CPU and Video card that is!

After going deaf from weeks of Overclocking joy with a 500CFM "Case" fan, I thought I would do a 180 and run Nekid!

I have seen quite a few articles on they joys of "UnderClocking" for peace and quiet, and my SP-97/Mobile 2500+ CPU looked like it would be a great candidate. I did leave the side panel off during testing for ease of use for measuring temps, and besides...it has a reaaaly big hole in it



With fingers crossed, I removed the 80MM Tornado (EDIT: Actually, I had done that the night before, and replaced it with a low RPM CoolMaster, and that's what got me thinking...) along with the optional fan on the massive passive GPU Zalman cooler on my X-800Pro, a temporary loaner from Digi World who needed to borow some parts from my stock cooler, and perfectly timed... thanks!

Then I had to do something that runs contrary to my nature...less voltage!

Dropping the Mobile XP2500+ from the default 1.55v voltage down to 1.275v allowed normal operation at the Bios defaults of 600MHZ!(100x6)

Ok..well,this is different!...Hmmm wonder what the temps are like? Will she still be able to game?
After letting things stablize for an hour, the CPU was idling nearly the same as ambient! just under 40c!

So I fired up Folding@Home for about 15-20 minutes to check load temps, and they barely budged to 42c!

Fine, but... can she game with only 600MHZ?

Well....yes and no, it ran RTCW Enemy Territory (Although load times were sluggish) but I don't think I would want to play very long with these kinds of settings.

I had the stock clocks on the video card, and the details turned down to low in the Game, but this did not help, it felt sluggish, and would dip as low as 17FPS...not to mention looking rather weak in the eye candy department.

It may have helped a bit to overclock the video card at this point, but I supected CPU speed was just too low to keep up with the video card at any clock speeds. (I later confirmeed this..no change in framerates with 500MHZ core and 1GHZ on the memory)

Next up was to see if in increase in CPU speed allow reasonable temps and give a much needed boost in CPU speed for "Tolerable" gaming performance.

Video card temps we under 60c with case temps were averaging 40c, with CPU temps were now 43c, everything was stable, and this was with no increase in voltage..I did not think this CPU could run at such low voltages, let alone be enough horsepower to play games decently with only 800MHZ.
BRB, joining a server for a minute

It was slightly more playable at around 25FPS, but I figured I could do better!

I increased the FSB to 133 while keeping the same CPU speed of 800MHZ by returning the multiplier back to the default of 6x.

Ok..big improvement! DDR200 speeds seemed to be starving the CPU, even at a measily 600MHZ, I was surprised how much of an inpact going to DDR266 speeds had. Framerates never dropped below 27, and everything seemed playable with medium settings!




Temps were 40c in the case at the start, and remained there, CPU load temps went to just under 45c, well below AMD's specification of 70c, so it probably would have survived in a closed case with minmal airflow.

Here are some pics I took with a small temp probe on a whim at the last minute, part of the reason I am posting a day late, I kind of got carried away while doing this "Simple" experiment













Well, it may not be that exiting for all the "Hardcore Overclockers" out there, but I did find it "Quiet" the diversion!

Because I had so much fun with this, I will see how far I can Overclock with low voltages (1.55~1.65v) that still are considered "Stock" for an Athlon XP.

Of course, I'll have to put my ol' "Case Fan" back into service, but with very low speeds so I can go back to watching Spaceballs in peace!

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You are a crazy man you know that?
hahahaha
Like the new siggy?
Guess you didnt fly the new avatar that matched though eh?
hahahhaa
This was a risky experiment to most...but that big fan hrmmmm NOT A PROBLEM.
I got a double earache going on...Wonder if its from your FAN hahaha

Yepper, I loved the new sig! but I have grown attatched to my old avatar..thanks!

Just to make things clear, the pictures of the temps above are completely passsive cooled, I wanted to enjoy the "Sounds of Silence"

I will be testing again tonight with the fan back in place at low speeds, stay tuned!

Silence is nice. My new cooling setup, quiet. I can no longer hear my computer in the rest of the house. Even with no fans, hard drives can make quite a bit of noise, and cause vibrations. Solid state hard drives anyone?

You get rep solely for having the gonads to fire that thing up fanless! I can see where that humungous-ass fan could really kill your eardrums. Maybe it's because I don't overclock, but my system is virtually silent, and I run 3 x 120mm fans and 2 x 90 mm. I'll just count myself among the lucky.

I want that big azz "case fan" you got!!! Maybe it can cool this P4 2.4@2.8!!!! And I can play Doom 3 in peace!

Hahaha i wonder if you tried taking everything back to as low as itll go, remove the heatsink and turn on that fan and see how cool she'll run.....thatd be sweet.

You are just one Crazy SOB. Necro the Underclocker.

Quote: Originally Posted by hp07 You get rep solely for having the gonads to fire that thing up fanless! I can see where that humungous-ass fan could really kill your eardrums. Maybe it's because I don't overclock, but my system is virtually silent, and I run 3 x 120mm fans and 2 x 90 mm. I'll just count myself among the lucky.

Talk about noise........try have about 8-10 of those fans going in a security console.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sparky Hahaha i wonder if you tried taking everything back to as low as itll go, remove the heatsink and turn on that fan and see how cool she'll run.....thatd be sweet.

OK..I may be crazy..but I'm not NUTZ!

EDIT: This is what happens when you do that, according to the boys over at "Toms"
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/2001...tvideo-04.html




But I did do what I think you were asking for...

No CPU Fan, 600MHZ
500CFM Fan ON (IDLE)



No CPU Fan, 600MHZ
500CFM Fan ON (LOAD)




Finally, I turned the "Case" fan off again, still Folding away..now all I hear is my ears ringing after testing for a few hours

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i still do not think I will ever take to underclocking.

Quote: Originally Posted by $SOLID$ Necro OK..I may be crazy..but I'm not NUTZ! EDIT: This is what happens when you do that, according to the boys over at "Toms" http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/2001...tvideo-04.html But I did do what I think you were asking for... No CPU Fan, 600MHZ 500CFM Fan ON (IDLE) No CPU Fan, 600MHZ 500CFM Fan ON (LOAD) Finally, I turned the "Case" fan off again, still Folding away..now all I hear is my ears ringing after testing for a few hours

That Poor AMD CPU met its end in the wrong way...It should be a crime to do that to it!

i dont think i will really ever underclock, for a couble off reasons, first i almost always have music playing (even when i am not there)or playing games and when i do turn off the music and games to go to bed, i can run my comp with only the 92mm fan on the cpu, and the 120 on the psu. with the front fans off, and the 2 other 80 mm throttled to 40% so that they are inaudible.

but now, i could lower the fans all the way, because i cant run any kind of overclock, because my ram is dieing, so i am stuck at 3.2. (at least i think it is my ram, i fuxord my computer when i was overclocking it, fed it cold air from my ac)