Duron Experience

[GR22]

OK, all:
After reading these forums for a few weeks, I decided on Abit KT7 for my Duron 650. Also got an Alpha PAL 6035 after reading here when 2Cool had them. I'm happy to report that all went very well. I went slowly, but had no problems whatsoever. Booted on 1st try. Set Duron to 650 while loading everything, then got up to 800 @ 8X100 @ 1.650 volts. CPU temp after playing a racing sim (cpu intensive?) was 39.

A few questions?

1) VIA monitoring software says my V Core voltage is 1.69. Which is correct, my BIOS setting of 1.650 or the software's 1.69?

2) WIN98SE wouldn't finish booting at 850 at this voltage. Check of overclockers.com indicates most are running higher voltages than me. Is it safe to keep increasing voltage as long as my cpu temp remains low (40's?) or should I just be happy with 800?

Thanks to all who helped me during my research the past few weeks!

 

[DaddyG]

GR22,

your temps are very low. Whne you mounted your CPU was the thermistor contacting the bottom of your cpu ?? Did you maybe bend it out of the way too much ?? Your alpha is a really good cooler but I'm a little suspicious. Regarding the voltage, don't very 4/100 of oa volt is not a big deal. More voltage should get higher overclocks. 1.8v will be fine if your temps stay below 50c but check that thermistor position.

 

[WouterK]

I have been running 650@800 , some of them at 850 , and few at 650@900. I had to raise voltage to 1.7 up to (max) 1.8V.

With DURAN's it seems that upping higher than 1.8 doesn't help you much getting more Mhz. -- they abrubtly don't work!

Temperature 39C ?? -- How do you measure that? Is the probe touchung the core? Mine temp ranges from 50 to 62C with probe touching the core, with PAL6035. It is hard to compare all these numbers I see on the forums, as everone mounts these probe different. How did you do it??

 

[GR22]

I have to say I also thought that maybe my probe isn't touching the cpu. I did bend it down, but I thought I left it high enough to still touch the cpu. Maybe I didn't. On the other hand, after reading about all the problems people have with attaching HS's, I'm not sure I want to take it all apart! Is it worth taking the HS off again to bend the probe up?

 

[OneEng]

You can't hurt the core with the voltages that mb will supply. If you go up to 1.7-1.8, I am sure your processor will easily go to 850-950. Mine goes to 900 at 1.75V and runs 49-56 depending on load.

Incidentally, with my old V3-2000 oc to 180Mhz, I get 3062 3DMarks. This puts me just below the highest processor anyone has reported with a V3 (A PIII 866 beat me by about 100 marks). Most of this is due to my PC133 CAS2 memory I am sure, but the Duron ROCKS!!!. Not bad for $70.00 eh? Incidentally, my sandra memory benchmarks put me ahead of both a PIII and TBird 1Ghz. This is simply because they must have used CAS2 memory in their test.

I couldn't be happier with my system. It has yet to BSOD or have even a single lockup or windows protection fault. Rock solid stability on my ASUS A7V.