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1.8a Northwood @ only 2.3 Is that all? Want to go faster!

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Ducker

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2002
Location
The Dark Side of the Moon
Hi, I'm new to Overclocker.com's Forums. I've been reading the fourms here for a while & I've had a few questions I had answered by reading other posts. Thanks.:D I need some advice on overclocking my system. I have a 1.8a Northwood, and I can't get it past 2.3gigs, with 130 front side bus. If I go more than 130 fsb, system hangs or crashes. I would think that I should be able to run it faster with the rig I have. Here's my setup:

1.8a P4 Northwood (Pack Date 1/23/02)
Asus P4B266-C mb BIOS version 1005
1 stick of 512 MB Corsair XMS PC2700
Gainward GeForce 3 Ti 200 vidio card
WD 60 gig 7200 rpm HDD
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
Maxtop case 350 watt PSU
Win XP Pro

Here's my BIOS settings:

CPU/Memory Frequency Ratio 3:4
CPU vCore 1.65 v
Front Side Bus 130 (System hangs or crashes if I go any higher)
Memory Timings 2.5-3-3-7 (I've tried 2-2-2-5 & 2-3-3-5,6,&7) mem. scores in Sandra are lower though
Optimization Mode Turbo 1 (very unstable with any settings in Turbo 2)
DDR voltage 2.7 v

If any of you out there have any ideas or suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've tried everything I can think of. One more thing, seems I read a post somewhere that 1.8a Northwoods made in the first few batches just wouldn't run as fast as the ones made later on. Mine was packed on 1/23/02, Batch #L150A658. Thanks.
 
2 things jump out at me...

1) Do you have a PCI lock on that board? I'm not too fimiliar with it. 130 FSB without having the pci locked would put the pci bus way out of spec. try going straight to 133FSB and see if that helps

2) relax your memory timings. your memory is running at 346MHz (only rated for 333). I would put your memory ratio to 1:1 and see if you can post at 133 FSB
 
Fatguy, I tried what you said & it seems to work. I put the mem timings to "Set by SPD", changed the CPU/Mem Ratio to 1:1 & bumped up the fsb to 133. It posted, but took a long time to get past the boot screen, but once it did Windows loaded normaly and so far so good. CPU now running at 2.4GHz :D Benchmarks in Sandra Pro better also. But when I ran Prime 95, it got an error & it stopped running in less than 1 min. I then tried to bump the fsb up to 135, didn't work, system hung. Any more ideas on what else to try? Thanks
 
Mamer, It doesn,t seem to want to take any more voltage. When I bumped the vcore voltage up to 1.675 v windows won't load. :( Any other ideas?

Thanks
 
Sounds like 2.3 is all it will do and remain stable. What are your temps. 500 MHZ overclock is pretty decent though.
 
Make sure you have the fan turned up to the higher setting if you have a variable speed fan. Sounds like you're very close to being stable at 2.4 gig if you can get it running a little cooler and give it a little more voltage. If you've been fighting it and getting a lot of Windows registery errors, you might need to do a reformat and refresh reinstall too.
 
My temps seem to be ok. Motherboard Moniter shows CPU @ 46C & MB @ 30C noload. 52C / 35C under full load. I can get these temps with my fan on low (3000 rpm), cooling seems ok, but if they go up I can always speed it up to high (6000 rpm). I haven't had any registry errors. It just dosn't seem to tollerate fsb past 133, & vcore past 1.65v. When I go past these it just hangs up on boot. I think that if I could just get it to take a little more voltage, I think it may make 2.5. I'd be content with that :D for now :cool:
 
Those temps do seem a little warm... Mine runs at 2.4 @ 41*C under full load, 30*C no load, with the retail intel HSF...
 
I have a difference in temp readings between Motherboard Moniter and Asus Probe. MBM always reads about 5 to 7 degrees hotter than Asus Probe. I'm not sure which one is correct. Any ideas? Thanks
 
Thermal interface material?

I had a setup similar to yours until I switched to water cooling last week and dropped 15 degrees centigrade off of idle and 13 off of load. I would trust the Probe numbers. When you say "motherboard monitor," you mean the hardware monitor section of the BIOS setup? I agree with others that above 50 degrees is too hot. There are some tricks to getting the thermal interface material , like Arctic Silver, to be the best thickness and optimal contact. Is it possible you have air gaps or too much goo in between?
 
I had a setup similar to yours until I switched to water cooling last week
and dropped 15 degrees centigrade off of idle and 13 off of load. I would
trust the Probe numbers. When you say "motherboard monitor," you mean
the hardware monitor section of the BIOS setup? I agree with others that
above 50 degrees is too hot. There are some tricks to getting the thermal
interface material , like Arctic Silver, to be the best thickness and optimal
contact. Is it possible you have air gaps or too much goo in between?

I have been suspious of that too. When I installed the heatsink/fan I used Arctic Silver. But before applying it I cleaned the CPU & heatsink with Acetone. I neglected to clean off that "residue" of the acetone with alcohol. And I had a hard time getting my heatsink/fan locked in. I believe in the instructions it said to be carefull & not let the heatsink slide around, or move, something like that. I have wondered about if that could be a problem. The Arctic Silver may have air gaps in it. As for the thickness of the Arctic Silver, this was the first time I had installed a heatsink/fan, I tried to get a fairly thin layer of it on there, but I may have over done it. It could well be the reason for the high temps. I should probly go back & take it out and reinstall it :( . The "motherboard monitor" I was refuring to isn't in the BIOS setup, but it's a freeware program I downloaded to check temps, voltages, etc. Asus Probe is in the BIOS setup, & it always reports a much lower temp. Never been sure which one to trust.
 
52C max. loads at default voltage?

he...he....he.... let me tell you: you are another thermaltake volcano 7+ victims. There are two version of thermaltake volcano 7+: the first version is BAD, the second revision is OKAY.

If you look closely on the bottom side of thermaltake, you will see two metal bars that connected / bolted together to the copper base. These metal bars are bolted across the copper base and fully extended, consequently these bars HIT the four plastic dots on the black rectangular HSF socket. Look closely, the four plastic dots are in contact with the 2 metal bars.

If so, the bottom surface of HSF is slightly tilted or not perfectly flat out with processor's surface. Tada..... a crap HSF you know.... I have this crap Rest In Piece in my drawers.

The second revision, the company has shortened the metal bars that bolts to the copper base, so no problemo for the second revision of 7+.

Now, let me tell you the difficult part:..... he...he.... take a deep breath..... are you ready? :D enjoy how to remove the HSF from the socket.... My "crap" lost its arms and legs during removal process.

my tips: unscrew the middle screw that connect between the metal bars and the arms. I hope you have the second revision type of HSF.


:D
 
Looks like I've got my work cut out for me :( With my luck, I've probably got the first version. Damit, I was trying to get a good quality hsf, to save me from having problems like this :mad: If this is the first version of the Volcano 7+, sounds like I'd be well off to just put the stock intel hsf back on it.

I guess if I want to go faster I'm gonna have to get a new cpu & hsf (water cooling would be nice!;) ). Any one have any thoughts about how well a 2.5 P4 w/533 would do on this board? Any one know if an Asus P4B266-C would handle the 533 fsb. It's only rated at 400. But I have been sucessfull in running it @ 133 fairly stable with this cpu.
 
just a quick thing...your mem should handle 350mhz at 133 FSB. let the settings set to BY SPD and bump up the vmem to 2.6 or 2.7 and see if that works. I couldn't tell if at 133 FSB you had your mem ratio at 1:1 or 3:4. your almost at 133 man, don't give up.
 
As noted earlier, but with a bit more detail:

The Northwoods made from about the 7th week of 2002 and after did rather better than those made before then. You have one made before then, so your performance is typical. I had one of those made around then, and had problems getting it to 2.4GHz.
 
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