p4 prescott overclocking

Ive been trying to push my 3.0ghz HTT proc (478) as far as I can and so far im up to 3.22, idle at 38C and only at mid 40s after 7 hours of Prime95 torture test (no errors either ) Does anyone else have experience with this processor? Ill keep updating as i get higher.

 

got it up to 3.4 no problem. never heard anything about prescotts being really good overclockers, im really surprised its gone this far. If anyone was wondering its on an ASUS P4P800-E DELUXE with 1gig Crucial Ballistix at 2.0-2-2-5 timings.

 

I've only recently got a better cooling system, and thus far have only overclocked it by 4% (3.12ghz). I know that's not much, but I am a cautious sort - lol. I've had no problems yet, so I intend to go higher.

 

There's the 4GHz club for these babies over at:

http://www.overclock.net/

You will find tons of info and forums on Intel CPU's, excellent refrence.

Here another link:

http://www.overclock.net/overclock.php?file=articles/overclocking-guide-intel.htm

A bit basic though, ohhhhhh and I think you will like this link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores/ LOL

 

I pushed my (478)3Ghz Prescott to 4Ghz and beyond,you need to have the right stuff 50% hardware 50% luck on the hardware you have...I currently leave my processor at 3.8Ghz just because i really dont need 4Ghz+ just did it for fun to see if it would go i hit 4.1Ghz and ran Prime95 for 27 Hours then ran Toast for 22Hours..so it was stable and benchmarks were awsome.....If u need any tips PM me..

 

There pretty impressive temps what sort of cooling have you got?!?

 

im just running on stock cooling @ 3.41ghz right now with CPU fan speed at about 3500rpms. It may not be what comes with all prescotts because its from a Sony VAIO but it runs great. pretty big too..... Its really wierd, its only gone up like 2C from stock temps....i was thinking maybe the sensors werent being read right but i checked with everest, speedfan, and ASUS probe. Ive read that its mainly upping the voltage that causes excess heat.

My case cools the components very well, ambient temp around 70F with fans on medium speed. Idle i can drop it to mid-low 60s with the fans cranked up. After a few hours of gaming it can get up to low 80s but everything else still stays cool.

If i were to get a new cooler what would you guys reccomend? Ive been lookin at the Zalman coolers....

 

ok i hit 3.5 rock stable but the memory speed dropped to pc2500.....Do i have to relax the timings to get it back up to 3200? because right now its at 2.0-2-2-5 which is kind of extreme

 

From what I've read thats right, Brian will provide a more informed opinion.

Loosely I have noted from overclock.net and the sticky here relax your timings, eg. 2.5-4-4-9, push until you hit instability (sys crashes) back of say 10%, prime and toast it, then slowly tighten the timings (prime/toast as you go). Increase clock w give a lot greater performance increase than "tighter timings" so even w loose timings you'll still have superior performance. Check out overclock.net and look at the specs of some of the serious OC's and you'll see timings like 4-4-4-11, etc.

Was your BIOS unlocked on the mobo or did you do it w soft.

Will be getting a new HS soon myself but HDD/CPU/mobo are currently 29/44/28.

This HS looks good as a suggestion otherwise the "BigTyphoon" from Thermaltake gets a lot raves if you have the case room:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/tuniq-tower120_8.html

http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=145&pr_name=CNPS7700-Cu

From OC net the temp ranges for P4 are (idle) 55>>>>65C (load) so your doing really well.

 

I replaced my stock mobo with an ASUS p4p800-e deluxe so the bios is unlocked now, yay

 

I'm not sure whether to go the new mobo route myslef but would like PCIe as my Vid card sucks more than anything else, finding it hard to find a decent mobo for a 478 P4 w PCIe but still searching. Am looking at either modding my current BIOS or unlocking it (have some apps for such but WTF, no idea) as I'll never get any resell value on it so may as well experiemnt to the max on it.

 

Got it up to 3.6, still stable at 37-38C idle Relaxed timings a little, got it up to pc2600. Tomorrow ill try to get it back to 3200 speeds

 

Okay try this, do some benchmarks with current settings and then loosen timings to at least those set by SPD (Serial Presence Detector chip), prob 2-3-3-7(8?) ballpark. Do a quick comparitive assessment (% analysis within an excel sheet) and note the diffs, I would hypothesise (estimate) 1-2% at best!

Try:

SuperPi (1M)
SiSoftware Sandra 2007 (mem, cache/mem bench)
Which ever 3DMarkxx you can run, and
EVEREST Ultimate (cache and mem bench)

Then loosen your timings to say 3-3-3-8(9?) and up the clock by 1-2% and run above test again, I bet you will get >3% increase and thus indicating upping clock is better than "tightening timings".

 

Try this at you own risk,and keep an eye on your temps.....In BIOS set your DRAM Frequency to 400(dont leave it on auto) then adjust your CPU clock Bus(Mhz) to 255..your multipler should be locked on 15x,and cant be adjusted... after you change the speed on the BUS your AGP/PCI Clock will rise,set it back to 66.66/33.33 ........CPU Voltage 1.5v........DDR Voltage 1.8v.......AGP Voltage 1.7v.....You have to over clock or add the voltages to all of these parts so that you do not bottle neck...if u run with these settings and you do in fact have a P4 3.0Ghz with a 15x Multiplier then your ending result will be this .........CPU-3.8Ghz 1015.5Mhz(FSB) By doing it this way you may have to adjust your ram timings depending on what kind of ram you have,if its pc3200 then you may want to run your timings at 2.5-4-4-8.....if you achieve this then try setting your timings to 2.5-3-3-6 etc....as long as you leave the settings the way i said earlier(adjusting the FSB and Voltages) then you shouldnt have a problem with your Memory dropping its speed to compincate for your over clock...OC that P4 from the FSB not the RAM...Thats all hope it helps you,like i said before PM me if u have any questions..and i repeate one more time **I do not hold responsibility for anyone who trys this and dont know what there doing and causes there computer to act up,blow up or melt**

 

ok before i try Brian's idea, ill tell ya whats goin on right now. I bumped it up to 3.6 memory @ 2.5-3-3-7 (still @ pc2600 ) and after 5 hours of Prime95 got an error. Dropped it back to 2.5 and its all good rignt now. Ill get back to ya when i try this new stuff.

 

it defaults to 2-2-2-8, supposed to be 2-2-2-6 according to Crucial

 

ok im deciding to drop it back down to 3.4 until i get a better heatsink, at 3.6 it waas gettin into low-mod 40s idle and jumping to around 55 after just 30ish seconds of benchmarking

The wierd thing is, i dropped the speed to 3.4 and the timings to 2.5-3-3-6 and the benckmarks went off the charts in everest ultimate, in the top 2, 3 and 4 for the memory and CPU benchmarks. I also set the memory to 400mhz which for some odd reason bumped it up to ddr456? strange, yes, but w/e, its stable lol Ive been looking at the CM Hyper 6+ and looks promising. Ill get back to ya guys if/when anything changes. Thanks for all the input

 

ok brian, i tried your suggestion....and......it works! idles at 40-41, under 100% load in mid 50s. is this OK for every day usage?

i was also wondering, how much stress is this putting on the northbridge and what are reasonable temps for it? right now, with fans at max its at 28C but with fans at medium (what i usually have them at otherwise its like im in a freakin wind tunnel) its in low 30s.

update: ok didnt work as well as i thought. when i went to stress it it failed after only like 2 minutes with OCCT. temps remained within reasonable levels tho. what could I do to stabilize it?

 

Yeah i looked at your system specs,im not sure some of your hardware can handle that much,i get away with it because i have DDR533..And those temps you have when your overcloced are fine for a prescott..At one point before i had liquid cooling i use to get up to 75-80c and still have system stability..They get hot,but i wouldnt worry too much,they can handle the heat....

It may be your RAM giving you that failed stress test..1 more thing what is you AMP readings on the 12v+ rail? I would suggest at least 45A...UPDATE*** I just read the specs on that PSU its only 18A on the 12v+ its going to be hard to Overclock to the speeds you want..

 

well the memory is running like a champ, really stable at pc4100 speeds and gives me awesome RAM benchmark results. I popped it back up to 3.6 and the temps are fine, only 50C under full load and stable after 8 hours of OCCT. I was thinking that it could be the PSU also so ill just take what i can get and be happy. after all, 3.6 from a 3.0 proc is pretty awesome!

 

Are you any good at Excel? If you want I will create a formula for you so you can analyse %increase of each tweak compared to your base on differing benchmarks could even create the spreadsheet and attach so you can open a DL. Just a simple one but you could do some coarse level stats on it as well. Just so you can monitor your tweaks and make note of performance increase and where the "asymptote" is (the top of the bell curve).

 

sounds like a plan. i used to pe bretty good with excel but after a while of not using it its kinda slipped my mind. i just ordered a thermaltake bigwater se so ill see how far i can push it (if the psu doesnt hold me back) with that.

 

Im in no way knocking what your about to purschase,but all your doing is adding more strain to the PSU you currently have..If your going with the ThermalTake BigWater,i would suggest upgrading the pump,the one it comes with really sucks,and the radiator is too small if you plan on cooling more than just your CPU...
IMHO,I would be looking at a better PSU before anything else,because you will be in the same boat no mater what water cooling set up your get if you use your current PSU...
But what ever you do,good luck and let us know how it goes brotha...My next step is Phase cooling,but i need to come to terms and see if its what i really need(hmmm do i really need my CPU to operate at Zero degrees celcius,lol...)

 

wow phase cooling is a huge investment, good luck with that. About the pump, i read that a weak pump works just fine because the coolant will stay in the radiator longer. Maybe u meant that the pump is just a POS and crappily made but ill look into getting a new one later. Ill probably get a VGA waterblock sooner or later, depending on how far i want to push it.

As far as the PSU goes, i think ill try and push it as far as i can with this one since i cant get a new PSU for a while; since i just bought a new video card and the bigwater se my parents dont want me spending more money on computer parts for a while lol. Im gonna build a new one for my family soon so when i order those parts ill get a good PSU and swap it into mine heh heh heh The stuff gets here tomorrow so ill get back to ya after it gets set up

 

SMALL RADIATOR and the pump moves the water too fast!!!

 

oh....i wonder if you could hook it up to a fan controller and lower the pump speed.....

 

Sounds familiar, Humm
why risk toasting another board

An excellant HS & F for those P4's is a ThermalRight XP-90 & add a Panaflo 92mm 56CFM or better fan, the H1b is great choice & she'll run just about as cool as water and even cooler than some of the low end water kits
http://jab-tech.com/Thermalright-XP-90-OEM-pr-2921.html
Use the money ya save for a real PSU

 

yeah,guess i should have gave u some props for giving me that info about 6 months ago ASUS..lol But it is and was true,SAVE YOUR CASH..and get some power before you cool it down..your temps are fine as they are...

 

I did a google on this the Vapor-Chill Phase coolers and came across a thread were some guy had a P4 doing 7.1GHz he posted pics on the BIOS but everyone kept asking for stable pics with Prime, CPU-z etc to trully prove it he had only just OC it that far and was going to post back, a bit sceptical myself. Your CPU should be at -15C with the Vapor-Chill for stock from what I read and then you can start to OC and push it. I'm sure you'd get high 4 to low 5 easily but then you have the North Bridge, South Bridge and RAM to consider no point having a cool CPU and fry everything else.

 

lol this may sound kinda stupid but im goin for silence and looks, as well as cooling. like i said previously, ill get a new PSU once i get a budget from my parents for a new family computer. heh heh ill try to sneak some extra parts for me in there too.....lol

o yeah, almost forgot: what are acceptable temps for the northbridge? right now im around 30C, sometimes lower but not really ever higher. is that alright or do i need a chipset fan?

 

thats perfect for the northbridge(30c)..Just be lucky your not me,my northbridge idles at 49c lol but i think i have a bad diode....

 

ok WITH the water cooling (which i might add is wonderful) it idles at 30C and under FULL load..........an amazing 36! woohoo lol. i just wish my psu could handle higher frequencies.... (ASUS, no laughing lol)