NF7-S fluctuating vcore

I'm sitting here watching my vcore in MBM5. It is going from 1.74-1.78. I have it set at 1.8 in bios and I have heatsinks on the mosfets with thermal tape. Is this anything to worry about? My setup is a antec truepower 380 running everything in my sig and a vantec fan controller with 1 120mm panaflo, 1 92mm panaflo, and 1 120mm antec fan. And I almost forgot the 2 LEDs on the front of my case.

Also my +3.3 varries from 3.26 to 3.28
+5 is always at 4.95
+12 varies from 11.80 to 11.86
-5 varries between 4.99 to 5.04
-12 varries from 11.86 to 11.94

This was my first build and overclock so I don't know if this is normal. So what do you think? Is it bad? Do I need a more powerful psu, or is it the motherboard.

You are doin better than me

Unfortunatly my CH5 refused to cooperate with me. But yes the v-core is a know issue that Abit continues to deny

BTW your 12v line seems low. Did you plug the x-tra 12v Pent4 line into ur mobo? You know its the four pin one.

Anyway other than the 12v everything looks good. I just wish I could get 10.5 x 225 stable....oh well such is life

Yep, its a situation with the MB. Not much you can do. Just get use to setting you voltage a little bit higher, thats all. Nothing to be worried about.

This BS mobo is ****ing me off big time. Check my post
I won't just sit here and watch. Time to bash those F-ers at Abit and tell them the customer is always right.

Sorry for not responding guys. I posted this and forgot I was going away for the weekend.

Sentential said:

You are doin better than me

Unfortunatly my CH5 refused to cooperate with me. But yes the v-core is a know issue that Abit continues to deny

BTW your 12v line seems low. Did you plug the x-tra 12v Pent4 line into ur mobo? You know its the four pin one.

Anyway other than the 12v everything looks good. I just wish I could get 10.5 x 225 stable....oh well such is life

Click to expand...

Yes I do have the 12V p4 thing connected to the MB. All of the voltages were in MBM5. I was under the impretion that it read lower than actual. I have seen a few posts where people post about low voltage rails but when they use a multimeter to measure it they get higher readings that are where they should be.

10.5 x 225? I wish I could get that. I am back at 11 x 207. I need to update my sig again. I thought I had it stable at 208 but I hadn't tested it completely. Only 6 or so hours of prime. I can't stand not using my computer Anyway it crashed twice so I lowered back to 207

How new is your board?

There are waaaaaay too many setting in Abit's BIOS. Too many things that could cause instability.

Its a real ***** to sort out where the problem lies.

Here are the problem areas:

Memory setting (ie Expert/Optimal) (for some reason Optimal worked better with my PC4000 whereas my CH5 like xpert)

VDD voltage (HUGE factor. Unstable @ 225 without 1.7v. Unstable @ 237 with 1.7v .Stable @ 237 with 1.5 volts )

RAM voltage (another area. My ram and many others hate being run over 2.6v. Especially since Abit overvolts by .4)

Finally....BIOS

NF7s are really picky about BIOS. Try em all out to figure where your board lies.

I have the memory on expert so I can choose 2-2-2. Optimal gives me 2-3-3.

VDD I tried 1.5 and it wouldn't boot. I had to raise it to 1.7 for 208fsb or prime would fail within 20 minutes.

Ram is at 2.8, 2.9 fails memtest instantly unless I move one of the sticks over. But it passes memtest at 2.8 up to 210fsb, so I don't need 2.9.

I haven't yet tried another BIOS. I have been using 21 since I built the system.

I am happy with the system and decided 11 x 207 was fine. Its much much faster than my old P3 667, 256mb pc133, gf2 mx200.

If you think his 12V line is low, mine is at 11.32V through the winbond hardware monitor. I got a multimeter and measured and it was actually around 11.55-11.6V. My system is stable and the fsp350 is holding up so no worries

lesson: don't trust the voltage lines.

Indeed even if it was 11.0 it wouldnt be low, each ps differs. People make way too big of a deal about Powersupply's, and overclocking.

Most of the time its the guys that have lotsa money too spend on hardware think they need an $80 powersupply to get good results. Its simply not true unless maybe running duel processors or some other sick power sucking devices. Just something wealthy suka's have to brag about being in their systems.

On a side note and you guys know the type I mean, the people who seemingly have endless supply's of cash to spend on tweaking crap make me sick. Back in the day it was a way for us guys who dont have alot of cash to get more performance for the buck. Not for the punks who have the cash to burn to go "hey everyone look at what I can afford!", like it seems to be today.

Back on topic. Up until 2 months ago i was using a 300w hipro that came in my 1st p2 400 computer back in 1999.

It pushed an athlon xp2600 oc'd, volcano7+ fan, mobo fan, vid card fan, 2 case fans, sb audigy, microsoft usb laser mouse, sidewinder flight stick, 40 gig hd, a 2nd 8 gig hd, ti 4200 vid card, 2 nic cards, cd rom, cdrw, and a 3rd dvd rom drive. Go figure. Besides that its really about the amps, and not the watts. You could use a 150w PS as long as you have enough amps.

Point being a 12volt rail isnt going to make or break your overclock or your stability. I dont expect anyone to just take my word on any of this. But thats my 3 cents and a little more.