**Update, now with Mainboard comparision** All about P4 1.6a Northwood here!

[Poof]

/me smacks hnic2K upside the head!
Do you have a Malay or Costa Rica? Batch #????

 

[hnic2k]

malay SL668...form newegg

toned it down to 2800Mhz for stabilty

but i aint complaining

 

[Poof]

Thank you dear.

My damn video card didn't come in today so I'm sittin' on everything else but have no video. And I don't feel like pulling one from another system just to get this bad boy up and running.

Oh well... patience patience.

 

[adamone11]

Hi... I'm finally just about to put in an order for the rest of my comp. It's the largest single purchase I've made, so I'd appreciate some encouragement/comments.

All from Newegg:
1.8a == $188 + $7
P4B266-C (OEM)== $117 + $5
FDD == $9 + $4
512mb Corsair PC2700 == $206 + $6
Audigy (OEM) == $61 + $5
-------------------
Total: $608

I figured that the $10 max i'd save by splitting up the order wasn't worth the trouble. I'm still not sure about the 1.8 vs 1.6 and PC2700 vs Crucial... If I were to go with the cheaper in both categories, I'd save $80.

Also, does anyone know if PowerDVD, the USB brackets, and/or IDE cables come in the P4B266-C OEM box?

Thanks for your help, I'd really like your opinion on the RAM issue.

 

[sigmatic]

OK, to sum things up for those of you who thought about it or are curious:

I first got the chip to overclock as high as 128 MHz FSB without any special cooling and on a 300W generic power supply. That pushed it to 2.05 GHz basically. It would actually go higher, but I'm talking 100% stability here.

Once I had a 400W Antec power supply, I started overvolting. That made all the difference. The chip got as high as 144MHz FSB (i.e., 2.3 GHz - see it here), and it might have gone even higher - however, the VCore was at 1.725, which made me a bit uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, had it been perfectly stable at that point, I would've stuck with it. But sometimes, at odd moments, particularly because they were rare and unexpected (only happened when there was a lot of memory swapping going on), certain things would crash, such as IE or Max Payne. Although I had Max Payne unpatched so I'm not sure if it was just the game crashing or the overclocking crashing the game. However, I never have IE crash on me on a stable system.

Other applications seemed to be completely unaffected, so I'm not really sure what went on. Another thing that bothered me was the 50 degrees Celsius the chip would average. Maybe with better cooling, that level of overclocking would be more stable. Or perhaps, it was just the hard drive that did not like the overclocking environment. This was at the Turbo 1 setting, I did not try it without Turbo 1 or with Turbo 2 at all.

I have decided to go back to 2.133 GHz for a few reasons (Turbo 1 and 2 are off):

1. The voltage increase is only .1 Volts (I can handle that)
2. The temperature is a smug 44 degrees Celsius (CPU load is always 100% because of United Devices)
3. Everything's in spec - Memory, AGP, PCI. Well, aside from the CPU. (I think anyway)
4. Will I really notice a 166 MHz difference if I'm not benchmarking?

The fact of the matter is, I do want this chip to last awhile. I know that a bit of a voltage bump is relatively harmless, but I'd rather keep it minimal, just in case. I was hoping that the arctic silver paste and the heatsink/fan combo I got from PCPowerandcooling.com would be enough to keep temperatures low, but the fan only averages 4000 RPM (I'm not really convinced it's a sunflower in disguise anymore). That just seems too low to get the degree of cooling I am interested in. I wish I could just toss my computer in a fridge, but anyway.

So there you have it. Draw your own conclusions. But I'm happy I can still get quite a bit of extra performance out of my purchase.

 

[Lower]

OK, I just have to add my brag into the fray

Bought parts:
Retail Intel Northwood 1.6A. Costa Rica, 01/31/02, 3147A682
Asus P4B266
Alpha 8942 with a Panaflo L, and AS3.
2x 256MB, Kingsmax 2700 DDR333
5 more Panaflo L's. Currently have 3 in front, one in back, plus the PS fan.
(Whisper quiet compared to the 50+ dBa's of my TBird 1.2 @1350. I can hear the TV now. Heck I never knew my DVD spun up so loudly until now! )

Parts Reused:
GeForce 3
Audigy
Logitech Z-560's
Toshiba 1502 DVD
Lite-On 24102b CD-RW

Thrown into a new Chieftec DX-01W-420W (An Antec 840 clone).

I'm currently running 150x16, 2400. 1.6 volts, turbo 1.
The system seems stable at this 2400 mark, I've taken up to 2500, but it wasn't pretty. I'll attempt it again in a few more days, and after I up the RAM voltage -I'm happy with the 2400, but who knows what this CPU will do after a couple of days worth of break in time.

 

[MesBoogie]

adamone11

I got the P4V266-C from newegg. In my box was the board, USB 1.1 bracket, and cables. There were no mb screws with the board that I got.

PowerDVD? Why would the board ship with it? I did get PowerDVD though with the Lite-On 16X burner that I got from newegg.

I'd save the $80. I've got the 1.6a running at 2.1 (haven't even attempted to run it higher). I've got Crucial PC2100 (512MB) and am happy. Since this is the first system that I've built, I may be wrong but I believe the -C board only supports PC1600 & PC2100 Ram.

Now...go buy those parts!!



-mb

 

[Poof]

I may be wrong but I believe the -C board only supports PC1600 & PC2100 Ram.

I hope that's not the case since I have some Mushkin PC2700 sitting here that will go in that board! :Q

I believe that if you set the ratio 1:1 for the RAM, it'll float with the FSB speed.

 

[adamone11]

Yikes! No mb screws? I got a big package of screws with my ECE4252 case, but I don't know if they're for the motherboard or what.

From the Asus site, the retail P4B266 comes with PCCillin, PowerDVD, USB 2.0 brackets, and the onboard audio and LAN as well as the other stuff. PCCillin would be nice, and I lost my PowerDVD from my Lite-on before I could install it. It'd just be nice to have, as well. Any more thoughts on the RAM?

I don't know that I'd be happy at 2.1. I bought this for the overclocking experience I planned on the 1.8, hoping I could make it to 18x150 @ 2700... I'd settle for 18x132 @ 2.4, though, and I'm not sure the PC2700 would be any benefit at that point.

LMK, thanks.

 

[RalfHutter]

Poof - I don't know for sure about the P4B266-C, but my P4B266 certainly supports PC2700. I'm running some wonderful Corsair PC2700 @ 340Mhz right now. Check my rig for details.

I really think the P4B266-C is the same board, it should run PC2700 just fine.

 

[Poof]

RalfHutter - finally got the system built but have been hopelessly fooling around with an old linksys NIC I had laying around that I figured was flakey before, and now I've pretty much confirmed that. :frown:

Other than that, I slapped 98SE on with everything at defaults and just made the jump directly to 133FSB at default Vcore!

Not even a hiccup and the PC2700 is in there running 2-2-2-6 and I set it for Turbo1. I think I may need the BIOS update on the -c mobo though as it is reporting a 1001 BIOS I think?

Anyway, I'll let it cook at 2133 overnight and get me another NIC for it tomorrow.

[EDIT: BTW the chip is a Costa Rica and the RAM is Mushkin PC2700]

 

[motomanjd]

Mine has been very flakey trying to overclock. I wonder if my network card is causing problems. I really haven't been able to get anything stable above 119 fsb. I'm now rinning at the default spped till I get a sunflower but last night playing quake III and UT the temp from MBM was 118 degrees. Is this high? I'll get the sunflower by the weekend then will try it without the sound or network cards to see if they are causing problems. Any other ideas? Please....
Thanks
Jim

 

[RalfHutter]

It's not a bad idea to pull all uneeded cards and shut off onboard sound/video/NIC etc. See if that makes you stable, then start adding things back one-at-a-time.

 

[motomanjd]

I got home today and my AVC Sunflower came today. So I took out all the cards and put in the new fan heatsink with ASII and gave things a try. I've been running the last 3 hours at 125fsb @2.0ghz at 1.55v. This includes some Quake III sessions and Motocross Madness 2. No lockups and temp at idle is 41c after about 30 minutes it goes to 46c. I tried bumping up to 1.6v for 133fsb and it booted and got into Windows Xp but crashed after about 5 minutes of Q3. I'll be fairly happy if it will stay stable a 2.0ghz. I may try some speeds in between and see what happens. I've put the sound card (Turtle Beach Santa Cruz) back in and it didn't affect it. I'm using my old Linksys USB network adapter and so far it is going ok also. Before with my Netgear FA310TX in it would not even boot at 133 so maybe the card was my problem. Anyway I'l keep trying and see if I can get any higher. I'm trying to decide if I want to up the voltage beyong 1.6 and try 133fsb again. Any thoughts???
Thanks
Jim

 

[Tchen811]

whenever I upped my fsb pass 135, xp would always give me a bad-system-config-info error or a window\system32\config\system file corruption error. I am running the 1.6a at 1.55v and ddr at 2.5v. should I up my voltages?

 

[Deskstar]

About the Asus P4S333 board, as you increase the FSB setting, apparently the memory bus setting options change based on the FSB setting that is selected. The manual that I downloaded does not list the memory ratios for each FSB setting. What are they???
For instance, I might be able to run a FSB of 150 is the memory ratio changes to 11 to 9 from the 5 to 4 settings available below FSB 150.

 

[cnc137]

I built myself and a friend Intel Pentium 4 1.6A @ 2.1GHz computers over the weekend. I upgrade from a Intel Celeron 566 @ 850MHz and my friend upgrade from a Cyrix 166 machines. So, we were both enjoy the nice speed boost.

Here is what I used for my machine:

Intel Pentium 4 1.6A Northwood (Made in Malaysia)
Asus P4B266-C Motherboard
512MB Corsair PC2700 DDR RAM

My friend's setup was the same but he got this RAM instead:

256MB Corsair PC2400 DDR RAM

I used the the standard heatsink with Artic Silver 2 thermal compound ( http://www.articsilver.com ) and my friend just used the standard thermal tape that came with the processor. Both of our machine were running around 40C/104F almost all the time. I installed United Devices ( http://www.ud.com ) and let it run all day while I was doing other things and my machine was rock solid. United Devices is a cancer research program that uses any processing power that is not being used on your system to do calculations for a cure for cancer. So, it makes your CPU run at 100% load all the time. My temperature rose to 113F (I forget the Celcius temp.) after running for multiple hours but that was the highest I ever saw it get.

I did have one glitch with my Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer. When overclocked the FSB to 133 and plugged the mouse into the USB port on the back of the machine I could not get the machine to go past the memory test screen. So, I decided to try plugging the mouse into my 4-port USB hub and then plug that into the USB port on the back of the machine and everything worked fine. So, if you are having problems with the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer try this to solve your problem. My USB EZonics Web Cam worked fine in the USB port on the back and I plugged my USB Zip drive into the hub and it worked fine too at the 133 FSB.

Also, my friend just bought a new Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical and it worked fine in the USB port on the back of his P4 1.6A @ 2.1GHz machine so maybe mine didn't work since it was the first version of the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer I got a few years ago.

So, I am very happy with the new motherboard and CPU and didn't have to do anything except change the FSB from 100 to 133 and use the USB Hub to make my Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer work. I would definitely say that the 1.6A is the next 300A since it was just as easy to overclock. When I went from the 300A @ 450MHz to the 566 @ 850MHz I had to buy a bigger heatsink and fan to make the machine stable but with the 1.6A @ 2.1GHz I didn't have to do anything except change the FSB.

I would definitely recommend looking into the P4 1.6A if you are considering upgrading your PC.

Also, for more information about my P4 1.6A @ 2.1GHz and for links to reviews, tips, and more check out this thread on my forums:

Intel Pentium 4 1.6A @ 2.1GHz & Asus P4B266-C Mobo @ DreamStation.cc Forums

cnc137.

 

[Lioness]

Is anyone having this problem? I had a stable 140FSB with 1.55v and SPD: was 2.5-3-3-6 memory settings. I should have left it alone. When I tried to back the FSB down to 133, changed to default voltage, the "SPD" timings were the same, yet windows would freeze up. I then changed the FSB to 132, default voltage, and "SPD" memory timings changed to 2-2-2-5. I haven't run Prime95 yet, so I'm not sure how stable this setup is.

My question is at a 132FSB, default voltage, and "SPD" memory timings 2-2-2-5, doesn't this mean my AGP/PCI not in spec? I don't see anyone with a 132FSB, is there a reason for this?

 

[CZroe]

iahk: Western Digital has a beautiful diagnostic utility (Similar to IBM's). It interfaces with the drive's controller and is capable of fixing almost any problem the drive is having! Data Lifeguard Tools are available in their "downloads" sections...

 

[Thrifster]

Help!!! I have NW 1.6 w/ asus p4s333 and a 512mb stick of crucial pc2100...i keep getting the "system failed due to sever overclocking" as soon as i try past 140 fsb...does anyone have this same set up? What are your memory settings? Can anyone help?

 

[Rkonster]

Hmmm, my 1.6 at 2.1 is failing prime95 at default voltage. I am using stock hs with as3. Have anyone had similar problems? I have NEVER heard of a 1.6 not making to 2.1 at core voltage. My temps are maxing at 55 during prime95. What do you guys think?

 

[KatLei]

Gotta love northwood
1.6GHz@2.4GHz
I thought i'd have problems with my Kingston value RAM (even at 2-2-2-5) but everything's been running well so far for the past 24 hours i guess. It didn't seem to have a problem at all getting to 2.4Ghz so it's gonna go allll theee wayyyy
Mobo is P4B266 btw.

 

[Trader05]

Hey KatLei, what chips are on your Kingston Value? I have Nanya chips, i tried 150x16 with 2-2-2-5, no go

 

[KatLei]

<< Hey KatLei, what chips are on your Kingston Value? I have Nanya chips, i tried 150x16 with 2-2-2-5, no go >>



They're running at 2-2-2-5 as well. And yes they're Nanya chips too. i don't know if it makes much of a difference but i had some thermaltake heatspreaders and just slapped them on before fixing up the system.
Got it running at 2.51Ghz now still at 2-2-2-5
had it at 2.656Ghz but my HDD didn't like the overclock

 

[SFang]

300 posts.

My OCed Costa Rica chip will post at 1.65V 2.5G hz, but system is not very stable. Down to 2.4G, passed both Sandra and Prime95. I think the processor still get some potentials to go up, but I don't feel quite comfortable now to put more voltages on it.

so my result is:

Costa Rica 3204A495
P4b266
2 Crucial 256 PC 2100 2-2-2 (2.5-3-3 overclocked but using default voltage)
HEC 350W PS, Lian Li PC67USB
retail heatsink fan with AS2
1.6A @ 2.4G Core Voltage 1.65

My idle temp is 34, full load is 50-52 degree.

I also noticed that when the test runs, Northwood CPU auto protects itself. It will automatically lower Vcore if it runs 100% after a while. My Vcore setting in BIOS is 1.7v, however BIOS detects idle 1.65v, load 1.6v. I can see from Asus probe how Vcore moves lower as CPU tempture goes up, and how it comes back up when the test finished, Wierd?