- Joined
- Jan 12, 2001
- Location
- Kansas, USA
Ok, 2.6 gig was my best overclock before this weekend, but I could not run my RDRAM at the 4X setting at that speed. To get to this far, I had 3 extra 80mm case fans, lapped Swiftech MCX478 and northbridge heatsinks, AS-II thermal paste, 40mm fan on northbridge chip, the hacked "77" BIOS, and the CPU VID pins were wire wrapped for 1.85v modified default. Oh yeah, I'd also been "burning in" the CPU off and on for the past several weeks.
Of course, I longed to tweak and squeak some more out of batboy's badboy Northy 2.0a and Abit TH7-II system. I was a man obsessed and for the last couple weeks had been carefully researching info and drawing up a battle plan. Today was the time to attack. Time for maximum effort. Time to break down the 2.6 gig wall.
First, I pulled the trusty Swifty cooler back off and applied some brand spanking new Arctic Silver III that I had just bought. Next, I mounted an extra 80mm fan to blow straight onto the RDRAM modules. I had noticed that the heat spreaders on my RAM definitely got warm to the touch when I was looking for hot spots inside my case. Lastly, I flashed back (oh wow, man) to the official "38" BIOS. I had originally flashed the BIOS with the hacked "77" file to give me more voltage settings, but since then I had done the VID pinning.
Right off the "bat" I tried 2.6 gig @ 1.8v actual voltage (BIOS setting of 1.9v) with the RAM at full speed (400 setting on the TH7-II). It was totally rock stable. Cooling the RDRAM really helped a lot. I began slowly sneaking the FSB and the voltage up. At 134 MHz, the system crashed hard. I had to reset the CMOS jumper to get it back. My Windows registry was toast. Fortunately, I had ghosted the harddrive, so after reformatting and ghosting, I was finally back in business again.
I tried 133 FSB at 1.9v again (2.0v BIOS setting). Kids, don't try this without excellent cooling. The RAM was still running at full speed (533X2=1066 MHz), amazing considering this is PC-800 stuff. I could not benchmark without the system locking up. I nervously pushed the vcore up to the 2.05v setting which was an average 1.95v measured with a couple spikes to 1.97v.
I was praying that the voodoo rubber chicken sacrifice that I had performed would spare my beloved Northy from frying. This time, I got my benchmarks and sighed in thankful relief. I hit the brakes and went back down to 2.6 gig and lowered the voltage. I did it! Whew and yippee! I had her totally pushed to the max. That's all there is and there ain't no more.
I reached my goal of 2.66 gig, which is 133 FSB with a 2.0a. Will I ever do it again? Probably not. I'm perfectly happy at a 100% stable 2.6 gig, especially now since I got my memory bus running at full speed. The mission was an overwelming success. I'm so proud of my system. I would of never made it this far without the help of this forum. THANKS!
Of course, I longed to tweak and squeak some more out of batboy's badboy Northy 2.0a and Abit TH7-II system. I was a man obsessed and for the last couple weeks had been carefully researching info and drawing up a battle plan. Today was the time to attack. Time for maximum effort. Time to break down the 2.6 gig wall.
First, I pulled the trusty Swifty cooler back off and applied some brand spanking new Arctic Silver III that I had just bought. Next, I mounted an extra 80mm fan to blow straight onto the RDRAM modules. I had noticed that the heat spreaders on my RAM definitely got warm to the touch when I was looking for hot spots inside my case. Lastly, I flashed back (oh wow, man) to the official "38" BIOS. I had originally flashed the BIOS with the hacked "77" file to give me more voltage settings, but since then I had done the VID pinning.
Right off the "bat" I tried 2.6 gig @ 1.8v actual voltage (BIOS setting of 1.9v) with the RAM at full speed (400 setting on the TH7-II). It was totally rock stable. Cooling the RDRAM really helped a lot. I began slowly sneaking the FSB and the voltage up. At 134 MHz, the system crashed hard. I had to reset the CMOS jumper to get it back. My Windows registry was toast. Fortunately, I had ghosted the harddrive, so after reformatting and ghosting, I was finally back in business again.
I tried 133 FSB at 1.9v again (2.0v BIOS setting). Kids, don't try this without excellent cooling. The RAM was still running at full speed (533X2=1066 MHz), amazing considering this is PC-800 stuff. I could not benchmark without the system locking up. I nervously pushed the vcore up to the 2.05v setting which was an average 1.95v measured with a couple spikes to 1.97v.
I was praying that the voodoo rubber chicken sacrifice that I had performed would spare my beloved Northy from frying. This time, I got my benchmarks and sighed in thankful relief. I hit the brakes and went back down to 2.6 gig and lowered the voltage. I did it! Whew and yippee! I had her totally pushed to the max. That's all there is and there ain't no more.
I reached my goal of 2.66 gig, which is 133 FSB with a 2.0a. Will I ever do it again? Probably not. I'm perfectly happy at a 100% stable 2.6 gig, especially now since I got my memory bus running at full speed. The mission was an overwelming success. I'm so proud of my system. I would of never made it this far without the help of this forum. THANKS!
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