Self introduction, and a question

Greetings to everyone at Overclockers.com. I am Nick Keown and I am new here. I have spent some serious time reading through the archives of information here. I am most interested in the less conventional meathods of cooling, such as water cooled peltiers for one.

Just recently, I upgraded my pc from a oldie, but goddie,PIII 733. great stable pc, but lacking in the performence I needed to complete some of my more taxing applications. Rendering on a PIII was pure brutal death hell that took days. My new system, based around an athlon XP 1600+ is certainly much more zippy and with a volcano 9 for cooling this little thing is giving me 1806 mhz stable. not too bad at all, but i crave 2000 mhz.

I am a Cook by day, Pc enthusiest and Graphic artist by night. Although I have not had a great amount of experience in overclocking, I fully intend to push this pc to its absolute limits through the use of high end cooling mediums and it was the articles about peltier based cooling that brought me here.


To start things off, I just have a simple question. This XP is running at its locked 10.5 multiplier with a 172 mhz fsb and 1.84 vcore. I know i can acheive higher if i unlock it, but I am cheap and do not want to buy a unlocking kit for $30. Is there any other conductive material that would suit a unlocking excercise?

Ultimately, my goal out of this chip is 2000 mhz. 180 mh fsb would acheive that, but the machine will not start windows at that speed. 175 mhz results in blue screens under windows 2000. so far, my highest is 172 mhz stable. would be curious to see what other people have done to get speeds up to 2300 mhz apparently.

anyway, just a quick hello.

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS


now about your problem

volcano 9 is not the best heatsink. you should either change your heatsink to a SLK800 w/ a crazy loud Tornado fan, or get a water cooling kit (or build one yourself if you know more) if you want to hit 2ghz.

do you know the stepping on your cpu? read the sticky at the top of the forum and post it it will be very helpful in knowing if your cpu has the potential to do 2ghz. generally the best steppings are AGOIA Y/AROIA Y.

Now is 1800mhz your ABSOLUTE max or have you just not tried to push it any higher? if it is your Absolute max, there is a very low possibility that you will get 2ghz unless you do some extreme cooling. Almost every single palomino btw requires 2v or more to do 2ghz stable.

now you say unlocking it will give you a higher mhz. Unless you have bad ram, this is not the truth. unlocking may give you +/-20mhz but nothing more. if your ram is crapping out, or if you have a board that does not have a 1/5 divisor, then that is a different story and by all means unlock it, up the mult and lower the fsb a little.

EDIT: i must have missed the last paragraph.... it seems like you will have a very hard time getting to 2ghz if 175mhz gives you a blue screen. maybe a better goal would be 1900mhz?

no pally, short of people dumping LN2 on their cpus will hit 2.3ghz. the people you see doing that have thouroughbred cpus which use a smaller .13u process which allows them to scale better.

I used $6 rear window defogger repair epoxy from an auto store, a bottle of whiteout to fill the pits (had it in the house) and a pin to apply the epoxy. So you can unlock really cheaply. You probably will have to buy some conductive paint, epoxy or a trace pen or something though, there's virtually nothing in an average household that will do instead.

With that Volcano 9 I think that's a pretty sweet overclock, it is possible you could get more, if your temp is highish (~55C) then a better sink will get you a few more Mhz, but if your temps are reasonable (40s) then you are probably pretty much maxed out until you go to water cooling, and then you'd need to get the water sub ambient to get much I think.

Personally if I was upgrading the sink on that I'd just buy a bare AX-7 and move the fan off the volcano 9 onto it. Should be good for at least 5c lower if it's topping out.

Peltiers are really problematic for cooling fast athlons, getting a powerful enough peltier and a PSU to drive it is challenge enough. Then you've got to worry about peltier sudden death syndrome. Peltier based water chillers using several lower powered peltiers look more complicated but in the end are more practical because you are far less likely to kill your CPU with them.

regards,

Road Warrior

Hey guys. I wanted to reply to these wonderful replies last night, but Apparently my password went bunk and i had to redo it. sigh.

well, anyway. I had a chance to strip my pc down and check the dia, It is indeed an agoia ax 1600. I also got a little crazy about trying for 2 ghz and took it out side (its -20ºC right now) and let her rip. She boots with 180 mhz fsb and manages to get into windows but fails to accomplish either the cpu bench test in sandra, mem test or 3d mark. I call this pretty unstable.

memory wise, i have decent ram (not great); Micron/Crucial 256 mb pc 2700 ddr at cas 2.5, 2,5,3, 4way and 8qw burst. it is set to 1T with fast command to fast. It runs stable at anything up to 172 mhz which it is set to right now. My motherboard has a built in 1/5 divider that activates automatically. at first, i thought it might be on the board like the gigabyte ga7vax my roomate has. and in fact, it is... but the hardware is not pressent. the table is just south of the northbridge which shows the jumper settings for 100, 133, 166 modes. the jumpers are physically not pressent, but msi fuzzy logic states the pci freq to be running a stable 33.3 mhz when running in 166 mode. I take this to mean it has the auto divider.

my only other real concern is voltage. my board maxes out at 1.85.. which sucks. I am running 1.85 right now (cpu uses 1.84) and it will not go higher. for me to get 2 ghz, i can pretty much garuntee i will need a voltage mod. as my board is under warantee and i have had to replace it once already, I am not in a tramendous hurry to acheive this.

(has no idea why it died before....)

on the cooling front. I have done some rather serious study on current cooling mediums and have arived on the decision that a 111 watt, water cooler peltier device will acheive the best results. I realize the issues around condensation that i will have to contend with, but i have a fair amount of experience in designing fuel systems for race cars. although condensation is not the problem there, I am experienced in building insulated environments. It goes without saying that I have read this sites cooling sections from front to back. so wish me luck .

I really like the perma-cool radiator for its small size. if it cools as well as boasted about, I will have no issues with that sitting in my 5 1/4" bays. I have no need for a cdrom as I use an external usb cdrom for both my computers. (one is a server running at 533 mhz for my web site) I will have to build a duct and use 2 120 mm fans to move air past it. one intake and one exaust going right out the top. I have also given some thought to cooling my ddr and kt 400 chipset with water but i think both of these practices would be pointless as they dont exceed 50º c. that and the ram i want, pc 3500U from geil has integrated heat spreaders.

Well I don't think that a 111watt peltier will be enough if you want to hit sub zero or even sub-ambient temps, if you want to hit 2000mhz and say will have to use as stated above at least 2volts to the core, your CPU will be producing 117watts. the peltier must be able to cope with this, so I would go for at least a 172watt peltier. Also watercooling I think would be the only thing which will be able to cool the peltier sufficiently so you can get some awesome C°s
Good luck man.

To be brutally honest. I am not really concerned with acheiving sub zero temps. yes, my cpu will like this a lot, but if i can maintain about 20ºC, I will be happy as a water cooler is still fairly low noise. The pair of 120 mm fans i will grab for the radiator are rated to 55 cfm at 29 db. this is much more acceptable than my volcano 9+ moving 78.5 at nearly 50 db.. its painful. I gave some thought to the peltier at 172 watts. I thought i might need it so thanks for the clearification on it.

now, the last thing i have to concern myself with, is how to get more voltage without brutally slaying my board. I would really like to NOT volt mod it. but i suppose if it is needed, It will at least allow support for bigger badder athlons later. I have already ordered a stick of PC 3500U from geil. i should get it in a few days.

for a water cooler, i kinda half thought i might try to build one from scratch in the same way that pop can guy did. I have a design for a radiator and all so it would be fun at least. but I think ill just order the perma cool rad and make my own water block for the peltier.

well I think there are volt mods that don't require brutalizing the motherboard, actually no real soldering is even involved, all you do is clip the "volt mod" to the mobo and you're done. I don't remember where I saw, it was a long time ago, but you should do a little research, my motherboard for example won't take such a mod, coz a resistor has to be directly soldered, but on others a sorta clip is cliped to a chip on the mobo, and giving the volt mod.
I suggest you do a search on your mobo name + volt mod and see what it comes up w/

Welcome to the Forums!
Pomona clips.

I like soldering personally, but those are the clips; do a search here in the Forums and you should find some info.....

The idea is that they replace the soldering and are small enough not to short anything out- and yet strong enough to hold very well.

On hitting 2Ghz: My XP1600 has done it, although I am still not running at that speed long-term (only 1994 right now) and I have my cpu @2.1v, 5v line @5v, and PC2100 ram @3.4v
CPU temp is around 38c full load MBM/30c DigiDoc5.
Watercooled, no pelt, but radiator outside

Sounds like the ram will not be an issue for Overclocking. Swiftech has two good TEC setups that look great but are Spendy,



Air Cooled

Water Cooled


Both look good for Extreme Cooling

oooooh, someone send RENDER .... I smell a FARM coming on .....

Hey Valk, welcome to the forums. The big movie studios have many many computers, all networked together (like a FARM of computers) that all render together.

A node (computer in the farm) can be had relatively cheaply, under $250 without hard disk. The SETI forum has thread on farming .....

HERE IS A FREE LINUX PROGRAM
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3

that will allow you to spread your rendering projects out over multiple computers.

But ya, you need multiple computers and LINUX.

Welcome again!

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!

Ill look into that clip mod when i get home from work tonight. seems interesting enough. I am kind of poor right now though. upgrading to this kinda cleaned me out so i will have to wait. but after reading articles like "pop can water block" and "dont but that radiator" i kinda wanna try that eventually, I want to build my own water block on a mill, but a pop can will work very nicely as my first water cooler.

for the radiator, I am kinda a subscriber to pretty. so i have designed a radial heat exchanger using 1/4" copper pipe and a 120 mm fan, looks somthing like a orb fan. will be interesting to see if it works . but even if it doesnt, it will be fun.

I am a ***** of sorts, i will not mod my board perminently. I have already had to replace it and i dont think they would like to see this bunch of electronics dangling off it if i do again but heh. we will see how it works out. 2 ghz is my goal. you guys are helping lots to see me get there.

No offense intended, but for the money you're going to spend on a water-cooled peltier system, you could just buy an XP2400+ and have 2000 MHz without overclocking.




I know...... that's not the point of www.overclockers.com, but someone had to say it.

cmcquistion said:

No offense intended, but for the money you're going to spend on a water-cooled peltier system, you could just buy an XP2400+ and have 2000 MHz without overclocking.




I know...... that's not the point of www.overclockers.com, but someone had to say it.

Click to expand...

And as long as we're there, the XP2400 are rumored to be already multi unlocked on the KT400 boards, so it is easy to lower the FSB and up the multi, say get 2300 on air.

SO same price, no pelt, much less work, more mhz, STILL ocing. Gotta OC cmcquistion, just GOTTA OC.

Oh, I agree. If I had an XP2400+, I'd overclock that sucker.

Honesly, that takes a lot of fun out of it... since i got into computers, I really havent had an excust to build anything ;| I miss working in the machine shop. I realize that a water cooled peltier system will cost a fair bit but heh, its fun .

as for this one... stupid roomates complain that my volcano 9 is too loud... i have my side panel back on now and i had to underclock to keep her under 50 idle... so untill i get a water cooler built, this thing will stay at 1400 for a while. this just makes me want to build the pop can block even more and do a cheapy, noisless system. 2ghz has become less important as 1.8 is really stable. Bragging rights is also not so much important anymore. this is my workstation, and tweaking it to the point of instability is not an option. we will see, but i do intend to build a water cooler on the cheap, and heh, I might as well take advantage of calgary's 20 below winters.

Valk said:

I might as well take advantage of calgary's 20 below winters.

Click to expand...

Then you can go for the "duct work" cooler. I saw some folks go to a hardware store, and buy real cheap ducting. Run the ducting from a window to the PC, fans (120s?) at both ends. COOL air into the PC, warm air in room.

Yea man. but im thinking of running my radiator coil out the window and punching two small holes int he screen for tubing. I want a noiseless pc now.. this having my case closed sucks. 1.4 ghz is so cheap. :\

Valk>> You need airflow man, a blowhole+duct+fan on the CPU is a great idea, I made one and I gained like 5C in CPU temps, I have 2 side blowholes on the case one directed into a duct and onto the CPU fan, the second is directed at the AGP card, so it hits both mobo, AGP card and the upper PCIs. I also got a hole in the case where I can feel air exiting and another fan positioned in a "wire-free" 5.25" bay that pull the air out of the case. my motherboard runs with lower temps with side on than with side off. airflow can do wonders to the temps. in my other PC, I have a fan blowing in from the 5.25" bay but the CPU still stayed hot, as I put an exhaust fan, it lowered my temps by upto 3C.
AIRFLOW is a key word when using aircooling