ok, i'm sick of the overclocking threads..

[JeremiahTheGreat]

i think we should start an underclocking thread, so here it is. Whats your lowest underclock and why did you do it?

Personally, i underclocked my XP1600 to 700Mhz, because the fan noise was really really starting to annoy me, especially when sleeping. Coupled with a Volcano 9 (that throttles with CPU temp), it means i get the speed when i need it and the quiet when i just want to read the paper (online ). Somehow i hope this 66Mhz fsb isn't running my PCI at 16mhz.. Actually, does anyone think buying one of those XP1700+ Tbred B's will lower the temps significantly ?

 

[LED]

LOL...this Forum is for OCing and although I agree that some questions are redundant, no 1 is making us read or respond to them other then ourselves so you may want to place the blame there...As far as the T-bred goes, I had my 1700 @ 1.5v's and it ran default speed below 30C's which is lower then default v's...Room Temp will decide as well

 

[Mikki]

Just out of curiousity, why would you underclock your cpu because of noise? Why not get a quieter fan? Is it just me or is that just plain silly? Am I missing something?

 

[sundog29]

Originally posted by: LED
LOL...this Forum is for OCing ...

Exactly. He really meant to post here.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

Originally posted by: Mikki
Just out of curiousity, why would you underclock your cpu because of noise? Why not get a quieter fan? Is it just me or is that just plain silly? Am I missing something?

I have a Volcano 9. Once, i just left it on the lowest speed setting, and it hummed along quite well.. then decided to check the temps in bios cause it was pretty hot that day (40degrees C), and WHAM!! 89 Degreees C... lets just say, thats when my underclocking began...

I posted here (actually, the purpose was asking whether the 1700+B was much cooler than my 1600, but i added some spice) cause i like these forums thats why, but great link sundog29! Exactly what i've been looking for

 

[DAPUNISHER]

another Volcano user needs to lower Vcore, hmmmmmm.......

 

[sundog29]

Originally posted by: JeremiahTheGreat ...great link ...

Yeah, after finding it, SilentPC forums, a couple of months ago, I swapped in a quiet, highly-touted Seasonic 400 to replace a Vantec 520. I subsequently snagged a SilenX 400/14dB for another system just before ExoticPC shut down their distribution temporarily.

 

[RalfHutter]

Actually I'm doing something similar to JeremiahTheGreat but I'm not underclocking, I'm undervolting. I'm running the PIII-S system that's in "Ralf's Rigs" at full speed but the lowest Vcore I can get away with and still remain stable. I'm trying to run the CPU as cool as possible so I can use a HSF that runs very quiet. This system was designed as a server that was going to run 24/7 and I wanted it to be as quiet as possible.

Running at stock speed and undervolting is almost exactly the same as overclocking: it's important to make sure you're running stable at whatever Vcore setting you're at. You just keep lowering the Vcore more and more, and test for stability until you reach the limit of the CPU. Sound familiar? That's exactly what I did with my PIII-S to find the lowest Vcore I could use and still run Prime95 and Memtest86 100% stable. All the tricks I've learned about overclocking are directly applicable to undervolting so it's not a topic that's out of place in an OC forum, it's just sort of 180° out of phase!

I am able to run this CPU at 1.25V instead of the default Vcore of 1.45V. This lowered my Prime95 load temps from 47°C to 41°C. This allows me to run a very quiet cooling setup for this CPU and contributes to keeping the noise of the entire system as low as possible.


And BTW - JeremiahTheGreat: There's been several discussions over at SilentPCReview about underclocking/undervolting and there's even a "stickie" thread that has lists of undervoltable motherboards. Take a run over there and look around.