Problems with 3.4ghz prescott

[xroots]

ok, first of all sorry for posting about old hardware, just hoping someone still remember how or can throw me some tips about this problem.

i recently bought a 2nd hand 3.4ghz SL7E6 prescott, prior cpu was a 3.0ghz prescott thats been overclocked to 3.6 for more than 3 years without a problem, since i bought a new agp card to make my system able to run some games for at least a year before i can afford a full upgrade i got the 3.4ghz prescott expecting to overclock to 3.8ghz minimun but....it didint happen, ended that i cant even overclock it by 5% without reboots and crashes.

Already upped the cpu vcore by alot, upped the mem core and lowered the mem timings by alot but still cannot overclock it, it works fine at the default speeds tho.

Temperatures are fine, no overheating or anything, at least they show almost the same as my old 3.0ghz prescott or only 1 more degree.

my system is:
Gigabyte 8knxp rev2.0
P4 3.4ghz prescott SL7E6
2gigs of OCZ platinum ram PC3200 (comes with tight timings 2-3-2-5)
PCpower and cooling 550w PSU
Thermalright SP120 + AS5

do you guys think i got a defective processor? im not sure whats going on and i need to figure it out so i decide to keep it or return it.

thanks for any tip on this and sry again for posting bout old stuff

[Carozzeria]

This isn't uncommon. My 3.4 wouldn't break 3.66Ghz no matter what vcore but I have a 2.4 that runs at 3.6Ghz no problem.

[Sparkey247]

i had a ga 8i915p duo pro with a prescott 530j 3.0 ghz 1 meg l2 and at one point i got a 650 prescott 3.4ghz 2meg l2.

well any way i had to update the bios to get it to run that was socket 775

socket 478 prescotts run on the hot side i have a couple and they don't like to oc very much even under a water block.

try to loosen up your timings, but before that make sure you seated the cooler good thats all i can think i mean i cannot imagine that it wold suck a whole lot more juice than your ol 3ghz.

[xroots]

ok ill double check the Heatsink, how about timings?
default is 2.5-3-2-5 (bold+underlined its lockd, there is no option to raise that)

Is there any chance that the processor is defective? or been damaged before with high overclocks?

My divider is set at 1:1 by default, multi is at 17x, should i change any of this?

Bios is on the latest version, i dont think there is a new one since its an old board.

thanks.

[bravotsx]

if the CPU works at default clocks, it's not defective. if your mobo can't even change the CL timing, it might not be up to overclocking much...

[Sparkey247]

Originally Posted by bravotsx

if the CPU works at default clocks, it's not defective. if your mobo can't even change the CL timing, it might not be up to overclocking much...

+1 on that, you might want to also try a program called MemSet

http://www.tweakers.fr/memset.html

unless your prescott is an extreme edition you cannot adjust the multi you might be able to down it from x17 if it has EIST & C1E like a lot of the soket T (775) stuff did, Which is meant to save power yadda yadda byt downing the voltage and downing the multi but I am not sure if any of the socket N (478) stuff did.

[titin200]

I couldn't get my prescott 3.4Ghz over 3.6Ghz, there just crap overclockers.

[luckybob]

i remember the motherboards not being able to give as much power as required for proper operation. look into doing the "droop mod" for your board. I remember doing it to even high-end asus boards.

[xroots]

actually i sent it back, it was crashing even on default speeds last night, been up all night testing it

ill just stick to my 3.0ghz pressy and keep it at 3.6 for the time being, and i might buy a new system very soon, im tired of low fps...

this PC is about to fail after 5-6 years.


thanks alot guys.

[Sparkey247]

what are you looking at buying?

[luckybob]

"personally" I "Graduated" to a dual xeon setup from my old 3.2g p4. I went to dual 3.8's with AGP. a year later I upgraded the board from the NCCH-DL to the NCT-D which let me use the same processors but new ram and GPU.

Ironically I could still play fallout 3 on high settings with those cpu's and an old agp 3850. I wish I still had that setup to be perfectly honest...

later I kept my ram/video card and went to amd dual socket f's which are awesome but dont play nice with nvidia video cards... oh well.

[Carozzeria]

^I went a similar route with my dual 3.0Ghz Xeons and a 4670 superclocked. Was able to play Fallout3 maxed out. I ended selling my brother that rig cause I loved it but it weighed about 55lbs. lol

3.0Ghz Nocona Xeon is equivalent to a 3.6Ghz Prescott P4 and Irwindales are even better.