Northwood 1.8a and i845D woes

[Raphamin]

Well, I took the plunge and swapped out my Abit KG7 with a 1.2 Athlon for an Abit BD7 and a Northwood 1.8a. It's been the worst build I've had for a long time - mainly due to stuff I wasn't aware of.

1. Built the system, turned it on - Beeeeeep.Obviously a memory problem. Tried reseating chips over and over. Nothing. I sweated over this for hours. Went to the web and found one clue which led to my problem. i845D does NOT support Registered ECC DDR RAM! What! Went to Best Buy bought some ordinary Crucial DDR and whamo booted up like a good one. Why would you build a chipset that can't run registered RAM???

Loaded XP.

Next problem, Realtek LAN card wasn't there in XP. It wouldn't come up and the system was acting up. Removed the LAN card slapped in a Netgear card and wammo, everything was fine.

Chip running hot, (Intel sink) removed, reapplied Artic silver, replaced - went down 7C - go figure (I know I did it right first time - oh well).

Fought with temp progs. MBM showed a CPU temp of 94C!! Installed Hardware Doctor - better.
Still running warm - room temp 35C (what!) chip 45C idle - 54C load. Thought that these were supposed to run cool. Actually, after doing some reading they use more power than an Athlon!! and can be expected to get just as hot when ramped. I wanted to quiet my system down not exchange it for another just as noisy!

Tried to overclock. Every time I reset the BIOS the computer would hang for no reason. A cold boot would see it up with the message CPU has changed or is unviable. Pressing F1 would take me into XP at defaults. Come out, restart, same thing. Went in, changed FSB by 1, then back again, restarted fine. Go figure. I don't know what this is but it's driving me nuts. It seems intermittent.

Went to change Vcore - what! only up to 1.625v (and that shows up as actual 1.57v) where's the rest Abit?

Think what you like. I've been building systems for over 15 years, this has been (and is being) a trial.

So much for "buy Intel and you won't have any problems".

 

[KK]

Sounds like more of a problem with the motherboard than the intel chip. I wonder if you tried a different chipset or even a different make of motherboard if you would have the problems you have had. By what everyone is saying of this northwood cpu, it's a good one. Well priced for the performance, as good as the Athlon XP's, which is kinda surprising.

KK

 

[Strawberrymom]

thats why i got a 8IRXP

all the way up to 1.85V and onboard LAN

 

[Slatz]

If the CPU message appears everytime you reboot after a complete shutdown, then it is definitley a mobo issue, not the CPU.

 

[Raphamin]

Hi

Jst to clarify something. I wasn't knocking the Northwood. I've had it over 2.3Ghz - a good overclock. It's more the platform. I thought I'd have some whine with my cheese and sound off so that some of the shortcomings might be thrown out into the open. The RAM thing especially is not a known problem that I can see. Hopefully my ranting may some someone some $$$$'s.

 

[oldfart]

<< Actually, after doing some reading they use more power than an Athlon!! >>


That doesn't sound right. The .13u Northwood uses much less power than an Athlon. Got a link? RMA that board and get an ASUS P4B266.

 

[PieDerro]

From what i've heard, the Abit BD7 is one of the worst i845D motherboards available in terms of stability and dependability. However, this is rumoured to be cleared up in a Bios update soon.

I don't buy that though. I've had problems with Abit right back to my Abit BX6, my Abit KT7 then Abit KT7A. I had problems with each of these mobos, ranging from stability issues (pinned it down to the mobo) all the way to poor overclockability (yes, with an unlocked Athlon 1.2, the mobo wouldn't post about 138MHz, even with Crucial PC133 running at the most conservative mem timings, and the CPU running at over 500MHz less than spec).

-PieDerro

 

[JimmyJoe]

<< From what i've heard, the Abit BD7 is one of the worst i845D motherboards available in terms of stability and dependability. >>

That is what I have read as well. Too bad because I really like the AGP/PCI 66/33 lock feature. But I am building my P4 system to be stable, I want stability. That is why I chose the Asus P4B266-C (don't have it yet, but it is in the mail! woohoo!!)

 

[Raphamin]

According to Intel's data sheet, Intel's Pentium 4 Northwood outputs 55.1 watts of heat running at 2.2Ghz.

 

[oldfart]

<< According to Intel's data sheet, Intel's Pentium 4 Northwood outputs 55.1 watts of heat running at 2.2Ghz >>


Exactly. An Athlon or even an XP @ that clock speed would be at least double that, maybe close to tripple.

 

[Raphamin]

No, an Athlon XP 2000+ puts out 70 watts. 55 watts is what my old 1.2 Athlon (non XP) put out overclocked, so as I said there is little difference.

I suppose at strict clock for clock you would be correct, but that's not how the rating goes.

 

[oldfart]

Not to split hairs, but wouldn't you say a 2.2 Ghz CPU using the same power as a 1.2 GHz CPU is pretty good? I think it is.

 

[blacktalon]

Note that he mentions "the rating". I think he's talking about the AMD performance thingy where they claim that an XP1800+ has the same performance as a 1.8Ghz P4. That way they can also talk about watts/heat output of a lower clocked (1500Mhz) vs. higher clocked (1800Mhz) CPU and make their comparisons on that basis.

 

[zzzz]

<< cold boot would see it up with the message CPU has changed or is unviable. >>


did you set the option to disable speed error hold? It is in soft menu.

 

[Raphamin]

Yes, it is disabled by default. It's not that.

 

[Insane3D]

"Not to split hairs, but wouldn't you say a 2.2 Ghz CPU using the same power as a 1.2 GHz CPU is pretty good? I think it is."

I would hope it would put off less heat...the 1.2ghz is built on a .18um process while the P4 is a .13um piece. Doing a temperature comparision between a .18um CPU and a .13um CPU is not exactly scientific now is it?

 

[oldfart]

Insane 3D, I don't get your point.

The original comment:


<< Actually, after doing some reading they use more power than an Athlon!! >>


This is certainly far from true. The P4 NW uses far less power than an Athlon clock for clock. Obviously, the .13u process is a large part of the reason it is able to do this. I never said it wasn't.



<< Doing a temperature comparision between a .18um CPU and a .13um CPU is not exactly scientific now is it? >>


No more than doing a temp comparison between a 1.2 and 2.2 Ghz CPU.

 

[Insane3D]

No, I understand what you were trying to say. My point is that a .13um P4 should run a good deal cooler than a .18um Athlon...Thunderbird or XP. It's really not "impressive" but more just a result of the .13um process. Once AMD moves to the .13um process as well the wattage output will probably fall closely in line with a .13um P4. IIRC, the .18um P4's put off quite an amount of heat. I just thought a temperature comparison between two different processes was not very accurate.

 

[oldfart]

<< My point is that a .13um P4 should run a good deal cooler than a .18um Athlon >>


Great! We agree! That was also my point

 

[mschell]

It's really amazing the lack of common sense applied when regaurding the Intel/AMD heat issues.
It's all in the watts a paticular processor consumes. These values are published on both CPU makers web sites.
Just like a 100 watt bulb will run hotter than a 50 watt bulb. Keep in mind that watts are a measure of power consumed which means power turned into heat. This heat has to be dissapated and thats's where the HSF unit comes in.
A .13um processor will consume less power than a .18um processor at an equal clock speed. Clock up the .13um CPU and it will use more power and produce more heat. A .13um can roughly clock 700 to 900 MHz faster than a.18um CPU and still use the same power or produce the same heat. So a 2.2 GHz P4 will run about as hot (or cool) as as a 1.2 - 1.4GHz Athlon.
One thing to note in the Athlons case is the CPU seems to consume aprox. 8-10 more watts Mhz to Mhz, um to um over the Intel processor.

 

[Raphamin]

Good post mschell, I think the one comment that I made has been lifted out of the context I placed it in. I was merely reporting that I mistakenly thought that the Northwoods ran with low power and heat. I was suprised to find that the specs were higher than my Athlon 1.2Ghz (which I have always considered a hot chip).

Granted Mhz for Mhz the Northwoods will be cooler, but I was making a comparison based on performance and not Mhz. My 1.2 Athlon overclocked to 1.47Mhz is giving me only slightly lower benches than the Northwood at 2.39Mhz. So performance wise there is not much in it between the two. Now when you look at heat, both chips are producing the same (with the Northwood actually producing more). I wanted to move to a platform that was quieter with less heat and was suprised at my findings. That is all I was saying.

Oldfart, you are quite correct in your statements, but I think you missed the point I was making. Sorry if I was unclear.

 

[FrostyFlakes]

is it quieter? the stock fan i mean?

 

[Binge]

Everytime I cold boot my machine (BD7 & 1.6a) it never makes it past POST.
I have to go in and reset my BIOS. Once I do that - Im off and running - stable as hell. There is something to this boot issue. I hope its a bios update....but who knows. I like the board besides this boot issue.
I hope Abit is aware of this as it seems to be an issue on a lot of hardware related boards.