Chipset cooling...

[jtroutma]

Hello Everyone,

I have a question about watercooling the MB chipset.

I have just finished my watercoolign project and have successfully got my Athlon 1.2 (266FSB)@ 1.481 Ghz (141x10.5).

I am really wanting to hit the 1.5Ghz mark soo I am wondering just how much more I can push my FSB on my MB by adding a MB chipset water block to my water cooling setup.
I heard rumors that one guy was able to hit 155FSB by just watercooling his chipset (170 w/ pelter)

Setup:
Athlon-C 1.2Ghz (266FSB)
Abit KT7A
Corsair 256mb PC150 CAS2 (x2)
Sparkle 350W PS


BTW Before going to H2O, my CPU was running at 180F @ 1.270Ghz using the AlphaPEP66T!! Now it barely hits 100F. YEAH for water!!!!!

[GuyBFF]

I've found that although cooling the MB will increase the ability for the FSB to go higher, usually the RAM or some other factor will still remain (I'm not saying don't do it though).

My FSB will run up to 155 with slight instablity air cooled, but this doesn't increase the overall clock potential. The higher you run the FSB the faster your total system will run, but usually the CPU itself defines the total clock it will go up to.

For instance my CPU will run 13 x 131 = 1703 stable, or 11 x 154 = 1694. The FSB doesn't affect the total mhz I can achieve at the same voltage, although the higher FSB will run everything faster.

Check out all the forums on overclocking, raise your voltage (slowly), and learn all the tricks for your motherboard. This is how you get the fastest clock. The benefit of watercooling really shows when you start getting up to the 2+ volt area . It really becomes an art of how much voltage you dare add, that will open up OC doors, but more voltage = easier to kill CPU.

[BladeRunner]

GuyBFF has covered all the reasons well, I really only water-cooled my chipset to get rid of another fan. I had to modify and use the www.dangerden.com video card block I was left with, because I'd used the mobo chipset block on the GF3 GPU.



As is always typical, after I done the above and made mountings for the blocks I found this site which makes both with mounting lugs for the pins incorporated.

If you decide to water-cool it one of these will make it easy to do:-

www.cool-computers.com

[jtroutma]

GuyBFF,

I know for a fact that all my devices in my system right now can handle the higher FSB (my original setup was a Celery 433 @ 83FSB)
I bought the RAM specifically to achieve 150+ bus as well (heard that most people with quality RAM get theirs up to 150+ with only PC133)
So at this point I know that it is either the CPU or the Northbridge that is holding me back.

I am not all that excited about doing mods on my MB to get to 2+ volts though and I also dont want to get into TEC just yet...

How much heat does a VIA NorthBridge usually give off? (non-DDR) say 30W?

Also as soon as I get a GF3 (or the next generation) I will probably be watercooling that as well.

Just for kicks, what web site do you know about that offers tips on Mod'ing the voltage on the Abit boards? That my be my only choice without going TEC.

Thanks for the input thought.

[Kevin]

While i'm sure watercooling can't hurt, i've heard that using peltiers on the chipset can REALLY help getting higher fsbs.

[GuyBFF]

Here's one http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/kt7-voltage/

I do believe if your setup is capable like you said you should get a high FSB with the motherboard cooling, which overall will greatly improve system performance (especially in games and benchmarks, FSB is everything), but if your just going for the big number you'll need to get creative now, possibly further cooling the CPU, or adding voltage. Voltage is favorable to me as we've got the cooling for it. TEC's (although it's dry here) just worry me (call me chicken).

[jtroutma]

THanks for hte site

YEa TECs are just too much for me now and as long as i can just get a way with watercooling my chipset for a little more FSB that would be perfect. Voltage w/out extreme cooling (TECs) does make me nervous too (already killed one TB that way; less than 24 hours after i got it running..opps

Alright I will get oen of these suckers and let you guys know how it came out.

[redleader]

How much heat does a VIA NorthBridge usually give off? (non-DDR) say 30W?

Say 10-12 watts would be a good estimate. At 100 FSB those things can be passively cooled with tiny sinks and no TIM/paste at all. Even at 133 they can still be cooled by sinks that would probably overheat a 16w GeForce classic (which nearly always used paste BTW).

Anyone now if the card coolers linked above are 3/8 or 1/2 inch?

[GuyBFF]

I don't know how much differance the paste really makes. When some sites are testing heatsinks they will delete the paste to make swapping easier and to see how well they interface. They are usually only a couple degrees hotter than with arctic silver if they are flat. I could see the manufacturers just omitting it if they felt they had adequete temperatures without regardless of the amount of heat the chipset made to save $$$

I do however always use Arctic Silver (it's hard to imagine what I would do for a couple degrees!) and aren't disputing your wattage claims, I've just seen some big heatsinks installed without nothing, I don't think the fact that the motherboards don't use it really means much. Just an opinion without any backing.

[mkosem]

I don't think it's quite necessary to do that much for the chipset. My old BX board(CUBX) hit 150mhz on the FSB(the max) with only a little tennamx lasagne first edition.

--Matt

[jtroutma]

Matt,

What voltages were you running your core and I/O at to get those speeds?

I try and push my FSH above 141Mhz and after a while system just freezes (possibly my POC PSU; that will be fixed shortly though, Enermax EG651P-VE shipping now for $137

COuld be my T-bird but one would think that i should be able to get higher FSB without Vmods on the ABit KT7A.... <shrug>

Well I will be returning home from my vacation here in a few more days and should have my Enermac PSU, Chipset waterblock, & chipset TEC waiting for me once i get there

I will post results as soon as i get them.

[GuyBFF]

I achieved 154mhz FSB using the asus default of 3.56vIO. I also tried it at 3.3vIO with no differance. The vCORE for me makes no differance in the FSB speed I can run, however I vary it up to 2.2v for overclocking. I can achieve these FSB speeds at about 1600 using as low as 1.6vCORE on my 1.4g AYHJA Athlon "Y", and up to 1500 at 1.6v when I still had my 1.33g AXIA Athlon "K".

In my opinion your bottleneck would likely be the memory, or a card. I did a little research on your board, and users are regularily going up to 160mhz FSB with stock cooling on the board. Try removing all the cards except video, and try each of your sticks of ram in varying slots and one at a time set to Cas3. Cas2 is better, but it might help you discover a bottleneck, as usually ram will clock higher set to cas3. As for moving the ram in different slots, I've heard guy's finding one slot works better than another and each stick is usually different (even if rated the same). I've heard of many people using PC150 Cas2 ram and finding out it won't do 150 at cas2, so keep open minded.

If you know anyone with a real fast system, maybe swap your cards and ram and see if they will all run fast enough, although again in the end sometimes certain cards just "don't like" certain computers.

Welcome to overclocking! Overturn every rock, even when you know what's under! Good Luck

[resago]

I've got an abit KT7A, I've got my FSB at 155 vcore at 1.85. tbird 1.33@1.45 (air cooled)

stock cooling on the chipset.

std 133cas3 ram. although I might have got it from crucial.

[mkosem]

I had the vio @ 3.6v and the core @ the default. It got me quite a performance increase on my p3-800EB even though it was only 100mhz more. And on my current mobo(EPoX 8kta3) I have my watercooled t-bird running @1.5gig with the FSB@150 vcore 1.85, vio 3.55. It will do up to 160 on the FSB but only one of my dimms is up to the task.

--Matt

[jtroutma]

Ack!

CP150 SDRAMs not hitting 150?!?! Grrr... These units were purchased from a reputable source and manufacturer (Corsair "PC150 CAS2)
soo I am not all that sure that it is the RAM (NOT putting down your suggestion).

I KNOW that it is not my cards becuase I have run ALL of my current cards @42Mhz PCI bus before with my old system and they all ran great (I am only hitting 35Mhz right now with my current setup; so there is LOTS of room for growth

I do have one question though.... With the ppl hitting 150+ FSB with only standard cooling on chipset, are they only using one SDRAM?? I am using TWO identical SDRAMS (Corsair 256mb PC150 CAS2) so I am curious if that could be my problem.

ALSO I have come to the conclusion that i have a POC for a PSU (Dang thing doesn't even come on some times) I am replacing that POC with an Enermax 550W (650W Peak) unit shortly. Soo I am waiting for the Enermax before I am going to suspect my SDRAMS.

Need t5o change some things once i get home. THanks for the posts and suggestions though.

[GuyBFF]

It only takes a quick change in BIOS to go from cas2 to cas3. As for the PSU I dought it, although it can't hurt. Although it appears you don't like the sparkle units, they are actually very good for athlons. 350w should also be more than enough unless your SCSI RAID drives really suck the juice, as they are rated well on all the voltages.

I also haven't had a problem using one two or three SDRAM modules with these FSB speeds. Currently one 256 and two 128s.

Good Luck!

[mkosem]

I'm running 2 different mem modules:

#1 - Kingmax PC150(capable of 160mhz)

#2 - SamSung SyncMax PC133(capable of 155mhz)

I'm running 155 cas3(155x9.5) right now withought problems

--Matt

[jtroutma]

AHHHHHHH

Back at home and on my own machine again.....
What a wonderful feeling

Anyways,

I dont necessarily "hate" Sparkle PSU's; I just hate this one I mean wouldn't you find it annoying that you cant turn on your computer 40% of the time you want to turn it on? Also it was very possile that I was overpowering the unit considering all the stuff I have in this thing. Well that problem was taken care of with the new Enermax EG651V unit I just put in ( MUCH quieter tooo!!)

I have yet to get my chipset cooling parts yet so no luck there. AS for going to CAS 3; dont like it. Most bench marks that I have seen show that a slower FSB @ CAS2 is much better than say FSB+15mhz @ CAS3. Trying to stay with CAS2 as you can see. I just hope that it is not my RAM that is holding me back.

Will be in touch once chipset waterblock arrives.

Thanks again for the info.

[GuyBFF]

I'm not saying you should run CAS3 forever, I'm just giving a troubleshooting schematic. If the RAM runs at CAS3 then what I would do is start complaining. If the system still won't go higher on the FSB then chances are you need to look elsewhere.

[mkosem]

cas2 and cas3 don't seem to make much of a difference on my box...

--Matt