# P4 Northwood OVERCLOCK!



## brandonwh64 (Jan 4, 2010)

OK well ive been getting parts peice by piece for a P4 build. So far i have Intel D865PERL, Intel Pentium 4 2.4ghz Northwood model A, 2gb (4x512mb) DDR400 RAM, and a XFX 6800 Xtreme (which doesnt have a cooler yet but im using a TNT2 meanwhile), 250GB IDE 7,200RPM HD, and DVD/RW Drive. My main cause for this build was to have a HTPC for my 52inch LCD HDTV. Well i got the PC running smooth (execpt a dead CMOS Batt) and i wondered if i could overclock so i googled "D865PERL Overlclocking" and the first site came up saying i could use systool, SO i downloaded it and picked the PLL as stated in the googled thread. Well to my surprise i was hitting 2.9ghz on stock voltage until it would either restart or BSOD! So i got to thinking that i could push it more. The only overclocking settings the intel board has in the bios is the RAM latencys and speeds, SO i changed the running speed from 400mhz to 266mhz and dual channeled. That setting was GOLD! after that i saved it and went back into windows for more overclocking! I hit over 3.4GHZ before it started getting errors and got it 2 hour prime stable at 3363.75 MHz ON STOCK VOLTAGE!!!!!







http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=927068

After this im very pleased with the overclockability of this older Intel board!


----------



## hat (Jan 4, 2010)

D865PERL? I had that board at one time. I fried the agp port on it somehow though.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 4, 2010)

Here is a quick snap of the insides






Oh and HAT i got a Zalman 700 to fit the 6800 but it doesnt have the heatsink for the AGPtoPCIex chip so im waiting on a northbridge heatsink and some thermal tape to make it work


----------



## sweeper (Jan 5, 2010)

Those Pentium 4 2.4C Northwoods were overclocking beasts. I had mine at 3.2GHz for 3yrs+ , stock voltage, zalman cooler. I was able to get it up to 3.4GHz with a voltage increase but had to also change out the CPU cooler with a 5000RPM Thermaltake 70mm fan to keep it around 32C idle, 42C under load.


----------



## Wrigleyvillain (Jan 5, 2010)

KEEP PUSHING IT! 

Yep cut my teeth on teh same cpu and an Abit AI7. It's still happily humming along at a co-worker's house at 3.0. X800XT AIW AGP too. Man that was a kick ass card in it's day.


----------



## sweeper (Jan 5, 2010)

This was back in 2005


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 5, 2010)

i wished there was a way to increase the voltage of the CPU on this board


----------



## smashed_99cbr (Jan 5, 2010)

i had a northwood @ 3.9ish at one time


----------



## 3volvedcombat (Jan 5, 2010)

I cant even increase the voltage on my motherboard with a old pentium 530 but it was stable at stock voltage overclocked to 3.4Ghz i belive.


----------



## sweeper (Jan 5, 2010)

Those CPU's were beasts... I had mine at 3.2Ghz for ever. Ran smooth as could be. I underclocked my ddr400 to 333 and increased the FSB and up and up she'd go. My memory was running around 426MHz so it wasn't stressing it to much. Wish I still had it or could find one.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 5, 2010)

is there a program that allows to change the multiplier?


----------



## hat (Jan 5, 2010)

You don't have an Extreme Edition (no unlocked multiplier) so no


----------



## beyond_amusia (Jan 5, 2010)

Some Northwoods die fast once OC'd, fyi... Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4#Northwood


----------



## Deleted member 3 (Jan 5, 2010)

I found some Prestonias a while ago, got me a nice AGP card for it as well. Currently don't have a spare case/PSU to build it though


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 5, 2010)

> Overclocking early stepping Northwood cores yielded a startling phenomenon. When core voltage was increased past 1.7 V, the processor would slowly become more unstable over time, before dying and becoming totally unusable. This became known as Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome (SNDS), which is caused by electromigration.[12]



But i havnt changed the Vcore?


----------



## sweeper (Jan 5, 2010)

I never pushed mine up to 1.7V... sheesh. That's some HEAVY pushing. I left my voltage stock and ran it at 3.2GHz for ever. It still ran when I sold it.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 5, 2010)

Yea i believe i will leave it at 3.3ghz. I was trying to find a Vmod for this board but i guess no one has done it


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 5, 2010)

The chip your using has HT correct? mine dont, Its a Northwood A


----------



## sweeper (Jan 5, 2010)

Yes mine was 2.4C Northwood 800FSB with HT.


----------



## Deleted member 3 (Jan 5, 2010)

Perhaps I should mod some old PSU to get my i875 to work, just so I can break it.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 6, 2010)

OK i just got a P4 With HT 3.0Ghz/800FSB/1MB cache CPU and i installed it and started to overclock. I got to 3.9ghz and it restarted the computer. Well once it rebooted it would be in windows about 5 min then restart itsself again SO i checked the intel temp monitoring software and it was idleing at 45DEG so i was thinking i might have messed it up by overclocking. Well to make a long story short i checked in the bios at the Idle temp and it was 58DEG!!!!! so im pretty sure that my temp monitoring software is WRONG! what im thinking is that it is overheating once it hit windows and starts restarting?


----------



## hat (Jan 6, 2010)

Well, the bios isn't really idle. Actually, the processor is flodded with millions of useless instructions. Why? I don't know, but that's the way it is.

From the looks of it, you have a decent cooler. Maybe you should consider lapping the processor and cooler. Get some 400, 800, and 1500 grit sandpaper (you can check an auto parts store for sandpaper like this). Lapping processors is really easy. I just took the piece of sandpaper and laid it down on my desk and put something heavy on one end of the paper to hold it down, and held the other end down with my hand. Then you just go in circular motions with the lower grit paper (in my case, 400) rotating the cpu 90* every once in a while until all the nickel is removed from the heatspreader. Once it's all gone, move up and down in one direction, turning the processor 180* every once in a while until all the circular marks from the 400 grit are gone. Then go in the opposite direction with the 1500 grit, again turning 180* every once in a while until the lines from the 800 grit are gone. In fact, you could probably stop at 800 grit, but the 1500 grit puts a nice finishing touch on it. I go up to 2000 grit, but only because I ended up with it and I never had any first-hand experiance with lapping before so I thought I needed it to get a really nice surface, but 1500 grit does a real nice job too. I It's kinda hard to mess up the process, and even if you do happen to mess it up and make the surface worse then it already is (which again, is kinda hard), you only lost a P4... They're only like 10 bucks on ebay for a decent one.


----------



## ucanmandaa (Jan 6, 2010)

mine (2.4c) run at 3.4 almost 4 years... then my motherboard, P4P800 died. It was the good days


----------



## sweeper (Jan 6, 2010)

brandonwh64 said:


> OK i just got a P4 With HT 3.0Ghz/800FSB/1MB cache CPU and i installed it and started to overclock. I got to 3.9ghz and it restarted the computer. Well once it rebooted it would be in windows about 5 min then restart itsself again SO i checked the intel temp monitoring software and it was idleing at 45DEG so i was thinking i might have messed it up by overclocking. Well to make a long story short i checked in the bios at the Idle temp and it was 58DEG!!!!! so im pretty sure that my temp monitoring software is WRONG! what im thinking is that it is overheating once it hit windows and starts restarting?



Well that CPU being a Prescott will run VERY hot. Intel's SMART idea.... :shadedshu  But, I'm impressed it's only getting 58C. Thermal shutdown on the Prescott is 70C, so I'm thinking you are having boot issues going into windows itself. Try to underclock your memory and loosen up the timing also.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 6, 2010)

sweeper said:


> Well that CPU being a Prescott will run VERY hot. Intel's SMART idea.... :shadedshu  But, I'm impressed it's only getting 58C. Thermal shutdown on the Prescott is 70C, so I'm thinking you are having boot issues going into windows itself. Try to underclock your memory and loosen up the timing also.



did those, it booted fine before i started overclocking but when it hit 3.8 it started this rebooting spree


----------



## hat (Jan 6, 2010)

Did you read my last post in this thread? It's highly likely that it just plain isn't stable at 3.8GHz. Keep it at 3.4 where it was stable.

Short of lapping, you could try just re-seating the heatsink. Clean any dust and make sure the pressure is even, make sure the thermal paste application is good. Make sure you clean the processor and heatsink of the old thermal paste before you re-apply (some people don't for some reason... this can cause high temps too)

45* idle is okay for a 3GHz prescott with HT. 58* in the BIOS is also understandable since, like I said before, the processor gets flooded with millions of useless instructions when it's in the BIOS for some reason (which will raise temps). Try lapping the processor at least—your temps will be a little better.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2010)

i mean that is was doing the rebooting spree at stock speeds


----------



## hat (Jan 7, 2010)

So it's rebooting like that at stock speeds eh? Try clearing the CMOS.


----------



## sweeper (Jan 7, 2010)

Hat is correct. Make sure everything is seated etc. Also, clear the CMOS and try default settings and see how it runs. Make sure your board has the latest BIOS also to fully support the Prescott and it's speed. I have my 3.2 @ 3.4GHz and currently @ 42C. I'm hoping to get a 3.4GHz 'EE' here soon. I'll see how it performs.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2010)

I will do more testing tomarrow but im thinking its the temps thats making it do the reboot blitz. I cleared the Cmos and updated the bios to the latest one prior to installing the prescott chip. If i can get it stable at 3.8 it would be nice but i need a better cooler for that


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2010)

Well its rock solid at this speed! Im 100% sure that yesterday it was the hot temps that was making it reboot alot because today i have all the heat off in the house and its running lower 40 @ 3.8ghz and no problems.


----------



## hat (Jan 7, 2010)

Lap the processor...


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2010)

hat said:


> Lap the processor...



Im thinking about it. Im gonna look for a new cooler for my AM3 PC and when i do i will move the tuniq tower 120 to the 478 machine


----------



## sweeper (Jan 7, 2010)

How the heck did you get that up to that speed? What are your system specs for this machine? What cooler are you running on the CPU also?


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2010)

Ive got 3x512mb DDR400 sticks and 1x512mb DDR333 stick to make 2gb total and a Intel D865PERL, the CPU is a P4 with HT 3.0Ghz/800Mhz FSB/1mb cache CPU and i changed the PSU to a LSP ultra 650watt. the CPU cooler is a Thermaltake with 5000RPM fan. Using SetFSB, i lock the AGP to 50 and i pushed this thing up to 253.5 x 15 (3800Mhz stable) i have got it to 3.9 but i get errors in prime and linx. I have 1 more stick of DDR400 on the way to give me all four stick the same speed. In the bios i have the ram speed backed down to 266mhz and auto timings.


----------



## sweeper (Jan 7, 2010)

There's where I was crashing. I hoped my ram would run at 460MHz but it didn't. I can get this to 3.5GHz without backing down the memory but it runs a little warm.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2010)

yea setting this ram to 266mhz and then overclocking it it pushed the ram back up to almost 400 and the FSB to almost 1050mhz


----------



## sweeper (Jan 7, 2010)

Highest I can get mine is 3.7GHz. But it's to warm for me when the CPU is under load and I don't want to put my 5000RPM Tt fan on because it sounds like a Jet.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 7, 2010)

LOL your right this thing does sound like a jet LOL! Im gonna try to start saving up some money and maybe get a megahelms for my AM3 and move the tuniq tower 120 over to the 478 and see if that calms it down


----------



## qubit (Jan 7, 2010)

Nice to see the old P4 still has some life left in it.

In 2004, I bought an Abit AI7 mobo & P4 2.8GHz Northwood with HT. That thing felt fast then and is still decent now. Heck, I overclocked it to 3.5GHz rock solid stable and it's still running like that today. 

However, push it to just 3.6GHz and stability goes out the window. It doesn't matter what other settings you change, 3.5GHz is a hard limit.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jan 8, 2010)

yea i like it! i didnt think it would clock this high! i want to see more but im limited due to heat.

my northwood A that i clocked to 3.3ghz is sitting here on my desk if anyone with a s478mobo wants it 15$ shipped? also a celeron 2.5ghz chip for 10 shipped?


----------

