Advice on P4 upgrade

[aboothman]

hello. I have a p-4 1.6a that I previously had upgraded to 2.1. But I kept experiencing
program (game) crashes, so I ran it back down to 1.6. I kept upping the voltage, but it would still
crash. It does not have the program problems now.

So I want to upgrade. Asus told me that I can get up to a 2.6 gig chip on my board. Here aer my specs:

P4 1.6a Northwoods 400 mhz FSB
Asus P4S333 board
Crucial 512 megs DDR ram
Radeon 8500
a bunch of other stuff...

I dont have unlimited money to spend, but I would still like to hear what everyone thinks regardless.

I also want to upgrade from the stock HSF, which is just not doing it anymore. I dont know if this board
will be able to overclock if I get a 2.4 or 2.6 chip. I assume it will, since it is just a setting change, but
I am not sure if the board will allow it.

Any and all input is appreciated. Thanks

 

[myocardia]

Wait, let me guess-- you have PC2100 (133mhz) ram in it, don't you? I would recommend that you buy at least some good, low-latency PC3200 (200mhz, or 400DDR) ram, so you can overclock the cpu you have now. 1.6A's are known for going to at least 2.5ghz. Besides, if you buy a 2.4B, you're not going to be able to overclock it with that ram you have now. Good luck, whatever you do.

 

[Soulkeeper]

i'm assuming you have yet to experience HT ?

what psu are you using ??

running slower memory shouldn't be too big of an issue you just won't be able to run 1:1 when yur overclocking
5:4 and 3:2 ratios should help you get a good overclock and not hinder performance too much in most things

a 2.4c should be good enough for you

does you board support 800fsb officially ?
what motherboard are you using ?

the sp-94 is basically the best P4 heatsink imo when coupled with a good 90 or 92mm fan
i suggest getting one of these heatsinks with a vantec 90mm fan and an adjustable speed knob so it isn't too loud for you


good luck

 

[aboothman]

ya, I have the 'old' ram....but when this processor came out, pc2700 was just coming out, and was very expensive.
I have an Enermax 350 whisper PS.

I suppose the RAM could have been the weak point in my old OC...the computer would occasionally hit a BSOD or just reboot,
which could have been due to lack of power with my 3 HDs and increased voltage. I dont know.

Not sure if this board offically supports 800mhz...I will have to write asus again and ask. I am using an Asus P4S333, with no onboard LAN and the SiS chipset. Great board.

I may not even OC with a 2.4 or 2.6 gig chip, but I am curious whether it is even possible.

Keep in mind that this setup is nearly 2 years old now....and still running great.

 

[aboothman]

By the way, I dont think this board will support any of the HT processors....too old. Here is what ASUS sent me:

he following table shows the support for CPU / Motherboard

CPU Since PCB Since BIOS Memo
Celeron 1.7 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1006
Celeron 1.8 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1006
Celeron 2.0 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1007
Celeron 2.1 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1007
Celeron 2.2 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1007
Celeron 2.3 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1008.003
Celeron 2.4 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1008.003
Celeron 2.5 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1008.004
Celeron 2.6 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1008.004
Celeron 2.7 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1008.005
Celeron 2.8 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1008.005
P4-1.4 GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL ALL
P4-1.5 GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL ALL
P4-1.6A GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1001
P4-1.6 GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL ALL
P4-1.7 GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL ALL
P4-1.8A GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1001
P4-1.8 GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL ALL
P4-1.9 GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL ALL
P4-2A GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1001
P4-2 GHz(Socket478)(400 MHz FSB) ALL ALL
P4-2.20 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1001
P4-2.40 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1001
P4-2.50 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1007
P4-2.60 GHz(400 MHz FSB) ALL 1007

 

[Soulkeeper]

bummer

 

[MichaelZ]

*drools* can I buy that 1.6A after you upgraded?

On a serious note, I would instead be considering to changing the motherboard and ram. The instability is more likely to be caused by the motherboard or the ram. There is absolutly nothing wrong with a 1.6A or a 2.1 IMO, I'd settle for using any of those.

 

[aboothman]

I am not as interested in having super oc'ed computer as I am in one that runs fast and stable. Especially since it will cost me about $500 to get a good MB, CPU and RAM chip. I am just curious about everyones 'past' experiences with a similar setup.
you know, back in 02? lol

 

[MichaelZ]

For OCing, the 1.6A which you own is probably the best overclocker your motherboard can handle judging by the CPUs supported which you listed.

As far as your instability goes, my spare rig as of current (used to be my main rig) had some instability which drove me crazy near the end of its run. It was a 2.4B (533mhz) model.

For the life of me I couldn't figure out why programs, games and sometimes even windows would crash. I realised it was hardware related the moment the "exact same" error message came up after fresh install of windows went on.

I had 2 pieces of PC2700 512MB in there. Took out a 512 stick and the problems went away. Put it back in the error came back. So it turned out to be ram after all. Cheapest option would be to try some different ram and that should hopefully fix the problem (If you actually want to fix it to avoid upgrading from necessity). If not, then you can go right ahead with the upgrade!

IMO your current motherboard doesn't stand a chance for OC. SIS until recently had absolutly NO OC capabilites. Only the 655TX chipset can raise the FSB to an respectable level. All other SIS chipsets are trash OC wise. - I had a SiS board in '02 as well, FSB increase of 12mhz was all it could manage

A quality motherboard is all you need to provide you with a good stable overclock. Some boards offer great overclocking but you do need to find a good quality board, otherwise it will be unstable for everyday use and not to mention you need to run the CPU @ above the Intel stated max voltage.

If you wanted to go with a HT Pentium 4 CPU, get a 2.8C. These overclock nicely and 300mhz increase to 3.1ghz is pretty much guaranteed. At this speed it will be rock solid stability wise. A good stable motherboard that won't break the bank? Try an ASUS P4P800. Great value board. Ram is the next thing you want to look into. Any low latency PC3200 ram is just fine.

To conclude, personally, I think a upgrade would be worth it. Dump that SIS board already. If you decide against upgrading, try some new ram in that SIS board and it *should* stop the program crashes. It sounds very similair to what I experienced. Lastly... can I buy the 1.6A

 

[aboothman]

ok, that helps a bit...thanks. What brand memory would you recommend?

I am thinking this: I will upgrade the memory for now, and OC this thing to the limit (if the board allows it)
and if that is not good enough, I will take that memory and put it into a new MB and buy a 2.8 prescott.

what websites have the best deals? I have always had good times with newegg and mwave, but I am curious
to know other comparable retailers. Thanks again.

 

[Big Lar]

Retailers= Newegg/ Zipzoomfly in that order.
Ram, Corsair, Kingston, Mushkin. Not in that order.
Chip, I'd give the 2.2 a whirl, highly overclockable for the most part, and a good buy even if you get a dud.

 

[myocardia]

Yeah, Corsair XMS, Kingston HyperX, and Mushkin Level 1. Mobo: Abit IC7 for around $120 on Newegg. Processor: 2.8C, don't buy a Prescott yet. They aren't as fast as a C chip is at the same speeds, and watercooling is pretty much mandatory, if you want to overclock.

 

[aboothman]

thanks again guys. a few more questions.

I have been looking around reading all day, and I had come upon the Abit IC7 as myocardia suggested.
I think I am going to go with that, if I upgrade my MB :-D

Thanks for the info on the prescott, that is good to know. Is there something you have on hand that I could read about
the differences between a 2.8c northwoods and a 2.8e prescott? If the 1 gig cache of the prescott and the raw chip performance is good enough, I may just go with it and not even OC. "not OC? AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" *jumps off cliff*

Also, is the 2.8 the fastest of that particular run? For example, 2.4 2.6 and 2.8. I have heard it is common for the slower chips to OC just as well as the fastest, with the same amount of effort...in my case, very little. NO water cooling or fancy mods, just a good HSF thermal compound and good airflow. I guess you would call it a 'mild' oc.

And then to RAM, my most bothersome subject. I am looking at Corsair XMS, but I am not sure which to get, as there
are a ton of choices!!!

Do I want to get PC-3200 for this configuration? If so, what is the difference between a chip that is rated at 2-3-3-6 and
3-3-3-8....is this the timings they are guaranteed to run stable at? Is it common for a slower chip to run well on faster timings?

Also, this board supports dual memory whatever, so would I be better off with one 512 chip with hopes of adding another matched 512 in the future, or 2x256 and adding 2 more 256 chips later?

 

[Soulkeeper]

ok prescott has a few strong points (ie: sse3 .09u and 1mb cache)
but it also has several pitfalls at the moment (ie: heat, low performance, longer pipeline)

basically a 3.2e prescott will perform like a 2.8c northwood
it would take you like a 3.5ghz overclocked prescott to outperform a 3.2ghz non-overclocked northwood at this time (till things get better optimized for sse3 and prescott, and till new steppings/socket come out maybe)

on this note it might not be such a good idea to get a prescott, like i did
the first 2.8e they sent me was DOA and i had to return it
the second one runs over 60c with a mild overclock and atleast 54c at default settings
this all points to the chip being weak when compared to the northwood unless you have high hopes for sse3

the abit ic7 series are great motherboards

also as far as memory goes i would suggest getting pc3200 as a minimum
pc3500 pc3700 and pc4000 are all a bit better tho
the lower the "latencies" or "timings" on the memory the better
for example 2-2-2-6 is basically the fastest they make right now
3-3-3-8 or higher is junk imho
i suggest getting something with winbond chips (pc3200 pc3500 pc3700 i believe are available by many companies) or the new hynix chips (pc3700 pc4000 and maybe pc4200) if you can

also i feel i must stress the fact that new intel chipsets, motherboards, sockets, and cpu's are coming out in like a month or less


as far as which memory modules to get: dual channel is always the best
but it might be better to get one fast stick of 512mb and stick with single channel mode, in the hope of adding 512mb later in the year when prices drop or something
as opposed to getting two slower 256mb sticks now
i've heard some people have problems running dual channel mode with 4 memory sticks

 

[Soulkeeper]

on second thought after doing a search for you motherboard on google and finding that that asus says this on their website:

"Accurate 1MHz adjustments of system-bus-frequency up to 200MHz (i.e. front-side-bus up to 800MHz)"

this leads me to believe that you would prob be better off just dropping a P4c in that thing and not wasting all this money on a new motherboard/mem for marginal performance increases
http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socket478/p4s333/overview.htm
that was the sis chipset that was actually not too bad when compared to the competition before i865 and i875
not too old
asus's bios weblink isn't working (like usual) so i can't check to see what kinda support for cpu's they've added in their recent bios's but it looks like it should run any P4 cpu out right now

 

[myocardia]

Okay, first of all, the Prescotts are not only hotter, they are slower than a P4C when both chips are running at the same speed. You have to buy the next faster chip to get the same performance. Example: a 3.0E (Prescott) is as fast as a 2.8C (Northwood). It's because of the ~50% longer pipeline that the Prescott has. This is a good thing for the future, because it allows higher speeds, but a bad thing for now, since the P4C's are still available, and highly overclockable with only air cooling. Now, on to memory timings. Mem. timings are very important for overall system speed. The first and most important number is called CAS. I can't remember what it stands for, but that makes no difference. The processor has to wait that many clock cycles for data to be sent from the ram, which means that a CAS of 2 is 50% faster than a CAS of 3, because the processor has to wait 50% longer for the data to arrive. Now, it's definitely not going to make your entire system 50% faster, but it will still make a noticeable difference in anything you do with your computer. And no, the 2.8 definitely isn't the fastest, but it's the best price/performance Intel chip right now. Quite a few can reach 3.5ghz, and I haven't heard of one yet that can't do 3.25ghz, and it's only about $175 now. Hope that answered some of your questions.

edit: Okay, Soulkeeper says you would have to buy a Prescott that is 400mhz faster. And since he's got one, he should know.

 

[Soulkeeper]

yeah i'm mostly going by my sisoft and pi scores to determine that comparison
so i can't speak with absolute certainty on the comparison since my 1.8 p4m didn't have HT to compare and only overclocked to about 2.7ghz ( i had to get my prescott over 3ghz to compete with my 1.8 p4m oc'd to like 2.6ghz or so)

but yeah the sisoft scores for my prescott at 3.2ghz 1:1 2-2-2-6 timings fall right around a 2.8c
at 3.5ghz with 5:4 2-2-2-6 it barely outperforms the scores of a 3.2c in sisoft

 

[aboothman]

ok, so I think this is the plan.

Although I really have the upgrade bug now (Thanks guys!!) I think I will just try some low latency pc-3200,
probably some kingston since it is cheaper right now. I will try and OC the hell out of this old 1.6a, and see how far
it will get. As far as I remember this chip does fine above 2.1. In fact it used to run prime 95 for days, literally. But if what
I previously thought was a chip ilmitation turns out to be a memory issue....of course, the other PCI components will
only handle so high a FSB, but what the hell.

Depending on what happens, I might sell this system, or use it as a backup, and just upgrade to the 2.8. This thing was
damn fast at 2.1 (133 FSB) with 5:4 timings (ram at 166)...but like I said above, it went downhill after a while.

As far as a complete upgrade goes, this is what I have chosen to date:

Abit IC7
P4 2.8C, probably from ZZF, since I hear everyone is getting the M0 chips from them in the last few weeks. Some of these
chips have been doing 3.5 with stock cooling and default voltage. I am probably not as lucky as TR, but what the hell
RAM, probably pc-3700 Corsair OCZ, but maybe the Kingston equivelant.

I will attempt to get the 2.8 to 3.5,
in which case I will need RAM that will do 250fsb, but I have read that a lof of pc-3700 corsair and kingston
will do 250fsb even with faster timings.

Suggestions ?

 

[zodder]

If you are lucky and can get the fsb up to 250, you can also run your RAM at 5:4. Then it's a personal preference on whether you'd like to run some very tight PC3200 (ie Corsair XMS3200LL) or go 1:1 and get some looser PC4000.

 

[aboothman]

the final verdict, thanks to all of you (I hope that is a good thing ;-)

p4 2.8C from ZZF
Abit IC7 from Newegg
Corsair 1 gig twin pack pc-3200 2-3-3-6 ...the next fastest was $40 more, and I couldnt justify it for 2-3-2-6 timings.
It was hard enough to spend almost as much on RAM as the board and chip!! I am from the days of dirt cheap crucial
chips that kicked asses. I still have extras!!

I hope I made good choices. I spent the last several days straining my eyes to read everything possible on this stuff,
mainly memor. I couldnt take it anymore, I was going in circles. If all else fails this RAM will haul ass with this board...and hopefully I will get a kick ass OC. I will have a comp for the next few years, maybe...now, to upgrade of OC the hell out of this 1.6 and sell it!!

 

[myocardia]

You're going to be very happy with what you've ordered. Now, sell that 1.6A, along with the motherboard and PC2100 ram, and you should be able to recover somewhere in the neighborhood of half of what you just spent. I LOVE upgrading.

 

[aboothman]

actually, I changed my mind after that last post. I ordered the mushkin 3500 cas 2-3-3-6 instead.

I figured it would have the same timings, but a little more FSB headroom...it was cheaper, and has
been recommended by anandtech and several people on the forums...so I thought I would give it a try.