BIOS Balancing A7N8X/9700 OC'ing Questions...

Fester_Silently · Feb 12, 2003, 08:42 AM

First, the annoying bit:

- AMD 2400+ @ 2250Mhz
- Swiftech 462 + w/Vantec Tornado
- A7N8X Deluxe w/1002 final Uber bios
- ATI 9700 w/stock heatsink, Catalyst 3.1's, Rage Tweaker
- Arctic Silver & Heat Sinks on North/Southbridges
- 2 x 256 Samsung PC3200
- CoolerMaster 201 case
- 2 x 40cfm Sunons in front
- 1 x 40cfm Sunon in back
- 1 x 40cfm Sunon up top
- 2 x 80mm intake/1 x 80mm exhaust on PSU
- 520w TTGI PSU
- WinXP Pro SP1

Now - I've been fooling around with my overclocking (CPU/FSB/9700) with the advent of the new Catalyst drivers and 3dMark2003, but I've come across a quandry: I typically run my board at 166 fsb, due to: a) my "it-ain't-Corsair-matched" memory being a bit of a slouch in the OC'ing department and b) my CPU temp at 166fsb x 13.5 @ 1.725 volts is reading (in BIOS) at a crispy 58c!! I also typically run my 9700 at 350GPU/330mem when gaming...a little higher for benchmarking.
Now when I downloaded 3dMark2003 I was feeling a little brave, so I gave the AGP slot a little extra juice (1.7v to be exact) and cranked the 9700 up (stably) to 366/336!! I got a decent score, but like any respectable OC'er, I wanted more...

So I went into the BIOS and upped the fsb to 180 and the voltage to 1.80, while bringing my clock multiplier down to 12.5, turning out essentially the same CPU speed but higher fsb/memory speed (and hopefully not too much more heat).
However, when I jumped back into Windows and 3dMark, I was getting visual artifacts out the a$$! But the video card (settings) hadn't changed - just the fsb! WTF?! I went back out and upped the juice to both the processor AND the AGP bus (the memory is ALWAYS maxed out, voltage-wise), but still got the 3dMark-destroying video artifacts.

When I (after quite a few more attempts) finally ended up at MY stock vid card speeds of 350/330, I could run the test fine. (my AGP *is* locked at 66Mhz) So what's the deal?

I guess my questions are thus:
1) Is it my Northbridge what's making the vid card unstable at those fsb speeds? Should I/Is it safe to add more juice to the Northbridge?
2)Why is my godd@mned CPU registering so hot? (BTW - Motherboard Monitor is giving me two *completely* different temp readings than the BIOS: 26c and 34c. Which is usually what I see in other peoples screenshots as normal temps. What's up with that ?) (And, yeah, the BIOS/MBM temps went up accordingly when I went from 166fsb@1.725v to 180fsb@1.80v: from 58c to 64c in BIOS and 26c/32c to 27c/34c by MBM)
3) Is my BIOS reading way off? How about MBM? And when I try to slip my DigiDoc probe between the CPU/Swiftech, I just cannot (though I've been using this or something like it successfully for frigging *years*) seem to get a good seal - the CPU always overheats and (thankfully!) shuts down, so don't even ask me to try that again!

In any case, outside of my iffy memory, I believe I should be getting cool temps/great overclocks with this setup, but the (apparent) CPU temps are keeping me from much over 166, and that whole escapade with the suddenly unstable video card (which, at 166fsb and EXTREME [for me] overclocking of its GPU/mem, ran 3 very stable loops of 3dMark2003) has got me asking more questions than ever!

Am I doing anything obviously wrong? Or not doing something necessary? Any help/intelligent critiques are welcome.
Fester

ToshiroOC · Feb 12, 2003, 08:49 AM

Its sounding like a serious case of a bad heatsink mount - its off somehow, I have a Swiftech, an older one with less CFMs going over it, and it keeps things extremely cool - so long as the ambient in the room isn't ridiculous you shouldn't really be seeing 58C CPU temps with a Swiftie - ever. How did you mount it? Did you use a lot of Arctic Silver, a little, or barely any? Can you remount it and see if it makes a difference? (Be sure to tighten the mounting screws an even amount). Are you using a shim? Can you check the shim and see if it is too high? Also, those Digidoc probes really only work for CPU temp monitoring if you drill a hole in the HSF and then fill the hole with thermal compound... more extreme than really anyone but a serious review needs to be. Also, how hot is the northbridge getting? Also, what kind if visual artifacts were these? Texture glitches? Geometry glitches? Patterning? Lots of questions to get the right answer, but hopefully worth it

Fester_Silently · Feb 12, 2003, 09:56 AM

Glad I'm not the *only* one up at this hour...

To answer your questions:

How did you mount it? - *very carefully*, after losing more than one mobo to "transistor amputation"
Did you use a lot of Arctic Silver, a little, or barely any? - ...erm, not *too* much, this last time, I believe...
Can you remount it and see if it makes a difference? - yes: I was thinking of remounting it (AGAIN!), but not tonight...
Are you using a shim? - nope.
Also, how hot is the northbridge getting? - dunno...I was just grasping there.
Also, what kind if visual artifacts were these? - Geometry and pattern flashing that was getting quickly worse the more I let it go. Crash/lockup seemed imminent. This was all in the first thirty seconds of the first test.
Further, quite a few pixels were missing (a la the "Rotating Horse" from 3dMark2001) in the RPG test (test 2) during my initial (successful) overclock/triple-run. THAT was due to me OC'ing a wee bit too much.

Anyway, I'll reseat the Swifty once again in the morning and pass on my (unhopeful) results.

Thank you for your consideration/questions, Toshiro.

Fester

ToshiroOC · Feb 12, 2003, 10:13 AM

Any time!

You also might be having heat problems with the GPU, given that the visual artifacting got worse as time went on... If you are going to reseat, try and use a bare minimum of arctic silver - the less the better the cooling. Also, since it doesn't sound like you have a ton of case cooling, I would recommend taking the sides off of your case (temporarily to see if it helps)... also, does the same thing happen when you clock the video card down a mite? Finally, about the Swifty, you might not have it on totally level, and so it isn't cooling well... a good test is to put a piece of paper between the HSF with VERY little arctic silver on the HSF and even less on the core, and then manually mounting it, then carefully pulling the paper out, and seeing if the arctic silver left an even imprint or if the core/hsf is mildly warped in any way... This sounds like its going to be an interesting problem to solve!

And I'm nocturnal - I'm ALWAYS up right around now

Fester_Silently · Feb 12, 2003, 10:36 AM

Are you kidding about the CFM through my case?! (Obviously not, but I thought I'd ask to make it more dramatic!)

Seriously, I might be undervalueing(?) the cfm's of all the case fans because it (my rig) sounds like a frigging Harrier and tends to scare small children and domestic animals! Remember: Two intakes blowing in over the HDD's; a blowhole up top; an intake fan on both the front and base of my PSU; an exhaust on same PSU and a (just double-checked) Delta 80cfm on the rear (used to be my CPU fan). My 12volt(?) rail HATES me!

And regarding the HSF/CPU slug test: Hunh? I was with you up until you dragged the paper out from in-between. Shouldn't I just *place* the HSF down as if mounting it and then lift it up to see what sort of contact I'd gotten? Isn't the dragging just gonna leave a silver-streaked...erm, streak?

I was thinking along those same lines, though - something being warped/out of line. Because I've used this Swifty on quite a few mobos/CPUs and never had a reading like these. But I don't *know* for a fact what sort of temps I'm really getting, short of jamming that DigiDoc back underneath, and, for some reason, all of my temp-probe-setting mojo has left me since this 'board/processor came along. What's a geek to do?!

Anyway, I'm gonna troll the other forums I placed this query in (Rage3d; Asusboards; AnandTech) to see if any of the other diurnally-messed-up troglodytes have answered my plea...thanks again.

Fester

P.S.

I just noticed your avatar sig says Pasadena...I'm in Oceanside.../me waves/

ToshiroOC · Feb 12, 2003, 10:47 AM

Well, I have ~600cfm going through my case (when the side is on, that is), so I guess I've lost some perspective

And I didn't say to drag the paper out, I said to "carefully pull the paper out", which I assumed would connect and mean "lift HSF then remove paper", but I guess it was a little unclear

You're over at Oceanside? Whassup?

Its raining cats and dogs here right now - I have 3"of rain pouring down the side of the hill next to me (just like always here... first fire season, then mudslide season, then fire season, then mudslide season... and it looks like we are going to get some unseasonably late mudslides

) Hopefully someone else here will have a better idea as to whats going on, but until people start getting back from work in the UK or people start waking up on the East Coast, the board's going to be somewhat dead (not enough english speaking tech posters from the good timeszones ATM I guess...)

Fester_Silently · Feb 12, 2003, 10:49 AM

Any idea where the HELL MotherBoard Monitor is pulling its temperature numbers from? Just curious...George, that is!

Okay, now I *know* I've gotta hit the hay...

Fretfully Dreaming,
Fester

ToshiroOC · Feb 12, 2003, 10:51 AM

Hmmm... now first off, are you doing antialiasing? I just saw another post reminding me that antialiasing results in corruption with r300 series cards, but doesn't effect scores... and I believe the MBM gets its numbers from a register in the northbridge which is connected to that little not-very-accurate sensor in the middle of your CPU socket...

Fester_Silently · Feb 12, 2003, 11:14 AM

Regarding the dragging/pulling miscommunique: I'm tired, cranky and not a little disappointed in the performance of my multi-thousand dollar doorstop, so I probably didn't grok on to your meaning due to any one of those reasons. Go figure!

About the Anti-Aliasing thing (and I'm not directing this at you, mostly just venting to all the pinheads that read my annoyingly-detailed posts and think I've done something as air-headed as leaving/turning the AA on, after having detailed/double-checked *everything* down to the most inscrutable minutae):

[COLOR=crimson]NO![/COLOR]

And who sold you that wives' tale about AA not affecting performance/results? Mmm-mnnn

. *I* can verify that that is complete crap, specifically for 3dMark2003, as well, because at one point I *did* run with it enabled (4xAA and 8xAF) and my score went from (naked) 5083 to (AA & AF) 2630! And, yes, it does make for a wee bit of corruption here and there, but not the same as I described during my initial post.

Further on MBM: but if the (however inaccurate) scores (26c; 32c) are what folks are showing for nice (cool) stable overclocks, shouldn't that mean that I'm (reasonably) cool as well? For instance, take a look-see at what some maniacs in Japan did to this poor wee AMD 2500+ on an Epox 8RDA+, and when you get back up after fainting at that overclock, look at the MBM temps shown.
Oh...nevermind, I can't jam an image in here, can I? Oh, well - these guys got the 1.83 proc up to 2.79Mhz!!!!! With a 239 fsb!!! Needless to say, the Sandra mem score was off the chart...but the MBM temps were...25c and 30c. WTF? So whether that's water (and it *must* be) or air, that is really close to the 26c/32c I'm showing, so ain't that okay?

I'm confused and I *am* just a bear of small mind...

Fester

P.S.

PM or email me (spicyitalian67@hotmail.com...my "club" address

) if you want to see those guys screenshots - absolutely amazing! I gotta get me a 2500+...well, maybe...

P.P.S.

I *just* got the AntiAliasing/corruption thing...stop me before I kill again!

ToshiroOC · Feb 12, 2003, 11:22 AM

Again, I think the sleepy people need to stop talking (myself definitely included)! I know that turning on AA will decrease your score - the fact that there is corruption, however, doesn't effect your score. If the corruption didn't exist, you would get the same reduced score... I've stopped making sense - I'm going to go finish my work and go to bed now

Matth · Feb 12, 2003, 12:30 PM

I use MBM5 on my GA-7IXE4 motherboard.

I needed a -10 Ccompensation on the CPU reading to make it match that given by BIOS and Gigabyte SIV.
Case sensor DID correlate accurately, and I had a 3rd sensor which appears to be chipset temperature.

If the maker offers monitoring software, try that.

Temperature sensor adjustment in MBM5 can be a bit fiddly. And if you run two software monitors at once, they MAY interfere - not always, but possible!

Fester_Silently · Feb 12, 2003, 05:56 PM

...well, despite my trepidation in trusting ANY Windows-based hardware-monitoring software, I threw in Asus' "PC Probe" (Cartman!!!) and whaddaya know? It gave me the SAME frigging numbers as MBM 5! So: two sources make it a conspiracy...erm, I mean...a fact .

Or, at least, close enough for me, right now. So that (probably) solves my temperature problem, but what of the (possible) Northbridge overheat and my high-fsb=unstable-9700-overclock? Anyone know what the deal is with *that* queer occurance?

About To Go For 200fsb x 11.5CPU clock,
Fester

Fester_Silently · Feb 12, 2003, 09:35 PM

...180 fsb x 12.5 cpu clock seems to be the current top end for me(with MBM and Asus PC Probe both reporting 27c/34c). My 3dMark 2001 went up a smidge, wheras my 3dMark2003 went down a wee bit (less CPU dependence in the new test, more Vid card). I dunno...I *guess* I feel okay with those results. I really just want to get some twin-matched Corsair and see what this setup is TRULY capable of, you know?!

Notoriously Nonplussed,
Fester

Fester_Silently · Feb 13, 2003, 07:39 PM

Anybody have any idea what the deal is/was with the high(er) FSB-video card instability? Is it tied to the NorthBridge being out of spec? Is it something else entirely?

Fester

Feb 12, 2003, 08:42 AM	#1
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	BIOS Balancing A7N8X/9700 OC'ing Questions... First, the annoying bit: - AMD 2400+ @ 2250Mhz - Swiftech 462 + w/Vantec Tornado - A7N8X Deluxe w/1002 final Uber bios - ATI 9700 w/stock heatsink, Catalyst 3.1's, Rage Tweaker - Arctic Silver & Heat Sinks on North/Southbridges - 2 x 256 Samsung PC3200 - CoolerMaster 201 case - 2 x 40cfm Sunons in front - 1 x 40cfm Sunon in back - 1 x 40cfm Sunon up top - 2 x 80mm intake/1 x 80mm exhaust on PSU - 520w TTGI PSU - WinXP Pro SP1 Now - I've been fooling around with my overclocking (CPU/FSB/9700) with the advent of the new Catalyst drivers and 3dMark2003, but I've come across a quandry: I typically run my board at 166 fsb, due to: a) my "it-ain't-Corsair-matched" memory being a bit of a slouch in the OC'ing department and b) my CPU temp at 166fsb x 13.5 @ 1.725 volts is reading (in BIOS) at a crispy 58c!! I also typically run my 9700 at 350GPU/330mem when gaming...a little higher for benchmarking. Now when I downloaded 3dMark2003 I was feeling a little brave, so I gave the AGP slot a little extra juice (1.7v to be exact) and cranked the 9700 up (stably) to 366/336!! I got a decent score, but like any respectable OC'er, I wanted more... So I went into the BIOS and upped the fsb to 180 and the voltage to 1.80, while bringing my clock multiplier down to 12.5, turning out essentially the same CPU speed but higher fsb/memory speed (and hopefully not too much more heat). However, when I jumped back into Windows and 3dMark, I was getting visual artifacts out the a$$! But the video card (settings) hadn't changed - just the fsb! WTF?! I went back out and upped the juice to both the processor AND the AGP bus (the memory is ALWAYS maxed out, voltage-wise), but still got the 3dMark-destroying video artifacts. When I (after quite a few more attempts) finally ended up at MY stock vid card speeds of 350/330, I could run the test fine. (my AGP is locked at 66Mhz) So what's the deal? I guess my questions are thus: 1) Is it my Northbridge what's making the vid card unstable at those fsb speeds? Should I/Is it safe to add more juice to the Northbridge? 2)Why is my godd@mned CPU registering so hot? (BTW - Motherboard Monitor is giving me two completely different temp readings than the BIOS: 26c and 34c. Which is usually what I see in other peoples screenshots as normal temps. What's up with that ?) (And, yeah, the BIOS/MBM temps went up accordingly when I went from 166fsb@1.725v to 180fsb@1.80v: from 58c to 64c in BIOS and 26c/32c to 27c/34c by MBM) 3) Is my BIOS reading way off? How about MBM? And when I try to slip my DigiDoc probe between the CPU/Swiftech, I just cannot (though I've been using this or something like it successfully for frigging years) seem to get a good seal - the CPU always overheats and (thankfully!) shuts down, so don't even ask me to try that again! In any case, outside of my iffy memory, I believe I should be getting cool temps/great overclocks with this setup, but the (apparent) CPU temps are keeping me from much over 166, and that whole escapade with the suddenly unstable video card (which, at 166fsb and EXTREME [for me] overclocking of its GPU/mem, ran 3 very stable loops of 3dMark2003) has got me asking more questions than ever! Am I doing anything obviously wrong? Or not doing something necessary? Any help/intelligent critiques are welcome. Fester __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64

Feb 12, 2003, 08:49 AM	#2
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Its sounding like a serious case of a bad heatsink mount - its off somehow, I have a Swiftech, an older one with less CFMs going over it, and it keeps things extremely cool - so long as the ambient in the room isn't ridiculous you shouldn't really be seeing 58C CPU temps with a Swiftie - ever. How did you mount it? Did you use a lot of Arctic Silver, a little, or barely any? Can you remount it and see if it makes a difference? (Be sure to tighten the mounting screws an even amount). Are you using a shim? Can you check the shim and see if it is too high? Also, those Digidoc probes really only work for CPU temp monitoring if you drill a hole in the HSF and then fill the hole with thermal compound... more extreme than really anyone but a serious review needs to be. Also, how hot is the northbridge getting? Also, what kind if visual artifacts were these? Texture glitches? Geometry glitches? Patterning? Lots of questions to get the right answer, but hopefully worth it __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Feb 12, 2003, 09:56 AM	Thread Starter #3
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	Toshiro Glad I'm not the only one up at this hour... To answer your questions: How did you mount it? - very carefully, after losing more than one mobo to "transistor amputation" Did you use a lot of Arctic Silver, a little, or barely any? - ...erm, not too much, this last time, I believe... Can you remount it and see if it makes a difference? - yes: I was thinking of remounting it (AGAIN!), but not tonight... Are you using a shim? - nope. Also, how hot is the northbridge getting? - dunno...I was just grasping there. Also, what kind if visual artifacts were these? - Geometry and pattern flashing that was getting quickly worse the more I let it go. Crash/lockup seemed imminent. This was all in the first thirty seconds of the first test. Further, quite a few pixels were missing (a la the "Rotating Horse" from 3dMark2001) in the RPG test (test 2) during my initial (successful) overclock/triple-run. THAT was due to me OC'ing a wee bit too much. Anyway, I'll reseat the Swifty once again in the morning and pass on my (unhopeful) results. Thank you for your consideration/questions, Toshiro. Fester __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64

Feb 12, 2003, 10:13 AM	#4
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Any time! You also might be having heat problems with the GPU, given that the visual artifacting got worse as time went on... If you are going to reseat, try and use a bare minimum of arctic silver - the less the better the cooling. Also, since it doesn't sound like you have a ton of case cooling, I would recommend taking the sides off of your case (temporarily to see if it helps)... also, does the same thing happen when you clock the video card down a mite? Finally, about the Swifty, you might not have it on totally level, and so it isn't cooling well... a good test is to put a piece of paper between the HSF with VERY little arctic silver on the HSF and even less on the core, and then manually mounting it, then carefully pulling the paper out, and seeing if the arctic silver left an even imprint or if the core/hsf is mildly warped in any way... This sounds like its going to be an interesting problem to solve! And I'm nocturnal - I'm ALWAYS up right around now __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Feb 12, 2003, 10:36 AM	Thread Starter #5
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	Toshiro Are you kidding about the CFM through my case?! (Obviously not, but I thought I'd ask to make it more dramatic!) Seriously, I might be undervalueing(?) the cfm's of all the case fans because it (my rig) sounds like a frigging Harrier and tends to scare small children and domestic animals! Remember: Two intakes blowing in over the HDD's; a blowhole up top; an intake fan on both the front and base of my PSU; an exhaust on same PSU and a (just double-checked) Delta 80cfm on the rear (used to be my CPU fan). My 12volt(?) rail HATES me! And regarding the HSF/CPU slug test: Hunh? I was with you up until you dragged the paper out from in-between. Shouldn't I just place the HSF down as if mounting it and then lift it up to see what sort of contact I'd gotten? Isn't the dragging just gonna leave a silver-streaked...erm, streak? I was thinking along those same lines, though - something being warped/out of line. Because I've used this Swifty on quite a few mobos/CPUs and never had a reading like these. But I don't know for a fact what sort of temps I'm really getting, short of jamming that DigiDoc back underneath, and, for some reason, all of my temp-probe-setting mojo has left me since this 'board/processor came along. What's a geek to do?! Anyway, I'm gonna troll the other forums I placed this query in (Rage3d; Asusboards; AnandTech) to see if any of the other diurnally-messed-up troglodytes have answered my plea...thanks again. Fester P.S. I just noticed your avatar sig says Pasadena...I'm in Oceanside.../me waves/ __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64

Feb 12, 2003, 10:47 AM	#6
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Well, I have ~600cfm going through my case (when the side is on, that is), so I guess I've lost some perspective And I didn't say to drag the paper out, I said to "carefully pull the paper out", which I assumed would connect and mean "lift HSF then remove paper", but I guess it was a little unclear You're over at Oceanside? Whassup? Its raining cats and dogs here right now - I have 3"of rain pouring down the side of the hill next to me (just like always here... first fire season, then mudslide season, then fire season, then mudslide season... and it looks like we are going to get some unseasonably late mudslides ) Hopefully someone else here will have a better idea as to whats going on, but until people start getting back from work in the UK or people start waking up on the East Coast, the board's going to be somewhat dead (not enough english speaking tech posters from the good timeszones ATM I guess...) __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Feb 12, 2003, 10:49 AM	Thread Starter #7
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	BTW... Any idea where the HELL MotherBoard Monitor is pulling its temperature numbers from? Just curious...George, that is! Okay, now I know I've gotta hit the hay... Fretfully Dreaming, Fester __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64

Feb 12, 2003, 10:51 AM	#8
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Hmmm... now first off, are you doing antialiasing? I just saw another post reminding me that antialiasing results in corruption with r300 series cards, but doesn't effect scores... and I believe the MBM gets its numbers from a register in the northbridge which is connected to that little not-very-accurate sensor in the middle of your CPU socket... __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Feb 12, 2003, 11:14 AM	Thread Starter #9
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	Okay, Last Post Before I Crash...REALLY... Regarding the dragging/pulling miscommunique: I'm tired, cranky and not a little disappointed in the performance of my multi-thousand dollar doorstop, so I probably didn't grok on to your meaning due to any one of those reasons. Go figure! About the Anti-Aliasing thing (and I'm not directing this at you, mostly just venting to all the pinheads that read my annoyingly-detailed posts and think I've done something as air-headed as leaving/turning the AA on, after having detailed/double-checked everything down to the most inscrutable minutae): [COLOR=crimson]NO![/COLOR] And who sold you that wives' tale about AA not affecting performance/results? Mmm-mnnn . I can verify that that is complete crap, specifically for 3dMark2003, as well, because at one point I did run with it enabled (4xAA and 8xAF) and my score went from (naked) 5083 to (AA & AF) 2630! And, yes, it does make for a wee bit of corruption here and there, but not the same as I described during my initial post. Further on MBM: but if the (however inaccurate) scores (26c; 32c) are what folks are showing for nice (cool) stable overclocks, shouldn't that mean that I'm (reasonably) cool as well? For instance, take a look-see at what some maniacs in Japan did to this poor wee AMD 2500+ on an Epox 8RDA+, and when you get back up after fainting at that overclock, look at the MBM temps shown. Oh...nevermind, I can't jam an image in here, can I? Oh, well - these guys got the 1.83 proc up to 2.79Mhz!!!!! With a 239 fsb!!! Needless to say, the Sandra mem score was off the chart...but the MBM temps were...25c and 30c. WTF? So whether that's water (and it must be) or air, that is really close to the 26c/32c I'm showing, so ain't that okay? I'm confused and I am just a bear of small mind... Fester P.S. PM or email me (spicyitalian67@hotmail.com...my "club" address ) if you want to see those guys screenshots - absolutely amazing! I gotta get me a 2500+...well, maybe... P.P.S. I just got the AntiAliasing/corruption thing...stop me before I kill again! __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64 Last edited by Fester_Silently; Feb 12, 2003 at 11:26 AM.

Feb 12, 2003, 11:22 AM	#10
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Again, I think the sleepy people need to stop talking (myself definitely included)! I know that turning on AA will decrease your score - the fact that there is corruption, however, doesn't effect your score. If the corruption didn't exist, you would get the same reduced score... I've stopped making sense - I'm going to go finish my work and go to bed now __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Feb 12, 2003, 12:30 PM	#11
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,426 Rep Power: 93 System Specs	I use MBM5 on my GA-7IXE4 motherboard. I needed a -10 Ccompensation on the CPU reading to make it match that given by BIOS and Gigabyte SIV. Case sensor DID correlate accurately, and I had a 3rd sensor which appears to be chipset temperature. If the maker offers monitoring software, try that. Temperature sensor adjustment in MBM5 can be a bit fiddly. And if you run two software monitors at once, they MAY interfere - not always, but possible!

Feb 12, 2003, 05:56 PM	Thread Starter #12
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	Oooooookaaaaay... ...well, despite my trepidation in trusting ANY Windows-based hardware-monitoring software, I threw in Asus' "PC Probe" (Cartman!!!) and whaddaya know? It gave me the SAME frigging numbers as MBM 5! So: two sources make it a conspiracy...erm, I mean...a fact . Or, at least, close enough for me, right now. So that (probably) solves my temperature problem, but what of the (possible) Northbridge overheat and my high-fsb=unstable-9700-overclock? Anyone know what the deal is with that queer occurance? About To Go For 200fsb x 11.5CPU clock, Fester __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64

Feb 12, 2003, 09:35 PM	Thread Starter #13
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	Well... ...180 fsb x 12.5 cpu clock seems to be the current top end for me(with MBM and Asus PC Probe both reporting 27c/34c). My 3dMark 2001 went up a smidge, wheras my 3dMark2003 went down a wee bit (less CPU dependence in the new test, more Vid card). I dunno...I guess I feel okay with those results. I really just want to get some twin-matched Corsair and see what this setup is TRULY capable of, you know?! Notoriously Nonplussed, Fester __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64 Last edited by Fester_Silently; Feb 13, 2003 at 07:41 PM.

Feb 13, 2003, 07:39 PM	Thread Starter #14
Fester_Silently HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	Toshiro...Anybody...Beuller...Beuller? Anybody have any idea what the deal is/was with the high(er) FSB-video card instability? Is it tied to the NorthBridge being out of spec? Is it something else entirely? Fester __________________ Hey - it's a pimpi lappy! Toshiba Qosmio Q870 Core i7 720qm 2 x 4GBs PC10666 500GB Hitachi@7200rpm nVidia GTS 360m Matshita UJ-141ES BluRay/DVD burner Win7x64