Sprocket sashays...

[kaiweiler]

What's holding you back on the overclock?
I'm guessing the 445FSB is getting close to the max for that P35-DS4...
Nice voltage for 4Ghz though

[clocker]

I'm guessing that my artificial and arbitrary cap on CPU voltage is the limiting factor.
That, and laziness.

There are so many other aspects of Sprocket that I could spend time on- video performance, for one- that ekeing out a few more MHz of clock speed has to fall down the list a bit.

Besides, I've run into a few issues that need to be addressed that affect my day to day usage...primarily, mouse stuttering.
This seems to be a relatively common problem and the general consensus points to the Intel AHCI/RAID drivers.

So far it is limited mostly to my Pro 64 install.
Not so much the 32 bit Pro and not at all in Vista.

I need to round up a PS2 mouse to see if this solely a USB issue or what.

Have any of you guys run into this?

Edit: Tightened up the RAM timings and added another 50MHz...

Also set new personal Aquamark record...


Ran a new 3DMark but it wouldn't upload the score for some reason, shall try again.

[clocker]

Scraped a few more MHz out and still didn't cross the 1.3v vCore limit...


And came so fucking close to a 10 second SuperPI that I could almost cry...


BTW, the world record SuperPi is somewhere around 7.9 sec these days.
Achieved on an Intel chip clocked to 5.5GHz and cooled with liquid nitrogen.

Guess I still have a ways to go.

[clocker]

Just throwing this up because it surprised me so.

Flashed to the new Gigabyte F12 BIOS- only apparent change is the ".5 multiplier" option- and was considering where to go next with my chip when I recalled some talk about a "hole" in the FSB that seems to sit around 450 or so.

I wondered how deep that hole might be and decided to try 8 x 500, just kind of randomly picked it out but the resulting numbers had a pleasing symmetry to them...nice round 4000MHz clock speed, RAM exactly at it's 1000MHZ advertised speed and a rated FSB of 2000 even.
Figured it might boot to desktop but not much more.

Well, it did boot and seemed OK so I set up an Orthos run and left to run some errands.
This is what I came home to...


Note the vCore.
It's set to 1.275v in BIOS so there's some droop under load (Orthos reports an idle voltage of 1.280, so there's a bit of inaccuracy everywhere it seems) but this particular chip seems to thrive at lower voltages.
Very odd.

Also, my temp sensors seem to be "loosening up" or something.
When I first got the chip a few weeks ago, it would NOT read below 35°c, regardless of the ambient.
I froze my tail off with a window open only to see the temp remain stubbornly fixed.
Now, under more normal conditions- i.e., window closed, me comfy- idle runs a more realistic 26-28°c...much closer to what I would have expected with effective watercooling.

Next I think I'm going to try lowering the vCore again- maybe 1.25v- and see what happens.
Meanwhile I'll enjoy the warm and fuzzy feeling that a 500FSB gives me...

[kaiweiler]

Wow, that's awesome.
Why does Orthos see the CPU speed at 4.5Ghz instead of 4Ghz?

[clocker]

I don't think ORTHOS can deal with any multiplier except stock, which is 9 in the Wolfie's case...so 9 x 500= 4500.

Just a guess.

[kaiweiler]

Ahh I see, good guess!
I see your using the Windows Sidebar, what do you think of it?
I didn't like it at first and didn't use it for quite some time but gave it another shot a couple months ago and loaded it up with some useful gadgets and now I'm quite fond of it actually...

[clocker]

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other actually.

I'm still just playing with Vista, waiting for my 64 bit version to arrive from MS.
I was just notified yesterday that my participation in the "Windows Feedback Program"- essentially 90 days of being spied upon by MS*- was complete and my free Vista (both 32 and 64 bit) would be sent soon.

So right now I'm just experimenting, both with Vista and overclocking configurations, wiping and reloading as necessary.

What gadgets do you find useful?


*During this period, whoever was monitoring my data saw a blizzard of OS installs, hardware changes and crashes due to overclocking.
I have to think that they were somewhat confused by the results and doubt I provided much in the way of useful info.
But I got another legal set of OS to add to the collection, so what the hell.

Last night's experiment involved the hard drives.
Since I was no longer being monitored I decided to ditch all the standby operating systems ( I had three, the "Feedback Panel" was only installed on XP Pro 32 so I could duck into the other two and remain hidden from prying eyes) and try to optimize the RAID array.

I rebuilt the RAID array and sliced off the fastest 30GB section for the OS.
The rest of the 500GB is just storage/page file, etc.
This made quite a difference...


Granted, "burst speed" is purely a benchmark result, but still....

[kaiweiler]

For gadgets I use:
Multi Meter - displays CPU usage on each individual core as well as RAM consumption
Imp's Drive Info - displays hard drive consumption for multiple drives

As well as some not so important gadgets like weather and clock.
I have the sidebar located on the right side of my secondary monitor, so when I game I can still see the sidebar. It's nice to have a clock there to see how much of my life I waste away...

[Detale]

WOW dude I HAVE to try those numbers tomorrow, as of now we have the same chip and ram. I still haven't had time to set up the Q6600 yet have you? What do you leave your setting at on a normal day?

Also I use multi meter because it shows both cores too. I know you said you had a few copies of Black XP have you installed the 100 or so gadgets using the WPI?

Secondary monitor Kai!? Must be nice