stock fan temps were 45/54-55 (idle/load) and with SF2 45/52-54 (mostly 53). My case temps has been pretty steady at 32, but now it is showing 34 after putting the new fan in, and with what I thought was better 'cabling'.

When I went to 10x250 I needed a vcore=1.65 for stability, and the load temp was up to 61C (probably the max it would have reached) when I shut it off, as this was too hot for me. That was with the stock fan, and I haven't tried again with the SF2... maybe that's where I'll see the benefit?

There is also the chance I messed up the thermal interface when I popped the plastic fan bracket off/on to attach the new fan, since I didn't remove the HS. I used AS5 originally and followed their instructions of putting a dab on the center of the heat spreader, then just setting the HS down onto this and clipping it into place. Is this what you folks do?

Thanks,
evanwink
 
Hey Evanwink,
I just noticed you're from MPLS. I'm in Chanhassen, just west of Eden Prairie, near Prince's studio.

About your temps, I wouldn't trust the temps reading on the VNF--250. Everybody's complaining how it's very inaccurate, mostly people say the readings are way too high and that changing to better cooling doesn't seem to effect the temps at all. Seems you're running into the same thing. Here's my suggestion, put the CPU at 245x10 and bump voltage to 1.55 volts and run Prime 95. If Prime runs for 8 hours or more, I'd say you're good to go.
 
spazzmattah said:
Hey Evanwink,
Here's my suggestion, put the CPU at 245x10 and bump voltage to 1.55 volts and run Prime 95. If Prime runs for 8 hours or more, I'd say you're good to go.

This is what I'm going to try to do tonight :D

Anyways from now all I want is 2.45ish speed stable...btw I'm at 2.4 right now stable, ran prime over 10 hrs and no errors or warnings, but I was at 1.6vCore and 2.8 dimm..anyways I'm going to see what happens at 245x10..if it is stable I'm going back to 2.5 again..hope my 9800pro isn't backing me up..
 
Yup, the VNF3-250's can be....odd...about temps.


It appears to lie in the differences between a CO and a CG stepping cpu. A CO ran in the same board and settings as the CG will show a large variance with the CG model showing quite a bit gher. Anywhere from 10c-20c in some cases...

I know my cooling is working since it ran on 2 previous systems, so I don't worry too much. For grins, I show 48c idle and 60c load..
 
Well, I had it up to 250x10 last night at vcore 1.65 (1.60 set in BIOS), and thought it was pretty stable. Prime95 only ran for half an hour, though (I watched temps settle around 59 and then went to bed). Guess it could be the memory crapping out. I'll see how 245x10 goes... not sure I'll be satisfied till I get 2500 stable, though ;)

spazz.... I'm in NE minneapolis. You didn't used to play Enemy Territory did you? I used to play with a guy that lived in your area.

Thanks for the suggestions,
evanwink
 
Hmm just woke up...ran prime for 7 hr and 11 min or so without any errors or warning at 245x10 and it is about 44-45 idle and 59-62 load, which is about the same temp as you guys..so I'm not going to worry about it too much, I'm going to try 250x10 sometimes tonight and see what happens to put it at 1.55 vCore and 2.8 mem


EDIT: it is now 250x10 1.6 vCore and 2.8 dimm core stable..ran prime for 7hr..hmm weird last time it crashed in 11 min when I put my 9800pro on..
 
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I was wondering since I got the VNF3-250, does the NVIDIA Nforce driver 5.1 on the guru3d website work with this?
 
evanwink said:
Well, I had it up to 250x10 last night at vcore 1.65 (1.60 set in BIOS), and thought it was pretty stable. Prime95 only ran for half an hour, though (I watched temps settle around 59 and then went to bed). Guess it could be the memory crapping out. I'll see how 245x10 goes... not sure I'll be satisfied till I get 2500 stable, though ;)

spazz.... I'm in NE minneapolis. You didn't used to play Enemy Territory did you? I used to play with a guy that lived in your area.

Thanks for the suggestions,
evanwink

Just curious, what speed are you setting your memory to in the BIOS when you ran 250x10? If it's at 200, you're running the memory at 500 mhz, it might be memory problems. If you set it to 166, then it's running at 208x2 or 416 Mhz and that shouldn't pose any problems for the RAM you have.

Nah, never played Enemy Territory, must be a different guy. Good luck with your OC.
 
CordialSpam said:
EDIT: it is now 250x10 1.6 vCore and 2.8 dimm core stable..ran prime for 7hr..hmm weird last time it crashed in 11 min when I put my 9800pro on..

So when you are stable at 250x10, you aren't running with the 9800 Pro? Have you tried a more powerful PSU yet?
 
i am running the new nvidia drivers with no problem.

on a side note, i contacted chaintech about the high cpu temps, and this was the response:
"The new bios is normal showing 60-70 degrees celsius even though it is running cooler than it seems. The next release should fix this issue.

Chaintech Tech Support"

I replied asking when this "next release" would be, lets see how long that takes :)
 
spazzmattah said:
So when you are stable at 250x10, you aren't running with the 9800 Pro? Have you tried a more powerful PSU yet?

Naw I'm still using my SL350 PSU. Anyways I'll take that back..I ran a few tests again and it fails at 11-40 Minutes range..don't know why that time went up to 6 hrs without errors..right now I'm running 245x10 and I called it stable..ran prime for 14 hrs(my sig) and also tried 240x10 with my sig's setting for 14 hrs without errors.

Anways I'm trying to push this thing up more to like a 2550...any clue what should I do to able to push this thing further? I tried raising the voltage and still doesn't work ..and I'm afraid of raising the vcore too much up...tried dimm volatege at 2.7..is it my memeory backing me off??
 
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