2.4C stepping, any good?

i just got this northwood cpu for free, is the stepping any good? this is what the chip says:

Intel '01
Pentium 4
2.40GHZ/512/800
SL6WF MALAY
Q322A149

T322A900
0170

It's a D1 stepping (original 2.4c). Some of these got all the way to 3.6GHz, most did not. 3.2-3.4GHz 90% of the time, but results are easily limited by the fact that the fsb ends up so high you have to run the 5:4 (or 3:2) mode, which is very hard on memory.

thanks for the info larva

larva said:

but results are easily limited by the fact that the fsb ends up so high you have to run the 5:4 (or 3:2) mode, which is very hard on memory.

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just to clarify, its hard on the memory in the sense that you would be running it much slower than the fsb, and limiting your performance. it won't harm your ram in any way (although some rame does not like to run at very high fsb while using a devider).

It's more than that, it's hard on the stability of the memory. Only BH5 was consistantly successful in this role, and even so, on Abit boards it can have trouble in async modes. The point was that it can be hard to optimize the on-chip clock rate of a 2.4c due to the strain placed on the memory by async operation at the elevated fsb required.

Thanks for the info ... i have a gaggle (ok 4) of used 2.4c's in my folding farm and was trying to optimize them ... one 2.4 hit the max fsb of 300 on a p4p800-x running 5:4 but only folds stable at avbout 260 on an is7. Have another one stable at 275 in an ic7g-max2 and was going to try swapping it with the one that hit 300 fsb (assuming its bios goes over 300!) ... sounds like it might be a wasted effort. I will look through my other asus 478 mobos to see if i can push it farther.

But so far, i have at least 2 sl6wf's that are hitting 250+.

Honestly, 300fsb is a 100% example. More is very unlikely to be stable. And as you've seen, the Asus gets there more often. The Abit is a tick faster clock tick for clock tick, but it's tough on the ram. This makes 300fsb on an Abit all that much more rare.

larva said:

Honestly, 300fsb is a 100% example. More is very unlikely to be stable. And as you've seen, the Asus gets there more often. The Abit is a tick faster clock tick for clock tick, but it's tough on the ram. This makes 300fsb on an Abit all that much more rare.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that info larva ... saves me from unproductive time on the farm ... and there are lots of other things these folding critters need me to spend time on ... like WC and phase change! ... not to mention how to efficiently heat my house with them.

This was on an Abit IC7 with N/B extra cooling, but no other mods.

Yes, but that's an M0 step, which nearly always clock a bit better. A 300FSB SL6WF is about as good as it gets, and most that were reputed to be that weren't really totally stable--nor did they last over the long haul.

Yep, my first 2.4C (D1 stepping) would only run 100% stable at around 3.3 gig. Really, there aren't many socket 478 mobos that are stable at 300 FSB unless you mod the heck out of 'em. Oh by the way, that screenshot was a high voltage suicide run on water. I run lower voltage at 3.5 gig air cooled nowadays. Although, my little M0 stepping 2.4C will still bench at 3.55 gig if I use 1.65v.

1 of my other 2.4's is an M0 ... in a AI7 folding at 275. The other is a D1 in the IC7-G folding at 270. one has ocz 4200 mem at 1:1, the other has ocz eb3700 at 5:4.

Both produce approx the same ppd folding.

Other candidate boards for swapping procs around are p4p800 and p4p800-x.

One of things i need to get done is pick either the AI7 or IC7-G, or posibly an IS7, to give to my nephew so he has a half decent gaming machine. I will put a 9700 AIW on it. It will also run folding 724 depending how it impacts the games. And I will reduce the OC so it stays very stable. Also have a couple of IS7's but 1 is a bit unstable ... the othe seems ok so far but neither is7 is very good oc perf, nor folding production.

Any suggestions which would be the best mobo to 'sacrifice'? I haven't had the time to play around with them much. But I want to take one of them to give to him - so I am looking to remove one with the least OC potential and greatest stability.

I could also swap in a 2.6c for his rig which i am thinking might be better since i am going to reduce his oc. Will also be swapping in 1GB for the 512MB that the folding only rigs have now.

Any advice greatly aprreciated.

i never put 2 and 2 together like that, but larva = right again, and i can see why, though i ive never experienced that particular variation...

all i can say is that if youre gonna fold with a northwood, you better have some above-and-beyond ram, otherwise a devider isnt going to be helpful if you have something like bt-6.
active northbridge cooling would help alot, but that only gets you so far too...
youll need the board mods as well, if you want to make it worthwhile.
if not, plan for about 3.2 daily...

and pscout...a bit of a refresher, just for fun. http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=187691&highlight=condensed+cpu+stickies