Bringing the Pentium-M to the desktop

[krick]

no not really....ddr and ddr2 / agp and pci-e all for $55 add e6300 for $200..zing!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157092

I don't know. I've had really horrible experiences with cheap motherboards ($50-60) even if they've gotten decent reviews. The last being an ASROCK board from Newegg that was DOA. Before that, Shuttle, before that ECS. To make a board that cheap, they *have* to be cutting costs somewhere.

I've resigned myself to only buying ASUS or ABIT boards that cost $75 or more. Call me stupid but I have far less problems and random unexplained crashes that way.

 

[Evilsizer]

I don't know. I've had really horrible experiences with cheap motherboards ($50-60) even if they've gotten decent reviews. The last being an ASROCK board from Newegg that was DOA. Before that, Shuttle, before that ECS. To make a board that cheap, they *have* to be cutting costs somewhere.

I've resigned myself to only buying ASUS or ABIT boards that cost $75 or more. Call me stupid but I have far less problems and random unexplained crashes that way.

i dought the board was DOA, i would more then likly think the board needed a bios update. Also ASrock is a sub company of asus. I have used ECS boards for some family members and they are still using the boards at stock with no problems what so ever. The price mainly reflect features and to some degree quality.

 

[krick]

i dought the board was DOA, i would more then likly think the board needed a bios update. Also ASrock is a sub company of asus. I have used ECS boards for some family members and they are still using the boards at stock with no problems what so ever. The price mainly reflect features and to some degree quality.

Nope. Totally DOA. There was no way to update the BIOS since it wouldn't even spin up the fans. It was a socket 478 board and I tried 3 different processors (none were Prescott), 4 different sets of of memory modules, and two power supplies. I've been building systems for a long time and I'm pretty sure I did everything possible to verify that it was in fact DOA. The board was an ASRock P4VM800 Socket 478 VIA P4M800 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard in case it matters.

The ECS board I had used to boot up at slightly different clock speeds every time, sometimes causing the primary hard drive to crash. BIOS updates made no difference. Then at one point, one of the traces on the board going to the CPU fan header burst into flames and left a smoking track across the board. Note that this was a P3/Celeron Tualatin board from a few years back and I hear they've gotten their stuff together somewhat since then.

I think it's really a gamble. Sometimes, you get an awesome board that gives you no problems, other times, it's a headache that you regret. However, I can honestly say that I've owned about 10 Abit and ASUS boards in my lifetime and I really can't complain about any of them. I think when you do the volume that ASUS and Abit does, the bugs get shaken out of your motherboards *really* quickly. They also have a reputation to protect.

Wow, this got really off topic. What was I saying about the Pentium M again?

 

[krick]

I just cleaned the heatsink and re-applied some arctic silver paste. I'm running a torture test at 12x230 (2759MHz) right now and it seems to be stable and only hitting about 40C max.

I just got my hands on a used P4C800-E Deluxe 2.0 and I'm seeing something very strange. With the same BIOS settings that I used in my P4P800, my CPU is running at 70C (!?!) during a torture test and it's not stable at 2.7GHz (reboots after a few minutes).

I don't get it. Even at the stock settings, it *IDLES* around 35C on this board compared to about 29C on the other board.

I've removed the heatsink, cleaned and re-applied a thin layer of arctic silver with a razor blade and it doesn't make any difference with the temperature.

I don't think it's overvolting the CPU because I can't even get it to boot at 2.7GHz unless I bump the core voltage up to 1.5 in the BIOS.

I don't get it.

 

[3line]

I think it's pretty consistent that these Dothans have been hitting a brick wall at 2.7ghz. I got my 740 up to 2.6 on 1.43v (in bios), but for the next 60mhz I had to jack the vcore up to 1.51v. At 1.6v I wasn't able to get it stable at 2.7, and clockgen locks up the computer at 2.72ghz or so.

But hey, 2.6ghz is practically guaranteed, and that's nothing to scoff at.

 

[Sjaak]

Mine's still humming at 2.6 after a year and a half..i dont see it getting replaced let alone sold on for a looong time

 

[3line]

Mine's still humming at 2.6 after a year and a half..i dont see it getting replaced let alone sold on for a looong time

Bar none the finest single core cpu I've ever worked with. I'm totally happy with it.

 

[Evilsizer]

yea the dothans were nice thats for sure.

 

[3line]

yea the dothans were nice thats for sure.

And it's still a worthwhile option for those of us still with S478 Asus boards who want to put off upgrading just a little while longer.

 

[Maviryk]

Too bad there are no more CT-479 adaptors to go around.

 

[mcoleg]

Bar none the finest single core cpu I've ever worked with.]

hear hear

 

[3line]

Too bad there are no more CT-479 adaptors to go around.

Fortunately I was able to get one for 40 bucks here so that for 200 dollars I was able to overhaul my nf-7 rig. HUGE improvement!

 

[Evilsizer]

hmm, i sold my cpu/mobo/ct-479/ram for like 150.

 

[hyperasus]

LOL. I haven’t been in here for awhile, so I decided to check in and it feels like a funeral lol. I agree with you guys though. It was great while it lasted. I suppose if you are really truly stuck with Dothan then so be it. For the rest of us….. thank goodness for C2D. Long live low power consumption processors.

 

[Sjaak]

hmm, i sold my cpu/mobo/ct-479/ram for like 150.

blasphemy!

 

[imperiousleader]

My Dothan 715 [email protected] is about to get replaced by a dothan 740 as soon
as I get it from Ebay supplier. Yea, I could upgrade if I wanted too but
figure I'd rather wait another Year until dx10 and Vista get firmly established.
My dothan rig with 7800gs should suffice for a while longer, I just bought a
Zalman 7000b Cu fan/heatsink cos the Summer heat here in Brisbane Australia has well and truly kicked in, poor dothan hitting over 60 C. Anyway due to MS being scumbags as far as dx10 goes with WinXP not happening I doubt
Vista and dx10 will be mandatory for any games for a very long time, software
developers won't take the risk for a while.
Whatever happened to computers continually getting smaller, that idea seems
to have gone out the window, also while cpu's like c2d may be low power,
anyone considering GF8800 GTX SLI will probably need a 1000W psu just to
run it all, Anyone buying shares in power companies?
Seems to be getting a tad out of hand if you ask me.

 

[WarlordOne]

Haha here I am almost a year after the next most recent post! I still like to have a cool quiet desktop that is sutible for general purpose office tasks. I also like the fact that it automatically underclocks itself to save power...gotta love speedstep.

Here's my results, best of 2.6Ghz from a 715 1.5Ghz

Chip: 1.5 400 FSB
Motherboard: P4P800-VM
RAM: 2*1gig Supertalent (PC3200)
Videocard: Geforce FX5600
Cooling: Air, Stock
Current Speed:
2500.5 (166.7x15) -high
1000.2 (166.7x06) -low
Max FSB / CPU clock: 173.5 / 2608.8
Current Voltage: 1.5v
S-code / stepping / pack date: SL7GL / B1 / unknown

It is perfectly Prime stable at 2.6Ghz but there's a slight power drop between the steps that can cause the system to freeze. Ok if you just run the system with the max multiplyer but since I like saving power with speedstep enabled I was forced to cut the FSB back a little.

Still it'll idle fine without active cooling on the lowest multiplyer. Great for downloading torrents overnight. When I finally replace it I'll probably turn it into an energy efficient multi terabyte media server.

 

[imperiousleader]

That's a pretty good speed for a 715, I actually saw a C0 core 715 chip in a laptop at work once, would be interesting to see how that overclocked. Anyway, 740 is a much better chip, runs perfectly stable at over 2.7ghz as in sig.

 

[WarlordOne]

Well right now a 740 would be useless as the VM board doesn't like to go above 170Mhz FSB. It would be maxed out at only 2.2Ghz... I am working on an idea that can force the board to boot at 200Mhz and if that works I may invest in a 7x0 chip.

I think trying to get a 100% overclock out of my 715 without some extreme cooling and voltage mods would be silly. A 43%oc on the stock cooler is good enough for this chip.

Although I'm confused. How can a 36% overclock make for a better overclocking chip than one that can achieve a 43% overclock?

 

[imperiousleader]

Stick with that 715, the extra 100mhz or so won't make enough difference to justify the expense. The reason You cannot boot over 200fsb is because the bios applies the fsb before the multiplier, hence 15x200=3000mhz, not likely.
But with the 740, 200x13=2600mhz, no problems.
The dothans do not make use of extra fsb bandwidth as I have found out, the best thing You can do to improve performance is fit faster memory with tighter timings.