MB voltage increase = stability increase ?

[MK]

Hi,

just a short question:

Is it useful to raise the voltage of the mainboard (slots, RAM, ...) from 3,3V to 3,4V or 3,5V ? Does the stability increase ?

MK


System specs:

Epox EP-BX7+100 with INTEL 440BX chipset
Celeron II 850 MHz @ 1.65V + Golden Orb on 7V
256 MB PC133 Crucial Micron 7E (CAS2)
G400 16MB OEM @ PD 6.10 + TGL
Creative Soundblaster PCI128
20 GB IBM DTLA on HPT U-ATA100 onboard RAID
Iiyama Vision Master Pro 400

[spazm_1999]

Well, the default voltage on my mobo was 3.4v when i lowered it to 3.3v my pc was working fine but the games were hanging so often that it was unplayable. So i'd say yes it does help a little to use 3.4v but as my mobo book say's, anything higher than that could cause dommages.... and the temps raise a little so it might just help to crach your pc if you go over 3.4v

Spazm

[cbman]

Over at CUSL2C.com the results have been fairly inconclusive

For somepeople it helps them (a little)... others don't notice a difference.

Edit (I am at 3.6 but that's because it doesn't make a dif in my system and I can't be bothered to change it back yet)

[This message has been edited by cbman (edited 18 May 2001).]

[MK]

cbman - then my conclusion is that the system is running equal or better.

I think I will give it a try ...

Any other opinions ??

MK

[This message has been edited by MK (edited 18 May 2001).]

[Wombat]

It may help, it may not. Voltage increases have two primary affects. One is to increase the gate potential and make things run faster. This may increase stability if a component is running to slowly and can be fixed by accelerating the speedpath. The component may just be bad however. On the other hand, you're also raising the power dissipated (6% increase for 3.3-&gt< !>3.4). This can cause things to overheat to an unstable state.

And running anything over spec can always blow it, but that's a probability game.

One more thing, do you know what your powerlines are running at right now? Mine is already 50mV over what it's set to (and my 12V is 12.4 or so).

[MK]

Wombat - unfortunately I do not know what my power lines are running at. Are these the values you can look at in the BIOS ?

Thanks for the advice, I will try to get some more informations about that. Do you really think the increase from 3.3 to 3.4 causes such a lot more heat ?

MK

[EvilDonnyboy]

I'm at 3.6v on my P3V4X and I find it helps. I find I can oc my G400 higher and run my system RAM slightly faster than at the default 3.5v.

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P3V4X | P3 650@897 | Matrox G400@171/233 | Viewsonic 17" E771 | 256 mb ram | Maxtor DiamondMax+ 40 | SB Live Value | Altec Lansing ACS45.2 | Win2k

[This message has been edited by EvilDonnyboy (edited 19 May 2001).]

[The PIT]

And can we trust what the bios tells us?? Or the motherboard monitors tell us.

[cbman]

I would say that the bios is pretty accurate... since I don't use any monitering programs I can't comment on them..

[Wombat]

Yes, you can trust the BIOS as much as you can trust the programs, since they just ask the BIOS what it says. The only true way to know is with a VM on the wires, but you don't need that here.

EDB,
The default voltage for your RAM is 3.3v. Your BIOS is just set to already up the voltage. You're slow-cooking it right now, since it's burning 19% more power than it is spec'd for. I'm not saying anything really bad will happen, but I wouldn't buy your RAM used, and I'd be really pissed off if I bought it w/o knowing you ran it like that.

[Targon]

One way to look at this, which doesn't tell the whole story is that your CPU is designed to run at a certain speed at a certain voltage. Now, as you increase the speed of the chip by overclocking it, the CPU will need more power to run stable. This has the negative that as you increase the voltage, you cause more heat to be generated. If you have a good fan or cooling system, this isn't a problem until very high speeds. If you lower the voltage, you won't be giving the CPU enough power to run properly, so you run into the stability issues you encountered.

So, if you run your CPU at the rated speed, and with a good heatsink and fan, you shouldn't have ANY stability issues with the CPU. If you need to increase the voltage to make it stable, then you MAY have a re-marked processor(it's been designed to run at a given speed, but some people illegally change the markings so it SEEMS to be a faster chip). Either that, or your processor is defective and should be returned for a refund or replacement.

[EvilDonnyboy]

No. On the Asus P3V4X, the default VIO (I/O voltage) is 3.5v. With a small jumper change you can change it to 3.6v.

The spec for the VIO is 3.3v, but that doesn't mean Asus has to make it 3.5v.

[cbman]

Got bored so took a picture with my Elcheapo Sux 640*480 Not Quite Zoom Fuzzy Digital Camera

I just want to see if my new webhosting site allows links.

I guess not

Oh well.. here is a link

http://geektechspot.webjump.com/biosvolt.jpg


[Edit] Removed Img link and put regular link instead [/EDIT]

[Edit] I got it to work... [/edit]

[Edit] Ok.. it kinda works.. it works on the computer with 2 NIC's with a direct connection to the DSL but it doesn't work on the computer that has to use ICS with only one NIC... stupid finiky thing.. oh well... I will leave it with both the img link and the site link...
[This message has been edited by cbman (edited 19 May 2001).]

[This message has been edited by cbman (edited 19 May 2001).]

[SteveC]

I'm running mine at 3.84Volts

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[cbman]

Steve... Your a crazy man