Some promising initial results with my new BG7/P4a system:
Parts List: (from Newegg)
P4 1.8a Retail kit (6-14-2002, version 003)
Stock cooling and thermal pad
256 mb Mushkin PC3000 DDR RAM w/ purple heatspreader
ABIT BG-7 with the latest 6-2002 BIOS release
Radeon 8500 "LE" 64 mb DDR (250/275 version from Newegg for $87)
Antec 630 case w/ 300 watt SmartPower supply (newer "purple label" version)
2x Zalman ZM-F1 80mm Case fans with Quiet mode adapters installed (2000 rpm)
Seagate Barracuda IV 80gb drive in performance mode (still silent)
I left the stock CPU thermal compound on while I burn in the system to make sure the CPU doesn't die and leave me to explain the non standard thermal transfer compound on the CPU to Intel(why take chances). I plan on removing the stock stuff in a few days and upgrading to AS2 if it doesn't show any signs of dying on me. I replaced the chewing gum and white goop on the northbridge with AS2. I left the foam surround pad in place to protect the NB core when I reinstalled the heatsink with the spring clip. However, I think the foam surround pad MAY be lifting the heatsink a bit too much off the top of the silicon which may be why people are noting problems with heat, particularly above 148 mhz FSB? I'm going to pull the foam off of this heatsink when I put AS2 on the CPU just to be safe, so far no problems with it.
I MAY RMA the Mushkin back to Newegg if it doesn't O/C well and go with a 512 meg Samsung part - I'm not sure about the Samsung DTL stuff though which is why I wanted to give Mushkin a try. Guess I'll see in the next couple of days.
Another quick side note - this machine is QUIET, the only noise I can hear is the fan on the video card. Unfortunatly the bastard is GLUED on so I can't use the quiet cooling solution I was planning on. Hmm. I sense another project. Anyway..
In the BIOS, enabled boot strap/fast mode - set the FSB to 133 and the cpu:mem ratio to 4:5. The memory is currently configured per SPD at CAS 2.5, will be bumping that up later. DRAM/CPU voltage set to default. Installed XP Pro, ICH4 drivers, XP critical patches and the most current video/sound/misc device drivers I could find.
I ran the UD Agent with 100% CPU utilization for 1 full hour and didn't have any problems, temp maxed at 51 C.
Uninstalled UD, rebooted - ran Sandra memtest - 2578/2577. Seems to be on track.
Ran 3dmark 2001 SE w/ patch - 9398, not bad with everything but the CPU at stock speed. Link to results.
I left the system up all night running UD Agent again, 9 hours later the machine was purring along at 51C. I uninstalled UD Agent, reboooted and started 3DMark looping continually while I was at work. 10 hours later, still running like a champ. It was up to 53C but my condo was a little warmer today than it was last night so that makes sense.
So far so good, I'm planning to tweak the memory settings to their maximum and see how it goes tonight - then I'm going to start bumping the FSB up a notch at a time. I'll report back with my findings.
I have noted an odd number of Winbond alarms related to my +12v PS line. While the machine has not crashed yet, it keeps getting momentary alarms that I'm dropping to 10v briefly. My "vid" reading also seems a bit on the low side. Vcore, 5v and 3.3v are all stable and pegged at their optimal levels so I am not overly concerned. The problem only seems to occur when I'm running programs, if I sit and watch Winbond with nothing running it's fine. If I start UD Agent (100% CPU) and watch Winbond it will start beeping a couple times a minute with low 12v alarms but the system operates normally. I might upgrade to a 350 watt SmartPower supply and see if the problems persist. Any ideas?
Thanks to everyone who's posted so much good info in this thread, I've been lurking for a while sucking up info and hope some of my results will be useful to someone else who may be considering this board for overclocking their P4a. To the "pros" - I'm a bit new at this so feel free to toss me any configuration suggestions you have.
Parts List: (from Newegg)
P4 1.8a Retail kit (6-14-2002, version 003)
Stock cooling and thermal pad
256 mb Mushkin PC3000 DDR RAM w/ purple heatspreader
ABIT BG-7 with the latest 6-2002 BIOS release
Radeon 8500 "LE" 64 mb DDR (250/275 version from Newegg for $87)
Antec 630 case w/ 300 watt SmartPower supply (newer "purple label" version)
2x Zalman ZM-F1 80mm Case fans with Quiet mode adapters installed (2000 rpm)
Seagate Barracuda IV 80gb drive in performance mode (still silent)
I left the stock CPU thermal compound on while I burn in the system to make sure the CPU doesn't die and leave me to explain the non standard thermal transfer compound on the CPU to Intel(why take chances). I plan on removing the stock stuff in a few days and upgrading to AS2 if it doesn't show any signs of dying on me. I replaced the chewing gum and white goop on the northbridge with AS2. I left the foam surround pad in place to protect the NB core when I reinstalled the heatsink with the spring clip. However, I think the foam surround pad MAY be lifting the heatsink a bit too much off the top of the silicon which may be why people are noting problems with heat, particularly above 148 mhz FSB? I'm going to pull the foam off of this heatsink when I put AS2 on the CPU just to be safe, so far no problems with it.
I MAY RMA the Mushkin back to Newegg if it doesn't O/C well and go with a 512 meg Samsung part - I'm not sure about the Samsung DTL stuff though which is why I wanted to give Mushkin a try. Guess I'll see in the next couple of days.
Another quick side note - this machine is QUIET, the only noise I can hear is the fan on the video card. Unfortunatly the bastard is GLUED on so I can't use the quiet cooling solution I was planning on. Hmm. I sense another project. Anyway..
In the BIOS, enabled boot strap/fast mode - set the FSB to 133 and the cpu:mem ratio to 4:5. The memory is currently configured per SPD at CAS 2.5, will be bumping that up later. DRAM/CPU voltage set to default. Installed XP Pro, ICH4 drivers, XP critical patches and the most current video/sound/misc device drivers I could find.
I ran the UD Agent with 100% CPU utilization for 1 full hour and didn't have any problems, temp maxed at 51 C.
Uninstalled UD, rebooted - ran Sandra memtest - 2578/2577. Seems to be on track.
Ran 3dmark 2001 SE w/ patch - 9398, not bad with everything but the CPU at stock speed. Link to results.
I left the system up all night running UD Agent again, 9 hours later the machine was purring along at 51C. I uninstalled UD Agent, reboooted and started 3DMark looping continually while I was at work. 10 hours later, still running like a champ. It was up to 53C but my condo was a little warmer today than it was last night so that makes sense.
So far so good, I'm planning to tweak the memory settings to their maximum and see how it goes tonight - then I'm going to start bumping the FSB up a notch at a time. I'll report back with my findings.
I have noted an odd number of Winbond alarms related to my +12v PS line. While the machine has not crashed yet, it keeps getting momentary alarms that I'm dropping to 10v briefly. My "vid" reading also seems a bit on the low side. Vcore, 5v and 3.3v are all stable and pegged at their optimal levels so I am not overly concerned. The problem only seems to occur when I'm running programs, if I sit and watch Winbond with nothing running it's fine. If I start UD Agent (100% CPU) and watch Winbond it will start beeping a couple times a minute with low 12v alarms but the system operates normally. I might upgrade to a 350 watt SmartPower supply and see if the problems persist. Any ideas?
Thanks to everyone who's posted so much good info in this thread, I've been lurking for a while sucking up info and hope some of my results will be useful to someone else who may be considering this board for overclocking their P4a. To the "pros" - I'm a bit new at this so feel free to toss me any configuration suggestions you have.