Pentium 4 HT OC

[DLoaderMega88]

- Abit IC7-Max3 Motherboard
- Intel Petium 4 3.4ghz Northwood
- Corsair XMS 3200 1GB 2x512MB DDR XLPT (Dual Channel)
- Seagate 160gb SATA
- Koolance Exos 2
- Swiftech Blue CPU Mount
- Cooler Master Stacker Case (Black)
- Sapphire X800 XT 256mb VIVO NON-Platinum
- Artic Cooling Silencer 4 wired to PSU
- Creative Audigy X-Fi Platinum
- 2x Thermaltake PurePower 680watt PSU

can somone help me overclock the cpu to its maximum potential?
i have gotten a 3.6 oc and the ram with f1 racer mod at timmings 2-2-2-5 and i want to go higher with this setup

any tips would help as well.

thanks,
Shanil

[cdawall]

great ram timings!!! using the bios and a little boost in the voltage i think you could get 3.8ghz or 4.0ghz possibly either loosening the timins or droping the ram back a speed

[Alec§taar]

I will watch along on this one!

Simply because I have a VERY similar setup (mobo, RAM, & CPU-wise (near same, 3.2ghz P4 H/T type) are the same here - the main things concerned in an O/C imo @ least) for my 2nd rig here I use as a "lab practical" SQLServer 2005/IIS6.x/Windows Server 2003 rig.



* May pick up some more "tricks/tips/techniques", in o/c'ing, albeit this time? From the "Intel Side"...

APK

[DLoaderMega88]

what do you think i should modify exactly?
could i maybe get some values to tinker with?

[g12rxz]

I had a northwood before, those things are easy to overclock and fricken fly.... only thing that held me down was voltage and air cooling... i got my 2.6er stable on air @ 3.6ghz, and this is when i was an uber noobie... using pc2700 value ram, nothing broke... i owe it all to the GA8IPE1000Pro by gigabyte though.

[DLoaderMega88]

cool, nice oc

my processor is Pentium 3.4ghz Northwood HT i herd the speeds of this processor oced are alot better than a 2.8E oced or a prescott oced. can somone please get me some values to try out on my system. i've been trying to oc and iwant to try my configs with any of yours.

thanks,
Shanil

[Ketxxx]

I cantcomment on consair me being a mushkin tech, but if you intend to really push the system try some generic timings of 2.5-3-3-8 and just start pushing that FSB up. once instability sets in increase vdimm\vcore to regain stability and keep going. make sure your cpu doesnt exceed 70c on full load maximum and without knowing the ICs on the memory, dont go above 2.9v there either.

[W2hCYK]

I have a 2.8E, I can get it to 3.3GHz stable @ 40c Idle..

My previous 3E I got all the way to 4.2GHz @ about 45c idle..

My trick was to use the divider, and tighten tighten tighten those timings. Tighter timings gives you more bandwidth, and a slower ram speed lets your cpu run faster, so youre not really losing either way.

You have to figure, am I getting more performance @ 4GHz with 2.5-3-3-5 @ 5:4(or maybe even 2.5-2-2-5 @ 5:4) or 3.6GHz, 2-2-2-5 @ 1:1

Northbridge cooling on that board helps alot too. Get some active cooling for that, and bump up the AGP voltage to 1.8v(AGP voltage controls NB voltage as well, with no problems to the AGP slot, just maybe a hotter PCB. I upgraded that board to a P4P800E-Deluxe, and my prescott flew. Highest I've booted is 4.3GHz on air cooling... but temps were hot, and voltage was unsafe. The abit board also over reads temperatures by as much as 11c, so figure you're really 5c~ lower than what the board says.

I was pretty good @ OCing back when I had my 3E, I seem to be slipping now. I've been learning how to OC my friends opteron for him, HTT really messed me up on 478's, lol..

Before the 3E, I had a 2.4C which I got to 3.8GHz on air, I swear its all in the RAM, and how you can trick your system into getting more bandwidth with different settings, and allowing the cpu to pull ahead with what works for it. You have to try many different combo's to find the optimal setting.

**Edit.. I saw that your RAM was PC3200, I have 4000, which is completely different. Treat your timings differently from what I've described, but follow the same principle of OCing the RAM:CPU

[DLoaderMega88]

when i tried those settings i was unable to hold a 4ghz oc the system doesn't even post up

would i need to cool the northbridge better or can somone help me with other settings?

[W2hCYK]

Have you increased voltage? What voltage are you at?

[DLoaderMega88]

i boosted core voltages to 75

[DLoaderMega88]

i got the core voltage at 775

[W2hCYK]

?? That isnt a core voltage. Usually the core is around 1.45v stock on the northwoods. 775 is a socket type..

or do you mean.. 1.775? If youre running 1.775 on a northwood, you may be running into sudden northwood death syndrome(google SNDS) where the cpu shows no signs of dieing, and then wont boot one day.

1.6v is the max I'd recommend on a northwood. Heck, sometimes cpus are more stable @ lower voltages than crazy high ones. Try a lower voltage.

[gR3iF]

set your cpu cooler under 12v
or is the psu rail 12v?

[DLoaderMega88]

alright i'll set the core at 1.6, but anyone got any other values i should try cus i dunno.
i'll go pull the box to check what it really is

[DLoaderMega88]

i couldn't find the box but i got a cpu-z list up
CPU:
APIC ID 0
Name Intel Pentium 4
Code name Northwood
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz
Family/Model/Stepping F29
Extended Family/Model F/2
Brand ID 9
Package mPGA-478 (2h)
Core Stepping D1
Technology 0.13um
Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2
Features
Clock Speed 3407.5 MHz
Clock multiplier x17.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 200.4 MHz
Bus Speed 801.8 MHz
Stock frequency 3400 MHz
L1 Data Cache 8 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Trace Cache 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative
L2 Cache 512 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 3407.5 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits

Chipset:
Northbridge Intel i875P rev. A2
Southbridge Intel 82801EB (ICH5) rev. 02
Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Revision 3.0
AGP Transfer Rate 8x
AGP SBA supported, enabled
Memory Type DDR
Memory Size 1024 MBytes
Memory Frequency 200.4 MHz (1:1)
CAS# 2.5
RAS# to CAS# 2
RAS# Precharge 2
Cycle Time (tRAS) 5
Performance Mode enabled

[DLoaderMega88]

i set the core max volate to 1.6 and it doesn't pass post on a 250 FSb

any other tips i should try?

[cdawall]

did you use a ram divider??? (yours is set to 400 set it to 333 it should work)

[DLoaderMega88]

ram divider? set to 333 instead of 400? how would i do that?

[Thermopylae_480]

Got my 3.0GHz Prescott to 3.7GHz, idles at 38~C, which is about the same as stock. Had the VCore at 1.3625v, the NBV at 1.6v, and the DDR2V at 1.95v. I imagine I could take it higher, but I don't want to because I have a crumby CPU heatsink. Seems like you could push a little more out of a 3.4GHz Northwood than what you have. Just tweak it a bit. Just up the voltages a bit like everyone has said. I don't think you should have to worry about changing the CPU:Memory dividers though, unless you just have some cheap memory that can't hande being clocked up a bit. Maybe loosen the timings?

[DLoaderMega88]

when i try to hit anything past like 3.6 the whole system goes crazy.

one time i did get it to load 3.86ghz and then it crashed when i loaded steam

i dunno whats up

[cdawall]

ok to set the ram divider to 333 go into bios it is either right there w/ the cpu clockspeed or it is under dram timings but it is probably sais something like 400(BY SPD) or something along the lines of that you click it and set it off the 400mhz (by spd) and put it on 333 )and no that doesnt limit the ram to 333 it just changes the divider

[DLoaderMega88]

i don't know how to set that exactly in the ic7-max3 bios... i don't think there is a option to drop that

[cdawall]

really you read through all the extra shit in the manual when i get a chance i will look personally but that could take some time (school work)

[DLoaderMega88]

there is no way that can be done, i looked through the listup and everything