Help pushing my rig further

Hey gang,

I have been running my rig now oc'ed from 2.4c to 3.3, but I wonder if it can go further? Here is my setup:

2.4c -> 3.3 (275x12) @ 1.575v
Asus P4P800, Zalman 7000-AlCu, Thermalright 480 watt
2x512 PC3700 Buffalo [2-3-3-6]
Sapphire Radeon 9800 pro

I have tried to push the FSB up to 380 while increasing the voltage up to a high of 1.7, and relaxing the memory to 2.5-3-3-8 but it will not successfully boot into windows. I have reached the limit of what I know to do and I am not sure where to go from here. Ideally I would like to see 3.4 or 3.5 though I of course would not complain if I could get even further I am not unhappy with the oc, just wondering if I am getting the most out of my parts.

Anyone have any ideas? Have I reached the limit of my CPU/board/memory?
Would a volt mod. help me push further? Would it matter?

I am getting a little more bold in what I am willing to do so any ideas are welcome.

Thanks!

Well, I know for a fact that you can push a P4 2.4 with HT up to 3.6GHZ+! If you want to achieve this, you must get water cooling, or "extreme cooling". Watercooling for a good kit will cost you about 300 bucks with waterblocks and accessories. But, I would save my money and spend it on something else. Hope my reply helps.

Did you try the 72 lock.

BTW, you need to loosing up the timing to get into the 300s and raise NB voltage.

NoteUser said:

Did you try the 72 lock.

BTW, you need to loosing up the timing to get into the 300s and raise NB voltage.

Click to expand...

NoteUser: I do not know what you mean by the 72 lock? Could you help me out?

Also, could you recommend or explain how the timings work a little so I can better understand what to change them to in order to make the looser?

Sorry for the noob questions, I am trying got this all under control.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=302422

The lower numders for the time is more aggresive opposed to the non-responsive relaxed times 3-4-4-8 which will help you determine what your cpu can do.

BH-5 and BH-6 were famous for being aggresive (2-2-2-5) at high FSB and now the EB.

Thanks for the feed back NoteUser. I have tried to use looser timings but I still cannot seem to get my machine stable past 275 at 5:4.

My memory is BH-5 (buffalo 3700), I wonder is I volt modd the MB, would I get more further with my board and memory or am I just at its limit?

trying increasing ur vcore=1.6v... check my rig below, we are almost the same and yet im only using pc3500.. im sure u can push a bit higher

BH-5/BH-6 and OCZ EB respond to voltage.

You need more voltage.

BTW 270 FSB with 2-2-2 would be a little faster than 275 2-3-3. Have you thought about adding a Zalman fanmate 1 to your HSF!

NoteUser: My Zalman came with a fanmate 1 I believe. but isn't the fanmate just a way to limit the rpm of the CPU fan (i.e. fan controller)? By leaving it off it defaults to its full speed which I think is the safest approach. Or did I miss something about the fanmate?
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Well I have pretty much given up going further with my rig based on the equipment I have right now. I think that the only way to get further is to do a volt mod. And I hesitate on that since I don't know if it will really help at all. Can anyone tell me a little bit more about what the effects of a volt mod are?

I played with it over the weekend and I found that I cannot get a stable machine with the FSB over 275 (Performance Mode=turbo). If I leave it at 270 I can enable both performance mode=turbo and MAM. So right now I am doing some benches to see what is faster. 275 without MAM or 270 with it. I did set the v-core to 1.6 which seems to be a safer setting based on what I have read.

I checked the cpu temp with asus probe and the CPU was running around 33-35C idle and 44ish under load. So the temps there seem to be fine. I think my ram is holding me back.

I don't think the problem is your ram sine it's 3700. What's your vcore on load?

The OCZ Booster should be out soon, vdimm increase plug 'n' play. There is also the SMD Grabber route.

It's a controller. The worst that could happen is your fan and controller being burned up.

I will try running prime and cpu-z to get some stressed vcore readings. What do you think the problem is if not the memory? Do you think I am reaching the limit of my CPU?

It depends on the core but the North Bridge also has to be cooled well. Some have gone further with cooling, mosfets, memory etc

Batch code --> http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=187691&page=1

CPU Database --> http://www.cpudatabase.com/CPUdb/

Well I played around with running my memory at 2-2-2-5 and got it to boot at 275 FSB as well as stay up while running some sandra benches. But It would not make it through either Mark'03 or Mark'01. When I ran those heavy hitters the machine would either reboot, freeze, or just exit the program to desk top.

So I reset it to 2-3-3-6 and set my vcore to 1.575. At this setting I was able to run Mark 03 and 01 with no problems as well as sandra test. While running some sandra benches and burn in wizards I watched my vcore with CPU-z and saw that my CPU vcore was ranging from about 1.55 to 1.58.

While testing at 2-2-2-5 I kept putting my finger on the Northbridge and it was warm, but no where near the point of being hot or burning my finger. I just have the standard out of the box heat sink on it. I thought about taking it off and cleaning it then putting it back on with some creamique (sp?) but I don't know that it would do much.

Any of this info tell anyone something that I am missing? I think that if I had a little more voltage running through the memory I could get it stable at 2-2-2-5 but who knows. I just feel that this chip has more but I cannot seem to figure out how to open it up to the next level???

Have you tried 270 2-2-2-5. Raising the memory voltage will help.

Also raise the AGP to at least 1.6 since this is tied into the North Bridge other than the cpu.

Just incase your Burst lengh is 4 change it to 8.

I tried 2-2-2-5 at 275 and 270. In both cases I was able to boot into windows and do Sandra benches (mem score was pretty nice I thought) but I would lock up when trying to run 03 or 01.

I will look to see where the AGP is set and try 1.6 if it is not there and see if that helps.

My burst rate is set to 8.

I am seriously thinking about the volt mod for the board. But I don't want to do it just to get 2-2-2-5 stable at 270 or 275. I want to get to 285+! Just not sure if my equipment can do it or not.

Your FSB will go up with the voltage added to your memory to a centain point. Most people with BH-5 use 3.2 volts to be on the safe side even though the "claim" is supposely rated max 3.6.

It's not just whether the IC chip on the memory can handle the volts but also other components that make up the module such as the PCB board itself.

I've seen Granda Dan over 290 with a 2.4C D1 but that was with the process of burn in and vdimm mod.

Hey Jarlax. Do you know what S-spec your processor is? ie: my 2.4c is a "SL6Z3".

If you want to find out how fast your processor can run, then remove the possibility, as best as possible, of any other component in your system from becoming the limiting factor of your overclock. Try running your performance mode at "Standard", run with loose memory timings (say 2.5-4-4-8) at a FSB:Memory ratio of 3:2 (or "266" in the case of ASUS BIOSes), try upping your Vcore to 1.6v.... ect....

Some observations I have made with this board (keep in mind that this is what I have experienced, so it may be different for you, but I've tried out three of these boards and they've all pretty much given me the same results):

- A 1.5v AGP VDDQ is sufficient up to around a FSB of 312MHz, at which point I found 1.7v is needed to maintain stability.

- A PCI/AGP lock of 33.3/66.6 is perfectly fine, up until around 295-298 FSB, at which point that particular lock starts to become flakey. Using a lock of 36/72 at this point and above solves the problem completely (as long as your AGP, PCI, and IDE/SATA drives can handle running at this speed (most can now days)).

- With air cooling, I found that performing the "droop" voltage mod did not allow me to overclock any higher at all. I found I could reach a max stable FSB of 295MHZ (CPU @ 3540 MHz) overclock with air cooling. After doing the droop mod, my vCore was a lot more stable, but it did not aid in my attempt to reach a higher o/c with air cooling.

Thanks for the reply tio!

Can you tell me what I can do to find out what the s-spec for my chip is? I am looking around the forum for what to use but have not found anything yet. I know that from CPU-z I have a D1 stepping (if that is the right terminology?), but I don't remember the rest of the numbers. Are these numbers the S-spec?

I will take your advice and loosen the timings on the ram as well as the ratio and see how much further I can get, if any. I will post what I find out. But you posted some great points that are good to know!

One last question, I know what a volt mod is (and I am thinking of doing one), but what is a droop mod?

You can find the "S-spec" of your processor printed right on the top of your P4's Integrated Heat Spreader (ie: that metal cap that covers the core of your P4 - you probably already knew that ). It can also be found on the box your P4 came in. On the side of box, there is a sticker with info about the processor inside. The last five characters of the "PROD CODE" is your processor's S-Spec code, or S-code (depending on who you talk to).

But that's ok. If your processor is a D1 stepping, that's all I really wanted to know. If your processor was an "MO" stepping, it would have indicated to me that you could likely reach the 3450 - 3550 MHz range. It is entirely possible you can still do that with your D1 stepping CPU, and many have, but it is just a little bit less likely (probably...).

To answer your second question: the "droop" mod is simply the name that was given to the specific volt mod, that you perform on the P4C800 series of motherboards, to stabilize the vCore fluctuations that are experienced when using these boards. When you put the processor under load, the processor's core voltage "droops" down and lowers quite a bit more than with some other boards. Reguardless of this fact, the board is still considered to be one of the best, if not the best, overclocking board availible for the P4 platform.

OK. I lowered my RAM timings to 2.5-4-4-8, set the ratio to 3:2, and set the perfomance mode to standard. After doing this I tried to set my FSB to 280 and boot into windows. It booted but was not stable. I added move volts (up to 1.6 vcore)...same result.

Does this mean that I have basically reached the max of my CPU? Should I have tried more voltage to the CPU?

I was going to do the volt mod to the board to try and give my mem 3.1-3.2 volts but if my memory is not holding me back then I don't see the point. Though it might help me get stable at 2-2-2-5??