too much time on my hands...

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:29 pm

So im gonna water cool my cpu's

I need to get some water blocks, but everything else i can make or find.
Any suggestions about what type i should use? Im going for a budget project, and with the temperature in here during the day air cooling doesnt keep them stable.
I've got a couple celeron 400's at 551mhz 92fsb and the system gets unstable when it heats up, or when overclocked any more. I got another 3 degrees C out of cpu2 by lapping the heatsink, but I want more.

I am new to both the message and mother board, but I have found a wealth of info here so far.
I really just wanna know what water blocks i can use that fit, and are cheap.

InactiveX · Post by **InactiveX** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:37 pm

Hi there cavity, welcome to BP6.com.

You need to have a chat with Holodeck2. He's an expert in many things, including watercooling.

Holodeck2? Are you there?

BCN · Post by **BCN** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:33 pm

I am planning on using swiftech MCW5000-A waterblocks. they are one of the best performers out there with quite low pressure drop, so even with a smaller pump you will do good.

For the performance I have taken out the original fitting and epoxied the 1/2 barbs.

If you get some decent size copper car radiator, you will be able to get completely passive cooling with liquid temperature just 2-3C above ambient.

Besides, go for completely closed system if you do not want any algae growing there and then compromising your system performance.

you should go to www.overclockers.com and check the articles in watercooling there you will get an analysis of what the cooling liquid should be comprised of if you wanna trouble free operation, pump on/off control methods and so on.

If you wish you may look at my first yet watercooling attempt.

http://www.bp6.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=2175

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 12:39 am

yeah yeah, I'm here.
Too much work and not enough play time right now
ask away... I guess

don't even try making your own waterblocks unless you already have all the equiptment or really mad skillz in metal working.
Swiftech makes some nice products but I think they're kinda weak
for something a little more hardcore and "bling" factor++ then...
My personal favorite. http://www.dangerden.com makes some of the nicest waterblocks out there and also they have all the stuff you'll need to start up a watercooling system
there's other people who make complete sets.
like BCN said overclockers.com will have reviews of them.

for the radiator, on the cheap end you can go for a heatercore from a junkyard car, just make sure that it looks ok and doesn't leak, you can figure out the fittings and adaptors when you take it home
on the other end, black ice radiators are very nice, small and compact and a fan mounts directly onto them

Pumps are generally 120v pond pumps. you don't need one of those insane 1000gpm ones, just something powerful enough to push all that water through the system. I'd say something like a 300gpm one would do great for a starter one

hoses, the "standard" is usually 1/2 inches inner diameter hoses,and they connect with barbs, there are those quick disconnect ones with the blue press on thing that tubing is a little smaller
the larger the tubing the less restriction, the more waterflow

water: never tapwater! unless you enjoy growing things while cooling your system
distilled water, cheap and works well.
add a bottle of waterwetter by redline (local auto parts store) will keep the water clear and help improve cooling by reducing water tension and prevent the battery effect caused by different metals in your system from eating itself alive

I think I covered all the bases. any more questions, you know where to point your browser

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cavity · Post by **cavity** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 1:59 pm

well, I've been chasing around some stability problems... and they arent getting any better. I've got a 350W ps i got less than a week ago, but the computer still hard restarts and locks up sometimes. Trying to burn a cd at 16x is a hard restart.

could it be the power supply is stil too small? cause i can exchange it for a bigger one within 15 days. I would really like to make this system stable... I ran a virus scan, nothing... An archive was corrupt so i had someone send me another copy over msn, and it corrupted too. now im running at 66fsb and it seems stable, maybe because i've got the vcores back down to 2.0V. the computer isnt much good if i can only run the cpus at 400... they where at 550 for a while but it was never very stable. browser crashes and such.

Any ideas?

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 2:21 pm

I just tried to burn a cd at 4x, with the fsb at 66 and vcores at 2... and it got further before hard restarting....... i guess i need more power

Billl · Post by **Billl** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 2:31 pm

cavity wrote:well, I've been chasing around some stability problems... and they arent getting any better. I've got a 350W ps i got less than a week ago, but the computer still hard restarts and locks up sometimes. Trying to burn a cd at 16x is a hard restart. could it be the power supply is stil too small? cause i can exchange it for a bigger one within 15 days. I would really like to make this system stable... I ran a virus scan, nothing... An archive was corrupt so i had someone send me another copy over msn, and it corrupted too. now im running at 66fsb and it seems stable, maybe because i've got the vcores back down to 2.0V. the computer isnt much good if i can only run the cpus at 400... they where at 550 for a while but it was never very stable. browser crashes and such.

Any ideas?

Yea I'd scrap the 400's and find a good pair of 366's. I think someone said Tiger Direct had them for $6.00 bucks a piece. They will run stable at 550 and you won't need to water cool the them either. You will be money ahead. If you check the CPU databases I think you will find the 400's never were much at over clocking. That core topped out at about 600. Thats why Intel moved on to the Copermines in the first place.

Just my .02

Billl

Dave Rave · Post by **Dave Rave** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 2:32 pm

you haven't mentioned what your indicated VTT voltage is ...

at 66fsb, 1.80 or 1.85 v is enough
at 75fsb, probably need 2.00 - 2.10 and hard cooling.

psu, 250w is fine, depending on other devices.
hmmm 92fsb, older cpu, I'm preaching...

and summer-ish , much hotter

I got winter atm.
92fsb is a huge leap from 66fsb, granted it's been done, but.....
are you wondering why it's unstable ?? isn't 92 enough ?

Billl · Post by **Billl** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 2:41 pm

Dave Rave wrote:you haven't mentioned what your indicated VTT voltage is ...

at 66fsb, 1.80 or 1.85 v is enough
at 75fsb, probably need 2.00 - 2.10 and hard cooling.

Why would you want to under volt the cores? As I recall those called for 2.0 as default? Under volting sure isn't going to help his stability problems!

Personally I'd just get a pair of 366's and then you got something with some potential to work with. if he can't find em at Tiger Direct he can try Pricewatch.com he will have to do a manual search though since I doubt they list anything that old in the CPU list.

Just my .02

Billl

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 3:58 pm

my concern right now is i cant even burn a cd, with nothing overclocked. it hard restarts every time, and if i cant even burn a cd this board is pretty much usless to me. I've been running at 66fsb all day and im still having browser crashes that dont seem like software.
Whats vtt? i always hear ppl talking about it but i dont see it anywhere... i guess i'll have a better look in the bios, but mbm shows incorrect voltages for the cpus and nothing called vtt.

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 4:09 pm

I just had a look at the bios and the VTT is sitting between 1.48 - 1.53 without any overclock, and without anything but the bios running.
But about half of the time, when i leave the bios the monitor doesnt come back on and i have to use the power button, not the reset button, only the power button will unfreeze that.

Dave Rave · Post by **Dave Rave** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:10 pm

if you have shonky standard cpu coolers in a non-airconditioned room in summer , .....
why would you run 2.0v when you can run 1.85v and get it 5 degrees cooler that way.

but, ....
I usually clock my ppga's during winter and set em back in summer.

Dave Rave · Post by **Dave Rave** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:13 pm

mbm shows core 0 and core 1 if you are using his auto setup routine.
unless you also change the voltage setting to bp6 mode, the core 1 is showing vtt. 1.50v
instead of the core 0 of 2.00v

the core 0 is usually showing a little bit under what is set in bios. 2.0 is around 1.96
my vtt swings as much as 1.35 - 1.63
which ain't good, but my machines don't lock up.

which leads on to.....
how good is the power in your building.
i use 240v 50hz, to your 110v.
do you have a big fridge / freezer nearby ?

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:39 pm

well, the VTT doesnt change much at all, and the power should be good...
maybe i should check the power though, all the computers i've had here have had some stability problems... I assumed it was just me.

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:00 pm

um, did anyone mention capacitors?
cavity, look and see if any are bulging or leaking.

As to the coment on undervolting...the Mendocino core celerons seem to work quite nicely at 1.85 or 1.90. If you have to raise the voltage you have probably hit the limit and won't get any improvement...just more heat.

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 9:31 pm

be sure you're feeding it good power not some pos no name powersupply in the clearance bin from your local mom and pops shop. Enermax and Antec are both cheap and work great. and you can NEVER have enough power. make sure your heatsinks are seated right and use thermal paste

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 11:10 pm

the caps are fine, i checked them before buying the board.
the ps is a macron atx 350w
heatsinks are on right and have enough goop, though i do want to make sure the sensors are right up against the cpus.

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:31 am

bend the sensors up just a little and set the cpu down and keep bending them until you can feel a little resistance when the cpu is almost seated and put a LITTLE dab to thermal paste on the thermal sensor

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:28 am

I'm going to take this 180&deg from where we are all going...

The CDROM, is it on the IDE or HPT366 controller?

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 12:35 pm

its secondary on the ide plug (black not white) and its master to another cd drive. i guess i could try moving it

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:06 pm

cavity wrote:its secondary on the ide plug (black not white) and its master to another cd drive. i guess i could try moving it

If you were using the HPT366 controller, then I would say, "move it to the standard IDE connector". Just wanted to make sure.

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 11:34 pm

i just gave prime95 a run.....
everything was set at defaults, 66fsb, 2.0V etc. and it only an hour to get an error.
"fatal error: rounding was 0.4997..... expected was less than 0.4
hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt
torture test ran 1 hours, 12 minutes - 1 errors, 0 warnings
execution halted."

damn instability

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 11:51 pm

can it be that your chips are bad? try one chip at a time first at stock and then take it as far as it will go stably and then swap out processors
maybe one of them crapped out on you

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 1:02 am

i just checked and for that test i had the affinity to cpu0 only. Now i am running a test on cpu1.... I hope this will tell me if its a chip, cause they're cheap. But i suspect its a ram stick... if i get an error on the other cpu too i'll try taking one out at a time. I know one of them is old and 2 are new (3x128mb pc100)

I like having people this willing to help, it's saved countless hours of trial and error i would have gone through so far...

cavity · Post by **cavity** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 2:26 am

yet another update, last one today... I removed the old stick of ram i have, leaving me with 2 fairly new 128 sticks. prime95 has been running for a little while so far and nothing seems wrong. I would be laughing if thats all it was