SETI & Overclocking

[CharlesWA]

Thanks Assim. I think I may have gone a little too light on the thermal paste. I'll take things apart in a while and try again.

According to Intel my CPU's "Thermal Spec" is 90 degrees C, so I doubut I did any damage to it, even when it ran up to 90 or a bit above.

That's assuming it actually went that high. I skimmed that thread you guys have going on the ASUS board. I'm going to check out the bios and PC Probe versions. I'm pretty sure my board has 1003 out of the box, but maybe the new revision is out of beta by now (or soon, hopefully).

If everything checks out, then I'm back to wondering why I can't run at 133 FSB/600 Core. There's always a chance that between clocking the memory at 100 Mhz and the FSB at 133 Mhz the chipset may be unstable. Maybe not under "normal" use, but under the constant pounding of SETI. I'm just going to have to order that PC133 RAM sooner than later...

Charles

[Assimilator1]

CharlesWA

You need to try higher cpu voltages ,you'll be OK up to 2.2v.But increase the voltage by the smallest increments & check for stabilty.
If it is 'nearly' stable at 2v then theirs a good chance it'll be ok at 2.05v(that's what Intel did BTW for 600MHz on a Katami).

Of course you'll want to confirm that your cooling is working OK.!

BTW have you tried Mother Board Montior to see what cpu temps you get with that?

Here's another thread that'll interest you
http://anandforums.gisystech.com/mes...hreadid=177645

Oh ,nearly forgot ,I stumbled across another forum with a section dedicated to the P3V4X!
Their should be loads of info their for you
http://www.nightmachines.net/cgi-bin...=30&LastLogin=


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I guess I won't recruit for my team here TA



[This message has been edited by Assimilator1 (edited 03 June 2000).]

[CharlesWA]

Update to the story... The retention mechanism that ships wit the Global Win cooler that I've got seems to be at least partially to blame. I took the CPU and cooler apart, cleaned it, and noticed that there seemed to be a little "wear spot" on part of the cooler right where one corner of the CPU contacts it. The corresponding part of the CPU is worn slightly too. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that only that corner of the CPU was touching the cooler!

I did some bending and tweaking of the mechanism and now it seems better, though I still think it's too hot. With the CPU at 600/133 FSB the temp likes to hover in the low 60's but I've seen it jump up to almost 70 C. This is much better than the 90+ from a previous trial. In fact, it ran fine this way all night. It's still at 2.00 V for the core. A brief test at 450/100 showed a temperature of about 10 degrees cooler (50-55). I've read other places that this board likes to report 5+ degrees warmer than the CPU actually is, so that'd put it at more like 45-50 C for the standard clock/voltage settings. Does that seem reasonable? Or is my CPU cooler still not running at maximum efficiency?

Incidently, ASUS has a "release" version of BIOS 1004 posted for this board, but that BIOS is JUNK! Let's just say that the multiplier settings don't work right. I've seen other posts saying the same thing.

More later or tomorrow after more testing/tweaking.

Thanks all,

Charles

[Assimilator1]

45-50 C for internal cpu temp is fine

I'm still surprised that it hits 70C though, are you ABSOLUTLEY sure that the heatsink is sitting flush onto the cpu this time?

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I guess I won't recruit for my team here TA

[Kruse]

A somewhat late reply, but better late than never right...?

CharlesWA:

My MB is an Asus P3B-F. In my humble opinion the best BX board ever made. I have no reason to believe the measurements are off... the heatsink feels quite warm to the touch, so I'd say 60 C for the CPU is very likely.

Your new temperatures sound quite reasonable to me too.

One extra thing: I recently cut a big hole in my cabinet (just the metal, not the plastic) where the intake fan is (front bottom). Before that there were just a lot of small holes. Now my operating temps are 55-58 C for the CPU and 26 C stable for the cabinet while running SETI. Besides the lower temperature it also makes less noise now

[jms]

Kruse,
the lower temperature must have made your machnine crunch WUs a hell of a lot faster. You'll probably pass me in a couple of days. Oh well, for the best of the team and so on...
Jan

[CharlesWA]

Kruse: I actually haven't had the case cover back on yet. The temperature may or may not go up when I do that. I've got one intake fan (front/bottom area) and two exhaust fans plus the power supply fan. One is right behind the CPU and directly below the power supply. The other is up higher in the back (full tower case). My case has lots of little holes in front of all the fans. You've got me thinking about maybe opening up at least the front one to increase air flow.

All: So far so good. The machine has been running pretty much continuously with SETI (and occasionally me messing with it) since Saturday. No lock-ups, no restarts, etc. The temp has been in the 60-70C range the whole time. I'm feeling ok with that since Intel says I'm ok up to 90C. I still may try an Alpha cooler since I've read a few places that they do fit ok.

Charles

[Kruse]

jms:

If only that was so... I took advantage of an extended weekend (a few national holidays) to add three more machines from work. They're down again though, so I'm back to around 10 WUs/day.

CharlesWA:

That's a lot of fans! If I were you I'd certainly make a bigger hole at the intake fan. All those exhaust fans need some air flow.