"Musty" said:
Hi,
I am running the above board with a P4 3.0Ghz Northwood. I overclocked to
3.3Ghz (using the AI). All was fine until I played Morrowing and it started
crashing. I would like to ask the group for suggestions on types of cooling
and recommended setups:
1. Recommended CPU cooler (has to be much better than stock and not terribly
noisy)
2. Any recommendations for Northbridge cooling? Is it necessary?
3. How can I determine if it was my CPU or the memories which failed me?
4. Any recommendations for memory cooling (I have 2 Kingston 512Mb DIMMs)
Also, does anyone on this board had an issue with not being able to go into
standby? If so, how to overcome it?
Thanks
Musty.
Some people would recommend that you do your overclocking experiments
using the manual settings in the BIOS. This requires more knowledge
about what each setting does, but allows a higher overclock. The AI
software, of necessity, has to use a simple minded approach to
overclocking, and the infinite ingenuity of humans can do much better.
For help with settings, look in Google for a link to rojakpot.com
and the "freebog" section of that site.
For a CPU, I like the design concept of the Zalman CNPS7000. The
AlCu model gives good cooling and weighs less than the pure copper
model. You need to check the compatibility web page on the Zalman
site, as the large size of the heatsink can run into motherboard
obstacles or run into the side of the power supply. The design uses
a large, low RPM fan, that is quiet even when run at full speed.
For the Northbridge, you can try feeling it, to see if it is getting
too warm. On a computer I worked on before Christmas, I used a
cheap digital thermometer, to measure the temp of a Northbridge
heatsink, and it got up to 75C while running 3DMark or Prime95.
That was too hot, and called for a small fan which helped the temps
a lot. If you cannot hold your finger on the aluminum heatsink,
then I would investigate a small fan. (It is also possible, depending
on the HSF you end up buying, that you can arrange the exhaust
air stream of the CPU HSF to blow across the Northbridge fins,
solving two problems at the same time.)
If you are running the memory at DDR400 or faster, generally a small
boost in Vdimm is needed for stability. If you get the data sheet
for a lot of PC3200 or faster RAM now, it calls for 2.6V, and there
shouldn't be a problem trying 2.7V. Some brands of memory have voltage
regulators inside the memory, and that is why the memory gets a lot
warmer if the voltage is boosted more than that. There are some rocket
scientists running ram at up to 3.3V, by modding the Vdimm supply on
their motherboard, and that is sure to make the memory run hot.
Normally, the power dissipation of DDR memory is not high enough
to justify a heat spreader, but as the volts go up, so does the
need for some kind of cooling. (I consider 3.3V to be "cruel and
unusual punishment"
To determine if you are CPU or memory limited, you may need to
explore what CPU:RAM clock ratios are supported by the hardware.
On a P4P800/P4C800 for example, there is 1:1 or 5:4 ratios. By
using the 5:4 CPU:RAM ratio, the CPU can be pushed while leaving
the RAM at a safe speed - then you can crank the FSB and see how
far the CPU goes. Switching to 1:1 and cranking the FSB puts
more of the stress on the RAM end of things, and shows what might
be the RAM or Northbridge limit. (Note that the Northbridge does
matter, as the current Intel Northbridges, like the 875, have
been run at 300MHz = 1200MHz quad pumped. Other brands of
Northbridge will have different limits.)
For more specific information on overclocking, I recommend visiting
the forums of Abxzone.com. They have a search engine, and you can
enter the model number of your motherboard, to see if there are any
overclocking threads on the board.
For standby or other ACPI power states, you need to have hardware
that supports the states (i.e. if a PCI card doesn't like to be
suspended or the driver cannot recover properly, that would be
a reason ACPI isn't fully supported). The BIOS has to declare
that it is ACPI compatible, so you need to read the manual and
check for any settings that affect ACPI. The PSU has to have
enough +5VSB current for the requirements of the motherboard
when it is sleeping (current is needed to refresh the ram, for
example). Finally, at the OS level, the correct HAL has to be
installed, as a non-ACPI install will mean trouble.
If you think your machine is in reasonable shape, and there is
no excuse for the state the machine is in, look up "dumppo.exe"
in Google, as that can be used to query and fix ACPI on a Windows
install. It can be downloaded from a Microsoft.com FTP server, the
link to which is also in Google.
HTH,
Paul
