P4 Northwood killed...R.I.P.

[MetalCartman]

...probably due to too much voltage, causing the NSDS (Northwood sudden death syndrome). I bought this 1.6GHz Northie in February '02, had it overclocked to 2.4GHz/150FSB @1.8V with the "wire trick" (shortening two oft the VID pins with a thin wire).
Well, so far so good, never had any problems, was rockstable, never crashed.

Until a few weeks ago, when my system started to reboot randomly. I lowered the FSB to 133MHz, was then again stable for a week or so. The reboots started again. Set it back to its normal speed and made sure, that everything was in specs. No chance, crash after 2 minutes, sometimes even before the login screen appeared. Did a clean install, changed RAM, bought another mainboard, tried another graphics card, nothing helped.

So I ended up buying a new 2.0GHz chip this morning, which is now o/c'ed to 2.5GHz (125FSB), but without rising Vcore. I guess I learned my lesson...

Cart

/edit: typo
/edit2: another typo *me stupid*

[WyWyWyWy]

I would not overvolt my chips more than 10%... anyway it served you good one year

[Nowhere]

you did?

you're still running it out of spec...

[K6-III]

I've been running my TBredA 1700+ @2ghz@2v. Hopefully, it'll hold up long enough for Barton to be cheap....

[MetalCartman]

Originally posted by Nowhere
you did?

you're still running it out of spec...

Sure, but its the higher voltage that kills a chip, not the speed.

I've been running prime95 now for the last four hours, no errors and CPU temperature is 54°C with intel's stock HSF.

What coolers do you guys use on your P4s?

Cheers,

Cartman

[Nowhere]

if you're running it with higher speed you automatically deliver to it more power; similar when voltage goes up

it's running out of spec anyway; if it fails you will can only blame yourself

[Evildead666]

as far as i can tell, he hasn't blamed anyone...

[KvHagedorn]

Not long after getting my XP1800, I heard about how sensitive Northwoods had been to over-voltage and knocked my voltage back down to spec just to be safe. Some people were even talking about 3GHz the way they talked about the sound barrier in the 40s.. that it couldn't be broken and silicon would lose integrity at such speeds, blah blah. This is a temporary problem which the process genies out there will solve soon enough.

btw, after "burning in" my XP, it runs stably at a higher speed than it did before at stock voltage.

[WyWyWyWy]

Yea more speed = more current = more power.
Anyway, if I were you I would overclock too.

I use a CoolerMaster "Fujiyama" Heatpipe cooler
When I use the silent fan my P4 is 38C idle and 49C full load for 2 hours, pretty good I think.

Don't compare my temperature with yours as MSI P4 boards are known to report higher temperature than other P4 boards. My old ECS board reports 29C idle, 41 full load.

[MetalCartman]

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy
Yea more speed = more current = more power.
Anyway, if I were you I would overclock too.

Agreed. That is what I think: overclocking w/o overvolting pumps much less additional current trough the cpu than overclocking with overvolting, according to Ohm's law... maybe one of the EEs or chip designers here can comment on that?

I use a CoolerMaster "Fujiyama" Heatpipe cooler
When I use the silent fan my P4 is 38C idle and 49C full load for 2 hours, pretty good I think.

Don't compare my temperature with yours as MSI P4 boards are known to report higher temperature than other P4 boards. My old ECS board reports 29C idle, 41 full load.

Sounds interesting, I'm gonna check prices for the "Fujiyama". Thanks!

Any suggestions on thermal grease? At the moment I use some generic "Silver Grease" instead of intel's stock thermal pad, but the difference is negligible...

Nice weekend to you all!

Cartman

[MetalCartman]

Got a Coolermaster IHC-L71 on ebay for €42,05 (incl. shipping), should be here by the end of the week. I'll keep you updated.

[WyWyWyWy]

Well of course Arctic Silver III
2 degree dropped compare to CoolerMaster thermal paste (cheap one not gold one). Check on eBay I saw someone from Germany selling them for 5 euro for a sample (0.5gram) which is enough for one or two cpu. Or buy a 3 gram tube for about 9 euro.

[WyWyWyWy]

http://www.moddingstore.de/product_info.php?products_id=166

Cheap enough

I got mine for about 35euro in Hong Kong (where CoolerMaster is based).

[MetalCartman]

Well, the cheapest offer I could find was about €55 (excl. s/h), so I'm quite happy with the price, since I'm not planning a trip to Hong Kong in the next time.
According to the seller it was used for about 3 months and is in perfect condition.

[MetalCartman]

Update: changed the RAM to a PC333 module (previous was a PC266), now it is stable at 133MHz FSB and 355MHz memory clock.

Still waiting for the new HSF...

/EDIT: switched the memory clock back to 333MHz DDR...