The Saga Continues... overclocking an Abit IC7!!

[celidee]

Hello all....

I finally got my RMA Mobo from that ebay mobo store and replaced the temp Asus board that I put in...anyhoo...I has pissed to find out that the people had taped over the ethernet connector because it wasn't working!! How in the world am I going to return a defective product with another one?!?!?! I figured I waste more and more time (and money) if I RMA'd it again and wait for another one so I went to my local comp store and got an ethernet card, no biggie I guess....

Anyhoo.....I have been tying to read up on messing with the bios settings in order to have a stable system at decent clock speeds, currently running a pentium 2.4C. I'm slightly increasing my FSB from 200 to 205 and when I tried to reboot I got an error (enter boot disk message)....ok so I double checked my boot sequence to see if anything was unsual and of course nothing that I know of was. Also tried increasing my V core and ratio but nothing made a difference still getting the same problem.....this is supposed to be one of the best boards for overclocking this CPU...what am I doing wrong?? Or not doing right?


Also when I replaced the board to the Abit my CPU temps increased about 13C!! I have a Zalman 9500 a very good CPU coolor so it shouldn't be so high especially since I am unable to overclock....did I apply the heat goop incorrectly? Or does a mobo change make a big difference in CPU cooling/heating issues?

 

[Alec§taar]

Hello all....

I finally got my RMA Mobo from that ebay mobo store and replaced the temp Asus board that I put in...anyhoo...I has pissed to find out that the people had taped over the ethernet connector because it wasn't working!! How in the world am I going to return a defective product with another one?!?!?! I figured I waste more and more time (and money) if I RMA'd it again and wait for another one so I went to my local comp store and got an ethernet card, no biggie I guess....

Anyhoo.....I have been tying to read up on messing with the bios settings in order to have a stable system at decent clock speeds, currently running a pentium 2.4C. I'm slightly increasing my FSB from 200 to 205 and when I tried to reboot I got an error (enter boot disk message)....ok so I double checked my boot sequence to see if anything was unsual and of course nothing that I know of was. Also tried increasing my V core and ratio but nothing made a difference still getting the same problem.....this is supposed to be one of the best boards for overclocking this CPU...what am I doing wrong?? Or not doing right?


Also when I replaced the board to the Abit my CPU temps increased about 13C!! I have a Zalman 9500 a very good CPU coolor so it shouldn't be so high especially since I am unable to overclock....did I apply the heat goop incorrectly? Or does a mobo change make a big difference in CPU cooling/heating issues?

I have & still use (as a SQLServer 2005/IIS 6.x/Windows Server 2003) a system w/ an Abit IC7-Max III mobo (a "spiffed up" more feature-laden version of yours basically).

I can use this thread, because I never had much luck o/c'ing a Pentium 4 3.2ghz HyperThreaded CPU on it...

APK

 

[Sasqui]

Not sure if this helps, but I had an IC7-G with a Northwood 3.0Ghz, GeIL 2.5 4-4-7 DDR500... The thing ran HOT. Even at stock speeds with the stock fan, it almost reached shutdown (75c) when I ran anything other than solitare Thankfully, I had/have a watercooled rig and was able to get it up to 3.3Ghz stable. Interesting, when I first got the chip, I was able to get it up to 3.45, but after about a year (and a hot summer), max OC got lower and lower - go figure - I've seent he same thing happen with a vid card.
If you are crashing and burning at 205, I doubt it's the board, perhaps the PCI bus is really touchy? I totally forget how the IC7-G was with the AGP and PCI frequencues, but I think they can be locked.

 

[celidee]

Not sure if this helps, but I had an IC7-G with a Northwood 3.0Ghz, GeIL 2.5 4-4-7 DDR500... The thing ran HOT. Even at stock speeds with the stock fan, it almost reached shutdown (75c) when I ran anything other than solitare Thankfully, I had/have a watercooled rig and was able to get it up to 3.3Ghz stable. Interesting, when I first got the chip, I was able to get it up to 3.45, but after about a year (and a hot summer), max OC got lower and lower - go figure - I've seent he same thing happen with a vid card.
If you are crashing and burning at 205, I doubt it's the board, perhaps the PCI bus is really touchy? I totally forget how the IC7-G was with the AGP and PCI frequencues, but I think they can be locked.

No the PCI and AGP frequencies aren't locked you can fiddle around with the ratio of CPU:AGPCI to get it where you want....

I know this is a great board to overclock because I have read the reviews I just need to learn how to tweak everything in order to overclock, from the memory timings/voltage to the CPU frequencies....I guess I will do a bit more reading to figure it out *sigh*

Anyone else got any suggestions?

Edit: Oh yeah I tried systools and it crashed horribly!

 

[Sasqui]

No the PCI and AGP frequencies aren't locked you can fiddle around with the ratio of CPU:AGPCI to get it where you want.... Edit: Oh yeah I tried systools and it crashed horribly!

Indeed, it's coming back to me now. Have you run sress tests at stock speeds? Did systool crash at stock?

Have you checked your heatsink installation? I've screwed up there a few times and seen results that sounds similar. Lesson learned, don't install computer parts when drunk.

 

[INSTG8R]

Okay my IC-7(note: not G) ran great with a 2.4C rock solid at 3.0 24/7 for 2yrs and still does as my wifes rig with a 3.2E in it .

The IC7 has no ethernet thats why its taped over, only the G has internet( G stands for Gigabit) The CPU temp sensor reads high(yours estimate is about right(13C)10C easy
Okay other things you need, the PCI/AGP can be fixed check the bottom of the list(set it to Fixed and leave it there)
Max the RAM Voltage(its never gonna go over 2.77v)

I mean you can play around and step it up until your ram crashes(running 2 different sticks of 1 Gig cant help with OC) out but you should be easily able to set the FSB to 250 and the RAM to 4:3 you also shouldnt really need any kinda V increase on the CPU.

 

[Alec§taar]

Okay other things you need, the PCI/AGP can be fixed check the bottom of the list(set it to Fixed and leave it there) Max the RAM Voltage(its never gonna go over 2.77v) ... but you should be easily able to set the FSB to 250 and the RAM to 4:3 you also shouldnt really need any kinda V increase on the CPU.

Sounds like a possible "working formula" for myself as well!



* I will give that a "go" & try it out sometime this week most likely, & it's nice to see others here have had (or have) the SAME mobo as I do basically in the Abit IC-7 series, & have "gone the distance" to better o/c's than I had managed...

APK

 

[INSTG8R]

Happy to help I know the IC7 inside out and I am also intimate with the 2.4C(just sold it to my Brother in Law in an ABit IS7/9800XT 128M/1 Gig Corsair XMS C2) So if you need help with it no problem. I also ran it with the 3.2E@3.6 with the RAM at 1:1(225) again no voltage increase necessary(thank goodness as its a Preshott )

 

[W1zzard]

i'm still using an abit ic7 today in this pc. no problems with overclocking ever. you have the latest bios? turn off all the funky turbo/f1/streetracer stuff. set your memory timings to manual if you know the right settings for them.
and increase the last voltage in the list to the highest value.. 2.8v i think?

different temps betwen those boards are completely normal .. the temp sensors are off big time .. even within the same batch .. over all the ic7's i had i've seen off readings from +3 to +17°c.

 

[W1zzard]

ok i just checked my bios .. agp voltage to 1.65, this also increases chipset voltage. set memory to 2.8v

 

[celidee]

Wow the thread has grown!! I thought I was all by my lonesome...LOL.....I solved the problem on sunday I think, all I did was google 'overclocking problems with IC7' and I got many different results the main thing though like instg8ter said is setting the PCI/AGP to fixed and then I messed around with the RAM and put it to 3:2 just because thats what other people were using. I'm going to try 1:1 to see if that works, what difference does it make anyway? I assume its more stable @ 1:1.





FYI: My max overclock was 2.8, I'm going for the big 3.0 in a few. Wish me luck!

 

[INSTG8R]

1:1 means the RAM is running at the same speed as the FSB so 250FSB=250Mhz RAM speed or DDR500 PC-4000 however you want to refer to it. So unless your RAM is good for OC'ing dont count on high 1:1 OC's. 4:3 works well with a 250FSB because the ram is running at 200Mhz DDR400 PC3200 so you can get away with running at tighter timings.

 

[celidee]

Yeah I definitely can't do a 1:1 considering I'm using 2 different(brand and timings) sticks of RAM and because they are both DDR400- PC3200 and not the PC-4000. So with that being said the highest I could get my FSB was 241 for a core speed of 2900 which I believe is pretty good since I'm a noob at overclocking, after that my computer starting doing some freaky stuff (crashing ). One interesting fact was that as I kept overclocking more, my CPU temps went down even with the CPU fan at the lowest setting!! Take a look:

Has anyone experience this too, or am I a special case? Take into consideration I'm using a very good Zalman Fan. Also, since my temps are good, can I keep my rig overclocked? Or should overclock only when needed(gaming)?

 

[error_f0rce]

Take into consideration I'm using a very good Zalman Fan. Also, since my temps are good, can I keep my rig overclocked? Or should overclock only when needed(gaming)?

Is that picture taken at idle? If so, what temps do you get under heavy load? I know "idle" temps don't matter, but was supprised to see them at 45c, that's higher than I was expecting with the Zalman. Does your case have good ventilation? At a 20% OC my processor idles at about 36c in windows.... I know, I know, it's not that same type of P4, but just thought I'd let you know.

P.S. What thermal compound did you use to install the Zalman? and what method did you use to apply it?

 

[celidee]

different temps betwen those boards are completely normal .. the temp sensors are off big time .. even within the same batch .. over all the ic7's i had i've seen off readings from +3 to +17°c.

This is why I'm reading higher temps than you...


Yeah the temps are at idle but I was still surprised because the temp went down when I overclocked. I used Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound and applied a very thin layer. My case has great ventilation its a soprano with 2 120MM fans and 80 mm side panel fan, cpu fan, chipset fan, VGA fan, PSU fan...so a lot of air is moving around.