480 antec psu not enough !!!

[Soulkeeper]

ok after a few days of wondering why i was not able to hit 220fsb on my nf2 system with complete stability i realized it was my psu

i did a vdd mod and a vdimm mod on my abit nf7-s motherboard
i tryed every possible setting in the bios (you don't have to believe me)
and i tryed voltages as high as follows:
vcore 1.82v
vdimm 3.14v
vdd 2.49v

this still did not let my system hang stable
despite the fact that i had added custom copper heatsinks to my nb and sb with hi rpm fans on each
also i mounted an 80mm fan about 1/2" above my memory


the only way i was able to reach 220fsb was after unplugging two case fans, two cdrom drives, and undervolting/underclocking as follows:
cpu 1.1ghz @ 1.55v
vdimm @ 2.91v
vdd @ 1.71v


so my antec 480watt true blue psu is not powerfull enough to power this rig !!!
i knew i should have got the 550
also i noticed the vcc was spiking dangerously high
i even tryed without the 12v connector plugged in and noticed the system was slightly more stable (but still not fully stable)

well i guess i'll be saving my money for a better psu
I hate this
i remember when my 300watt psu used to hold back my 1gig athlon tb overclocks
i thought 480 would be plenty enough

 

[Soulkeeper]

i tellya it costs $369 for the pc power and cooling Turbo-Cool 600 ATX
that's pretty much what i would want/need for what i'm trying to do

 

[FearoftheNight]

and what may I ask are you trying to do? ....btw what are u going to do w/ ur old trueblue (^_^)

 

[drewdogg808]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
i tellya it costs $369 for the pc power and cooling Turbo-Cool 600 ATX
that's pretty much what i would want/need for what i'm trying to do

hehe...i have the 480 trueblue also, and i've always been drooling over the pc power and cooling power supplies. only thing holding me back besides the money is how loud they supposedly are.

 

[nick1985]

true blue kicks ass

 

[pelikan]

I doubt its a power problem. I'm using a 350W Fortron with no problems at 220FSB. And I'm using 1.9vcore, 2.9vdimm, 1.7vdd, and three volt mods on my 9500 softmod. Plus I run seven fans.

It could be your cpu. The L12 mod may help with high FSB.

What kind of memory?

 

[Soulkeeper]

i'm pretty sure it is a psu issue
if i up my vdd or especially my vdimm i can notice the psu voltage rails spike to unsafe levels and the system becomes unstable
even if i do this at lower clocks
the 480 just don't have enough juice for me

also i dunno how much juice yur 9500 pulls but i got a gf4 ti4800 and a gig of memory
also note that lowering the timings on my memory from 2-2-2-6 to 2.5-3-3-8 barely gave me 1mhz increase on mem frequency

also i can run my mem or my fsb at like 225 but i can't run them both at 220 at the same time

i have pc3500 hi perf black level II mushkin memory 2x512

i'm willing to bet that 90% of the people with nf2 boards that hit a fsb wall do so because they are psu limited

 

[pelikan]

Yeah, who knows? If you havn't done so yet, I'd spend some time reading at xtremesystems.

 

[Ketchup]

Your PS is more than enough. Your problem is probably your CPU since I have noticed in the past, Athlon XP's need a lot of voltage to run high FSB, even at default speed. What board are you using? Some nForce 2's can barely hit 200. If you want high FSB, you should probably look at going Intel.

 

[touchmyichi]

Originally posted by: ketchup79
Your PS is more than enough. Your problem is probably your CPU since I have noticed in the past, Athlon XP's need a lot of voltage to run high FSB, even at default speed. What board are you using? Some nForce 2's can barely hit 200. If you want high FSB, you should probably look at going Intel.

I agree, hardware can only be pushed so far sometimes. Some chips hit higher fsb's than others. Also is it really worth spending 200-300 just to get a few mhz more of a fsb? Is that really going to change your computer experience or radically boost your benchmarks? For 300 on a damn psu you could get a 2.4C/springdale setup which would give you far more preformance. But after looking at your current setup, upgrade your video card. your would get the most preformance benefit that way, but honestly your rig isn't bad. Better yet, take some girl out on a date or get yourself something cool if you have money to burn like that.

BTW: Try doing it w/ only 512 memory installed.... I've heard that 2x512 isn't always the best combo.

 

[Soulkeeper]

yeah i've tryed just one stick with similar results

but yeah even at 204fsb if i raise the vdimm .1v the vcc goes up .1v till it gets around 2.92 where the system becomes unstable

i can boot the system run all the sisoft benchs and seti stable but if i run 3dmark the psu can't supply enough for the system and the vid card

if i underclock the vid card i get farther in 3dmark


i'm wondering if i could adjust the pots in the psu tho
i woulda thought it would be enough too

my system can't run stable with 2.9 vdimm
my cpu is not holding me back it can run like 2.2ghz at default voltage i havn't really had the chance to try any higher

 

[italyrs]

I have a 300 watt power supply and I have had no problems...... I used to power my old Abit KR7A-133 and 2100 palamino with this same High Power, power supply. It must be something else if you think your being restricted.

 

[Soulkeeper]

geez i just opened up my psu and it has no voltage adjustment pots !!!
this blows
i thought all antc true power psu's had adjustment pots
i guess the trueBlue doesn't

anyone know anyway i could adjust the rails ???

 

[Technonut]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
geez i just opened up my psu and it has no voltage adjustment pots !!!
this blows
i thought all antc true power psu's had adjustment pots
i guess the trueBlue doesn't

anyone know anyway i could adjust the rails ???

That is the reason Antec came out with the TrueControl... I love mine..

EDIT: Under full load with the TrueControl:

+3.3V: 3.30V
+5V: 5.03V
+12V: 12.10V

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
i'm pretty sure it is a psu issue
if i up my vdd or especially my vdimm i can notice the psu voltage rails spike to unsafe levels and the system becomes unstable
even if i do this at lower clocks
the 480 just don't have enough juice for me

also i dunno how much juice yur 9500 pulls but i got a gf4 ti4800 and a gig of memory
also note that lowering the timings on my memory from 2-2-2-6 to 2.5-3-3-8 barely gave me 1mhz increase on mem frequency

also i can run my mem or my fsb at like 225 but i can't run them both at 220 at the same time

i have pc3500 hi perf black level II mushkin memory 2x512

i'm willing to bet that 90% of the people with nf2 boards that hit a fsb wall do so because they are psu limited

Soulkeeper i can almost guarantee that it's not your PSU...

I can run 220 FSB my Hyper X 3200 ... 2/3/3/7 (2.8v)

I run 2 Cold Cathodes and LED 80mm..

1 - 80 GB WD
1 - 40 GB Maxtor
1700+ @ 2.4ghz 1.75( overvolts to 1.79)
Radeon 9500 Pro
2 optical drives

All on a Sparkle 350w....



Have you run memtest and P95 of that system with an extremely high multiplier accompanied by a low FSB ?

To roll out CPU limits..

 

[Soulkeeper]

Originally posted by: bjc112

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
i'm pretty sure it is a psu issue
if i up my vdd or especially my vdimm i can notice the psu voltage rails spike to unsafe levels and the system becomes unstable
even if i do this at lower clocks
the 480 just don't have enough juice for me

also i dunno how much juice yur 9500 pulls but i got a gf4 ti4800 and a gig of memory
also note that lowering the timings on my memory from 2-2-2-6 to 2.5-3-3-8 barely gave me 1mhz increase on mem frequency

also i can run my mem or my fsb at like 225 but i can't run them both at 220 at the same time

i have pc3500 hi perf black level II mushkin memory 2x512

i'm willing to bet that 90% of the people with nf2 boards that hit a fsb wall do so because they are psu limited

Soulkeeper i can almost guarantee that it's not your PSU...

I can run 220 FSB my Hyper X 3200 ... 2/3/3/7 (2.8v)

I run 2 Cold Cathodes and LED 80mm..

1 - 80 GB WD
1 - 40 GB Maxtor
1700+ @ 2.4ghz 1.75( overvolts to 1.79)
Radeon 9500 Pro
2 optical drives

All on a Sparkle 350w....



Have you run memtest and P95 of that system with an extremely high multiplier accompanied by a low FSB ?

To roll out CPU limits..

yeah but you got a different psu
i've been playing with this thing for about 10hrs today and 12hrs yesterday
my rails are not where they should be at higher vdimm

yeah i've tryed most every setting combination possible
i do lower the clock mult to compensate for upping the fsb
i am isolating the fsb/mem before i attempt to tweak every mhz out of the cpu

i'm stable right now at 214fsb with 6:5 mem ratio
with this lower mem ratio i was able to lower the vdimm to 2.65v
all i would have to do right now is raise my vdimm to 2.8v or so and my system will stop being stable
even if i was to underclock/undervolt my cpu to like 1.1ghz 1.5v

my cpu maxes out at about 2.26ghz with the voltages i'm willing to give it
i could prob get it to 2.4 with voltages above 1.8 but i don't want to do that
no sense in raising from about 1.74 to 1.84 for less than 200mhz


here is my current system config and benchmarks for you all:

214x10.5 1.74v 2255mhz
2-2-2-6 2.65v 6:5 178mhz
vdd 1.80v
sisoft
mem 2675/2509
cpu arith 8434/3389
cpu mult 12141/13325
29c 41.5c
3dmark2k3 1789 GF4 ti4200 agp8x 128mb 300/621

 

[pelikan]

You've done some of the mods necessary for high FSB on the NF7. There are two that you havn't done yet and are necessary:
1. L12
2. 3.3V rail.
You can find them both at the link I left in my above post.

 

[Soulkeeper]

i have done the L12 mod
also the vdimm and vdd mod
copper active cooling on nb sb and mosfets aswell

i'll look into what you mean by 3.3v rail mod tho

 

[Soulkeeper]

Ok i read this thread a few times but i can't begin to make sense of exactely how to connect the 6 resistors
if only there was a howto
or atleast clear and decisive pictures or explanations

i rather rob a bank and buy a pc power and cooling psu


i'll keep looking tho

 

[pelikan]

Here's the one for the 3.3V rail. That's probably the most important one. On the page before that he shows how to test it. And this thread will give some info on how high to set the rails, plus more...
And have you tried the 1.0 bios?
Good luck. I know you are going to hit at least 230MHz.

 

[Soulkeeper]

no i havn't tryed that bios version yet
i got the latest version installed now
i'm not sure what version was on there before i flashed to the latest tho
but with that version i got about the same overclocks

i think i'll try older/different bios versions if the psu mods don;t work
but yeah my 12v 5v and 3v are all low

thanks pelikan

 

[bjc112]

yeah but you got a different psu

Well considering Antec is basically the "god" of PSU, i would consider it over my Sparkle ( Although highly reguarded )

There is no way that PSU is underpowered for that system..

I agree with attempting the 3.3v mod also.

 

[Soulkeeper]

yeah it shouldn't be underpowered at all

hopefully this mod will fix the low rails

i'll keep you all updated

 

[Soulkeeper]

i just tryed the 3.3v mod with no success
maybe i am doing it wrong
but those guys were using 10k and 20k variable resistors
i put up to 45k and my voltage still didn't shift from 3.23
this blows

i'm gonna go see if i can find the thread that has another method for doing this
bbl

 

[MiExStacY]

thats odd i have a 350watt enermax thats running my 1800+ @2.4ghz w/3 harddrives,5 case fans,tt smartfan2,floppy,cdrw,dvd,crytal orb,gf3 ti200,asus a7n8x deluxe2.0 and i'm running 32hrs prime95 stable.plus i have other cool glow mod in the case

so i can almost say it's not your psu