Problems with a Pentium D 805

PICBoy

Member
Nov 8, 2006
35
0
0
Hello everybody. This is my first post. I'm from Venezuela.

I just bought a Pentium D 805 thinking that I was going to be able to overclock it a little (3.33

GHz) to test my abilities...

The problem is that I intendended to do it without buying any additional cooling and buying only crappy components... this is what I got:

- CPU: Pentium D 805 2.66 GHz Retail
- Motherboard: Foxconn P4M800P7MA-RS2 (Chipset VIA P4M800 Pro+8237R)
- Memory: Blitz ('barely value') DDR2 533 MHz
- Case: X Tech 600 W power supply. No fans in case.

Besides that, there is another concern. I live in a small town where the average temperature is

34-38 ºC (I'm not kidding, it's hot like hell) and my computer is in the living room, where there

is almost no ventilation, no fans and no air conditioning.

Once I installed the PC... I started to try to install Windows XP... but the damn computer froze

everytime because of the massive heat built in the CPU (I didn't even try to overclock it). So I

had to wait 'till the sun went down and the room temperature got to 30ºC and opened the case and

put a 250mm mini-fan to blow some air into the case...

After that, I installed Win XP and flashed the BIOS with the most recent version... but then I

installed Doom 3 and run a 'timedemo demo1' to see how many FPS it gaind over my old system

(Sempron 64 2800+ 1.6 GHz)... The result were HOOOOORRIBLE! The new system was actually SLOWER!

Both system were tested with an EVGA GeForce 5500 256 MB AGP 8X and both used 512 MB of RAM

(Sempron's was DDR 333 MHz) and both mobo were based on VIA's crappy chipset (Sempron's was

K8M800/VT8237R+) and both were Micro ATX formfactor.

The test was using Doom 3 V1.0.1262. Medium Quality. 640x480 and default advanced settings.

This were the results:

Sempron 64 2800+: 29.9 FPS
Pentium D 805: 29 FPS

I ran the test SEVERAL times and rebooting several times and the results were ALWAYS the same

(the first run always gave around 2 FPS less on both system).

Then I tried to overclock. But saw no difference at all. With the help of CPU-Z and RightMark CPU

Clock Utility I realized that the system didn't overclock at all. The 'SuperStep' Utility from Foxconn also doesn't work. It claims to change the FSB on the run but any change on it and the PC freezes instantly.

Later, I ran the test in Window mode and saw with the RightMark Utility that when the 'timedemo

demo1' was running the CPU temp goes from 50-55 ºC to a whopping 64ºC-69ºC. The multiplier (FID)

also goes from 20 to 14 and the CPU clock/throttle from 2.66 GHz to only 1.86 GHz. Neither core

gets even more than 70% use. The CPU Fan cooler works from 1400 RPM to 1900 RPM



Now, the questions is. Is this normal? What should I do? Keep in mind that I don't want to spend

more than 50$ to fix this problem...

Thanks everybody!
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
7,036
8
81
The pentium-d was a horrible CPU to choose for an area with high temperatures, and the stock Intel heatsink is horrible. VIA chipsets are also very poor choices for overclocking intel chips. Gaming is going to be limited primarily by the video card, but netburst chips lag behind in gaming compared to A64's anyway. Oh and generic PSU's are a very very bad idea for extremely power hungry netburst chips as well. 600w is meaningless if the PSU uses generic parts, and has a weak 12v rail. Basicly, don't expect to get any kind of decent overclock without replacing the memory and the cooler, and you aren't gonna get a decent motherboard for $50, so I would buy a half decent heatsink, so you can at least run at stock speeds without throttling. Otherwise you are better off to stick with your Sempron.
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
Indeed, you have made several mistakes. However, they can be corrected.

At stock, if not throttling, the Pentium D 805 should just about equal the Sempron 1.6Ghz in single threaded tasks.

Do not expect to do any overclocking what so ever on the stock cooler. Smithfields generate an enormous amount of heat. This problem is increased when the system is in a case with next to no air flow.

As stated above, Via chipsets are not very proficient in the overclocking field.

As suggested above, the best thing you can do for the least amount of money right now is to improve the cooling of your processor. The heatsink recommended above is a fine choice indeed. Also be sure to pick up a tube of Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste to improve efficiency. I would also recommend investing in a couple of case fans.

I would also recommend that we be certain that your memory is not assisting in causing the crashes.

I recommending downloading the ISO version of memtest, burning it to a cd, and then booting it on your Pentium D system. Allow it to run for multiple passes. If it gets zero errors, you can then be confident in knowing that the memory plays no role in causing your pc crashes.

http://www.memtest.org/

Also, if you are running Doom 3 at 640x480 at 29fps, you need to invest in a new video card. Even a Geforce 6600GT would be phenomenally faster than what you have now.

Welcome to Anandtech.
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
Ah, thanks for the correction. Google has failed me for the first and last time! ::shakes fist::
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
ever fix it? buy a new video card? was your cpu throttling itself because of heat?