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Help for oc'ing a 3.0c northwood- weird voltage issue?

J

jpotter

Member
Hey all,

I'm a bit of a newbie at OC'ing but have read up quite a bit on the topic and am trying to get some more speed out of my P4 3.0c northwood, which apparently can overclock fairly well. For cooling I've got a Zalman 7000B Al-Cu in a Sonata case (Antec 380W Truepower) and my idle temps are REALLY low (around 26-28 C) and load temps no higher than 34-35 after running prime95 for a few hours. Everything is stable at stock (prime runs for hours with no issues), except for whatever reason my default Vcore is 1.2625, which seems a bit low...

Because I'm using generic ram (PC3200) I've always used a divider when trying to OC and my memory therefore is never going over 400 when I OC. My board is a Gigabyte 8IPE 1000 Pro, which I gather is not an amazing Oc'er but I'm only going for 3.2-3.3 so I'm hoping it won't hold me back. The problem is that even when I go a little over stock to say 207x15 (3.1 Ghz) my Prime test fails after about 10 minutes. I've tried increasing the CPU voltage in the bios a little bit (up to 1.35) but according to Everest/CPUz it's still only feeding the processor 1.26-1.28. Has anyone else experienced this sort of issue or has any suggestions for me to OC this guy? Thanks a lot!
 
Are you sure you have a 3.0c?? 1.26v is not the stock voltage for a northwood, it's more like 1.5v..are you sure it's not a 3.0e prescott?
 
Hey Stevty,

Thanks for the question/clarification- yeah I'm sure it's a northwood oddly enough- here's the section from my Everest Report-

EVEREST Home Edition © 2003-2005 Lavalys, Inc.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Version EVEREST v2.20.405
Homepage http://www.lavalys.com/
Report Type Report Wizard
Computer JAY (Jay's PC)
Generator Jay Potter
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 (WinXP Retail)
Date 2006-02-15
Time 16:54


Overclock

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CPU Properties:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4
CPU Alias Northwood HyperThreading
CPU Stepping D1
Engineering Sample No
CPUID CPU Name Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
CPUID Revision 00000F29h

CPU Speed:
CPU Clock 3004.99 MHz (original: 3000 MHz)
CPU Multiplier 15.0x
CPU FSB 200.33 MHz (original: 200 MHz)
Memory Bus 200.33 MHz

CPU Cache:
L1 Trace Cache 12K Instructions
L1 Data Cache 8 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB (On-Die, ECC, ATC, Full-Speed)

Motherboard Properties:
Motherboard ID 09/06/2004-i865PE-6A79ZG0FC-00
Motherboard Name Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro v2.0 (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN, IEEE-1394)

Chipset Properties:
Motherboard Chipset Intel Springdale i865PE
Memory Timings 2.5-4-4-8 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)
PAT Disabled

SPD Memory Modules:
DIMM1: 64MX64U-40B 512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (2.5-4-4-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.0-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz)
DIMM3: 64MX64U-40C 512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-2-2-6 @ 133 MHz)

BIOS Properties:
System BIOS Date 09/06/04
Video BIOS Date 07/19/04
Award BIOS Type Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Award BIOS Message Intel 865PE AGPSet BIOS for 8IPE1000 PRO FG
DMI BIOS Version Fa

Graphics Processor Properties:
Video Adapter ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum
GPU Code Name R420 (AGP 8x 1002 / 4A50, Rev 00)
GPU Clock 520 MHz (original: 520 MHz)
Memory Clock 560 MHz (original: 560 MHz)


Sensor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type ITE IT8712F (ISA 290h)
GPU Sensor Type National LM63 (ATI-I2C 4Ch)
Motherboard Name Gigabyte 8IPE1000 Series

Temperatures:
CPU 28 °C (82 °F)
GPU 41 °C (106 °F)
GPU Ambient 38 °C (100 °F)
Seagate ST3200826AS 38 °C (100 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 2280 RPM
Chassis 1480 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.28 V
+3.3 V 3.33 V
+5 V 5.10 V
+12 V 11.90 V
VBAT Battery 3.28 V
DIMM 2.59 V
Debug Info F 4A 72 FF
Debug Info T 25 25 28
Debug Info V 50 A2 D0 9E BA 5C 50 (77)
 
Thanks for the suggestion- but I've got the "FG" bios which is the latest version... I wonder why the Vcore remains stuck??
 
Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
can you force it to like 1.8 in the bios?

my Northwood was at 1.825 when I overclocked it from 2.6 to 3.4
Click to expand...

1.825?? I don't think so, that is practicaly instant death for a northwood. You don't want to go beyond about 1.65v for a northwood, due to the known sudden northwood death syndrome caused by going higher than 1.65v. If you were running with 1.825v you are very lucky your northwood didn't fry.
 
The voltage in these pentiums fluctuates so if you set it to 1.35 then it'll jump about +- 0.1. That's an intentional thing (probably powersaving) - there are mods (involving soldering) that you can do to stop this which will increase your overclock slightly. 1.265 seems very low, pretty sure mine is 1.55 at default volts but it may be not all northwoods are the same (I have a 3.2c). Doubt 1.825 would fry it but that is pushing it a bit, personally I don't see a worth while improvement above 1.6ish anyway.
 
Check out this wikipedia article..it explains the sudden northwood death syndrome, happening around 1.7v.

"Overclocking early stepping Northwood cores yielded a startling phenomenon. When VCore was increased past 1.7 V, the processor would slowly become more unstable over time, before dying and becoming totally unusable. This is believed to have been caused by the physical phenomenon known as Electromigration, where the internal pathways of the CPU become degraded over time due to excessive electron energy. This was also known as Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome."

Looks like it may have only been for earlyier revisions though.

Looking at the Intel Proccessor Spec finder it does appear that 1.25v-1.4v is the normal stock voltage for a 3.2ghz Northwood. I had a 3.06ghz, and my stock voltage was 1.55v.
 
These are all really good tips guys, I've heard about NSD syndrome too and thus want to be very careful with my chip, but at the same time I think my core is currently undervolted and I don't know why. Do you guys think that the low voltage is the reason for the prime failures when I OC it even by 100 Mhz or so WITH a memory divider...

ftp://download.intel.com/design/Pentium4/datashts/29864312.pdf

On page 25 this says the voltage for the 3.0c northwood should be between 1.340-1.425, with a max of 1.525 (see the footnote on pg 27) but in my bios the board says the default is 1.25 which seems low, and even when I change it in the bios (have forced it to 1.30, 1.35, 1.40) the cpuz/everest still has it fluctuating between 1.26-1.28. I wonder if this is a bios bug or something else- any suggestions on what other factors could cause a processor to constantly operate undervolted? I think my PSU is fine, as even when I bench it hard the voltage to the +12, 5, 3.3 etc don't go out of spec at all, and the Antec 380 should be enough juice for my system... The mystery continues, maybe I'll just be unable to OC 🙁
 
The default voltage for my 2.8c was about 1.475 on an msi board. I suggest a different board, such as the abit is7, if you can find it.
 
I've heard the IS7 has a really annoying chipset fan though... but it does sound like my MB is the problem- any other suggestions?
 
Originally posted by: jpotter
I've heard the IS7 has a really annoying chipset fan though... but it does sound like my MB is the problem- any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

The Asus P4P800 and P4C800 boards are also great overclockers for socket 478 chips. I had a 2.8ghz prescott@3.5ghz on a P4P800.
 
Originally posted by: stevty2889
Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
can you force it to like 1.8 in the bios?

my Northwood was at 1.825 when I overclocked it from 2.6 to 3.4
Click to expand...

1.825?? I don't think so, that is practicaly instant death for a northwood. You don't want to go beyond about 1.65v for a northwood, due to the known sudden northwood death syndrome caused by going higher than 1.65v. If you were running with 1.825v you are very lucky your northwood didn't fry.
Click to expand...



Negative there. It ran 28c at 1.825 for over 2 years
 
Thanks for the help guys- am going to see if I can find the P4P800 and see if that will help- but I'm still mystified as to why my cpu seems to ignore the voltage settings I'm giving it in the bios.. perhaps it just likes being undervolted? 😉
 
Can I ask, did you ever get this to work in a stable manner?
I've just acquired an 'un-used' P4P800 board with P4, but no matter what RAM/OS/Fan combination I use, it either re-boots after 2 mins, or stays booted, but looses the use of it's USB ports.
Is it a ub-reliable board/range? Or do I have a single 'dud board'?
Thanks
 
I had the P4P800-E Deluxe which is basically the same stuff as the standard P4P800 and lasted me up to 5 years and worked like a champ with 3 different generation of CPU's. So I think its a dud, for no reason, the USB issues can't be related to stability issues, it might have a short circuit inside somewhere.
 
cmdrdredd said:
Negative there. It ran 28c at 1.825 for over 2 years
Click to expand...

Depending on your motherboard, the chip might not actually be getting 1.825, the delta can actually be quite large.

HOWEVER,, I've also had a northwood running at 1.8v @ 4.2ghz on Asus p4c800e deluxe :sneaky:

Blast from the past LOL..

I was VERY careful with the chip though, only ran 4.2 during game sessions, and I under-volted to 1.0v 2.6ghz for all other purposes. "browsing mainly"

My bios version at the time didn't do 1.0v, so I had to mod a little.
 
Damn, that's a great overclocking, my 3.40GHz Gallatin processor (Which I sold for over $150 a year ago, ^_^ ) and my current 3.40GHz Northwood, couldn't go higher than 3.73GHz on my P4P800-E Deluxe, but I think that it was my motherboard having power delivery issues since it never went above 60C in full load (Both processors behaved the same 😛 )
 
Well I dug out an old PS\2 Mouse and Keyboard for my board that was playing-up, and it now stays booted, so long as I don't use the USB ports!
Better than nothing, but hardly great! I suppose I could just use it as an archive machine.
I thought ASUS made reliable board, ahh!!!
Has anyone else had this pproblem?
Wonder if I can find a PCI USB card....

You can't put links to your own business in posts.
Markfw900
Anandtech Moderator
 
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