Undervoltable Motherboards: ADD to the list!!

All about them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Tibors
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 2674
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:07 am
Location: Houten, The Netherlands, Europe

Post by Tibors » Tue Sep 14, 2004 12:55 pm

These Canadians seem to ship to the US:

http://www.us.ncix.com/products/index.p ... ure=SOLTEK

NeilBlanchard
Moderator
Posts: 7681
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Maynard, MA, Eaarth
Contact:

undervoltable nForce3 250?

Post by NeilBlanchard » Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:41 am

Hello:

If anybody knows of an undervoltable nForce3 250 (Socket 754 or Socket 939) motherboard, I would love to know about it! TIA

The two that I am mainly considering are the MSI Neo and the Asus; both S754 models. Unfortunately, the AOpen K89 MAX is still useing the nForce3 150 chipset, AFAIK. They (AOpen) do list a 250 motherboard, but it apparently is not out yet... :? :roll:

Jan Kivar
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 1310
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:37 am
Location: Finland

Post by Jan Kivar » Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:26 am

NeilBlanchard wrote:If anybody knows of an undervoltable nForce3 250 (Socket 754 or Socket 939) motherboard, I would love to know about it! TIA
Well, I can underclock & -volt my 3000+ to 1 GHz@0,85V on a MSI K8N Neo Platinum. I have also 2 GHz@1,3V, if I need the power. This is with ClockGen. The best thing about ClockGen is that it's claimed to support any nForce3-equipped board (both 150 and 250).

Note that my configuration is manual - I don't use Cool 'n' Quiet (it's enabled in BIOS but the Windows driver is not set to "Minimal Power Management"). There is also no BIOS undervolt ATM. Maybe the VID adjust (read below) would work.

Oh, and the new BIOS (v1.4) added hidden controls to adjust the VID. To the best of my knowledge this is beneficial if one is using mobile A64s.

Cheers,

Jan

Link19
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:41 pm

Any socket 370 micro ATX motherboards that undervolt

Post by Link19 » Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:52 pm

Are there any socket 370 micro ATX motherboards that will undervolt? I want to use a Pentium III Tualatin CPU because they are one of the best for silent PCs and I want to run it completely fanless. I looked at the list, and there were only two socket 370 motherboards listed and both were full ATX. Are there any socket 370 micro ATX motherboards that undervolt? It looks like there are a lot more AMD boards that undervolt than there are Intel boards. If there are no socket 370 micro ATX motherboards that underclcok and undervolt, is it possible I could get a socket A micro ATX motherboard that undervolts and underclocks and run a Duron underclocked and undervolted without a fan while keeping it cool? The reason I say Duron is because I'm looking for something budget priced that's around the speed of 600MHz to 1.4GHz. Could underclocking a 1.4GHz Duron to 700MHz and running it at a lower voltage keep it cool enough to go fanless?

deebass
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2003 2:56 pm
Location: Spain - Madrid

Post by deebass » Fri Oct 01, 2004 1:01 pm

Socket 370 is outdated, even Socket A is getting into decadence... and Micro-ATX and manual voltage controlling motherboards are features that usually don't go together (it's been discussed earlier in this thread)
...but for now, yes, you can run a Duron Applebred undervolted and fanless. Since new Durons (1400, 1600 and 1800Mhz) are stripped down Thoroughbreds (either A or B version), you can get a lot of info and achievements about it in this forum. Check all AMD undervolting articles and its discussions in the appropiate subforum.
My article(little auto-promotion here, :wink: ) maybe the most related to your problem... so you only must pay attention in choosing the best stepping you can in your Duron. Just change the first letter of the stepping for a M (eg Athlon XP Thoroughbred JIUHB becomes Duron Applebred MIUHB) and of course always choose a B at the end (this means a Thoroughbred B core, better than Thoroughbred A for undervolting).

Then consider that Aplebred core uses about 80-85% of the power that Thoroughbred core uses... make your own calculations of the speed you can achieve fanless. Good luck!

It's a pity that the Duron Aplebred you can buy is multiplier locked... that's why I keep as a treasure a MIXIB unlocked Duron 1600. I will play with it as soon as I can, but I guess it can do around 1.1-1.15V with its default speed.

/José Ángel

Link19
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:41 pm

Post by Link19 » Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:55 pm

I found an AOpen socket 370 micro ATX motherboard that says in the manual it supports a voltage range from 1.05V to 1.825V. The motherboard model is AOpen MX3S-U. The link to it is

http://download.aopen.com.tw/Default.as ... WebSite=GL

Open the English manual and look on pages 26 and 76. It mentions the range on page 26, and it mentions there being an option to adjust the CPU core coltage on page 76. I'm looking to see if this motherboard is good for undervolting, but want to confirm that you can really undervolt with this motherboard first. Anyone know about this board or AOpen socket 370 motherboards in general for undervolting the CPU?

silvervarg
Posts: 1283
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 1:35 am
Location: Sweden, Linkoping

Post by silvervarg » Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:53 am

It is possible that you can underclock with this motherboard, but I would not be certain that it works.
The manual says that the motherboard does support full range CPU-core voltage, but it does not say that vcore is manually adjustable in BIOS.
Further they say that FSB should be 133MHz, and they "feel quite comfortable overclocking to 166MHz"...

From the manual it looks like most things are from year 2000. It is possible that more things are possible with a newer version of BIOS.

Looking at the motherboard on page 16 I am not too impressed with todays standards. It is awfully crowded around the CPU socket with coils and capacitors and the power connector close by. This means you could have lots of trouble to fit a nice and big CPU cooler.

I would much rather bet my money on a Socket A board and go for an XP mobile 2500+. If you can get this board and a suitable socket 370 CPU at a very low cost it could be worth it.
You might also want to consider a 1.2GHz VIA C3. Smaller board, a lot less trouble and very cheap. Not too fast though.
Another slightly more costly option is to go with the Sempron 3100+ basicly a stripped down Athlon 64 that sells at an attractive price.

burcakb
Posts: 1443
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:05 am
Location: Turkey

Post by burcakb » Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:48 am

My Abit KV8Pro does not undervolt by itself (BIOS) but ClockGen's ICS950403 managed to undervolt it down to 1.25V successfully.

Link19
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:41 pm

Post by Link19 » Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:45 am

It mentioned that the Shuttle FN45 can be set to 1.1V on the site: http://members.lycos.co.uk/surprise999/ ... atrix.html

It also says it is a micro ATX motherboard with an NVIDIA NFORCE 2 chipset. Can anyone confirm if this motherboard really will undervolt the CPU VCORE to 1.1V?

Jan Kivar
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 1310
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:37 am
Location: Finland

Post by Jan Kivar » Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:03 am

Jan Kivar wrote:
NeilBlanchard wrote:If anybody knows of an undervoltable nForce3 250 (Socket 754 or Socket 939) motherboard, I would love to know about it! TIA
Well, I can underclock & -volt my 3000+ to 1 GHz@0,85V on a MSI K8N Neo Platinum. I have also 2 GHz@1,3V, if I need the power. This is with ClockGen. The best thing about ClockGen is that it's claimed to support any nForce3-equipped board (both 150 and 250).

Note that my configuration is manual - I don't use Cool 'n' Quiet (it's enabled in BIOS but the Windows driver is not set to "Minimal Power Management").
I'm currently using CrystalCPUID, which does this automatically. I've made a thread here.

Cheers,

Jan

killerfish
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu Dec 05, 2002 8:50 am

Post by killerfish » Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:19 pm

I recently took the Athlon 64 plunge and took a risk on the ULi m1689 based ASRock K8 Combo-Z...

Surprisingly, the board has turned out to be AWESOME. The bios allows voltage adjustment from .8-1.55 and has support to toggle Cool N' Quiet...
It even has overclocking features (not for me though) in that you can simply type the multiplier you're going for...Another side benefit that's good for silencers is that the chipset runs much cooler than both via and nforce3 based solutions.

Here's the cool part...The board supports both Socket 754 and Socket 939 processors. At first I thought it was kindof gimicky, and it is, but it actually works!. Net, you can buy a cheap S754 processor now, and be able to upgrade to dual core 939 later when the prices is right...

One potential drawback for us silencers is the placement for the s754 processor. Depending on your case size, your massive XP-120 HSF could be a tight fit close to your hard drive case. In my case, I have plenty of room, but I have seen reports in other forums of users that needed to relocate on hard drive do HSF interference...

Finally, it's cheap! $77@NewEgg... (by the way, NewEgg has 6 USB ports list, but it's actually 8 (4 on back panel, 4 via on-board headers).

Thanks!
KF

bomba
Posts: 320
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 12:36 pm
Location: USA

Post by bomba » Thu Oct 07, 2004 11:01 am

Pentium IV socket 478 Aopen AX4SPE-Max, undervoltable to 1.1v.

Great basis for silent P4 PC with (2) pwm controllable case fan headers plus pwm controllable cpu fan header. Using as basis for MS MCE2005 HTPC. Still playing w/ config & haven't tested for stability yet, but boots and appears stable @ 1.15Vcore!

NeilBlanchard
Moderator
Posts: 7681
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Maynard, MA, Eaarth
Contact:

Re: undervoltable nForce3 250?

Post by NeilBlanchard » Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:42 pm

I wrote:
NeilBlanchard wrote:If anybody knows of an undervoltable nForce3 250 (Socket 754 or Socket 939) motherboard, I would love to know about it! TIA

The two that I am mainly considering are the MSI Neo and the Asus; both S754 models. Unfortunately, the AOpen K89 MAX is still useing the nForce3 150 chipset, AFAIK. They (AOpen) do list a 250 motherboard, but it apparently is not out yet... :? :roll:
Well, the AOpen 250 board is out now, and it is undervoltable to 0.8v. According to this web page anyway, and there are others: two Gigabyte boards, the Soltek, and the Shuttle 250 motherboards are all undervoltable. And the AOpen had the best overclock, if you can believe it!

Hardware Zone nForce3 250 motherboard roundup

The article has some mistakes; in the AOpen "bad" section they call some capacitors next to the socket "transistors". And they don't mention some of the more obvious/important layout issues. Oh well. :?

KrazyDawg
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:23 pm

Post by KrazyDawg » Sat Oct 16, 2004 7:40 pm

For those of you who wish to undervolt their processors (and are using an Asus motherboard) even though the option is not available in the BIOS, it is still possible without any hardware modifications.

Asus has a software called Ai Booster which allows you to adjust voltage, fan speed, memory speed, and CPU FSB. It's basically software overclocking, however the voltage option allows you to use a voltage as low as 1.1v and as high as 1.95v. I have an Asus P4P800-E Deluxe motherboard and I am currently running my 2.4C at 1.3v. The default is 1.525v.

The following link is for the P4P800-E Deluxe but it may work with other Asus motherboards: http://www.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/utils ... v10104.zip

You can check the Asus site and see what utilities are available for your specific motherboard.

Ralf Hutter
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 8636
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
Location: Sunny SoCal

Post by Ralf Hutter » Sun Oct 17, 2004 5:46 am

KrazyDawg wrote: Asus has a software called Ai Booster which allows you to adjust voltage, fan speed, memory speed, and CPU FSB. It's basically software overclocking, however the voltage option allows you to use a voltage as low as 1.1v and as high as 1.95v.

You can check the Asus site and see what utilities are available for your specific motherboard.
Well, sunumabitch! Guess I should pay a little more attention to that there "overclocking" stuff.

<Ralf heads for the Asus site to see if this will run on his earlier P4P800-Deluxe>

By gum, it seems to support it! Cool, I'll play with it and see what happens.

ggillespie11511
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:29 pm

AMD mAtx underclockable mobo

Post by ggillespie11511 » Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:36 pm

Perhaps I'm blind but I just can't seem to find an underclockable AMD mAtx mobo. Been downloading mobo manuals. Most don't show the range. Anybody found one suitable for the Athlon XP-M (mobil) CPU? [email protected]

Weiman
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 1:31 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: AMD mAtx underclockable mobo

Post by Weiman » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:56 pm

ggillespie11511 wrote:Perhaps I'm blind but I just can't seem to find an underclockable AMD mAtx mobo. Been downloading mobo manuals. Most don't show the range. Anybody found one suitable for the Athlon XP-M (mobil) CPU? [email protected]
There are two. The Soltek SL-75MIV2 (VIA KM400) which goes down to 1.1V, and the Biostar M7NCG/M7NCG-400 (nForce2) which goes down to 1.3V or 1.2V depending on who you ask.

Apparently there's a revision (v7.1) of the M7NCG-400 which does not allow voltage adjustments, so beware of that.

pony-tail
Posts: 488
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2003 4:39 pm
Location: Brisbane AU

Post by pony-tail » Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:33 pm

You can add the Soltek SL-86Spe2 to your undervoltable Mobo. list - and it is just about the cheapest 865PE Mobo. around . - In Australia anyway .
it has a passive northbridge as well . A very basic board with only the standard ICH5 Northbridge and 10/100 lan but very stable .
I purchased one due to its total compatabilty with Linux , and just gave undervolting a try , and it works fine .
Although the 3.0 Northy I am using does not greatly like being undervolted at
"800" bus speed It works ok at "533" but with a VERY substantial performance hit .
Have got it undervolted by 0.15v at full speed but does not seem to affect temps a great deal . Massive drop at 533 bus speed but way too slow for me (0.3v undervolt ) would not get past post below this .
I tried the chip at 400mhz bus but it would not power up and I had to clear the CMOS - would have been too slow anyway .
- I got bored and needed something to do -
Sorry but I have also posted a thread in the CPU forum
if you wish to remove it

rperezlo
Posts: 89
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:58 am
Location: Madrid, Spain

Post by rperezlo » Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:33 am

Gigabyte K8NS Pro (nForce 250) with A64 3000+. Clockgen works from 245 x 10 @ 1.55 (T=43C) down to 185 x 4 @ 0.8 Volts (T=35C). Cool'n'Quiet is set at 245 x 5 @ 1.1 Volts (T=36C).

Cool'n'Quiet works fine and the temperatures are almost the same than with Clockgen. Clockgen sometimes crashes. I have not dared to try CrystalCPU.

BTW, the board has a chipset fan that is noisy at 100% and inaudible at 20%. I'm using Speedfan to change it's speed from 20% to 80% at 50C, and it has never crashed at these speeds.

Larus
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:25 am

Abit boards

Post by Larus » Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:33 am

Hello

I'm a poor ;-) user of AMD Athlon XP and Asus A7N8X. It's not that bad but for a silent pc freak isn't good either. So I think about some decent Northwood system and this won't be easy as I read the thread.

Here's my question:
Is there anyone here who could tell me if recent Abit P4 mobos (mainly IS7/IC7) are undervoltable ?

TIA
Larus -> Greetings from Poland

Jojo540
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:06 pm
Location: Paris-France

Post by Jojo540 » Sat Oct 23, 2004 4:27 am

patord wrote: Based on manuals: (I'm thinking of buying these soon to test)

ABIT KV7
VIA KT600
vcore 1.1 to 2.1 via BIOS
I have downloaded the manual and din't found anything about Vcore figures.

Please some KV7 owners can confirm?

orionlion82
Posts: 70
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2003 4:05 pm
Contact:

Post by orionlion82 » Sat Oct 30, 2004 7:39 pm

EDIT: beaten to the punch by the big dogs, how did miss it? it was right up there....must have been underclocked :-)

came across something on the asus website... under the downloads for the P4P800... its a 478- and im running a 2.8 northie....
it is called *AI booster*, and its asus version of the shift on the fly fanspeed/FSB/voltage interface for XP... i can underclock in BIOS to 100MHZ FSB (1400MHZ) and then use software to drag it down to around 80MHZ FSB.... cant get her much lower than that, but havnt made much effort to either...i can say that it was a spectacular crash, nothing at all like an overclock crash, but it figures that if you pull back on the reins hard enough youll get bucked off... so in theory,with this software you can underclock/undervolt even a P4P800 with a 2.8 northie...

r0x
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2003 2:37 pm
Location: Italy

Post by r0x » Fri Nov 05, 2004 12:26 pm

I wanted to thank you all for this site effort. Thanks to the list I finally bought an used Abit KT7-RAID. That undervolts like a charm! I'm currently using an Applebred Duron 1.6GHz at 1.2GHz (100MHz FSB due to the chipset..) and Vcore 1.2V. AMAZING, prime95 is now running and the CPU just CAN'T get over 40C! At 1GHz and 1.1V the limit is 37! :D

This operation allowed me to reuse a case in which a P4 2.4 was idling at 50C. :cry: I was unable to use the PC without keeping the side of the case open and the PSU unmounted. In fact, the PSU is exactly in front of the CPU, and that was a great problem. Under heavy load the P4 could reach 65-70C. Oh well, that WAS a great problem. :D

I just got rid of the P4 and Asus. Abit and AMD is and will be the way. Softmenu is simply the BEST. And this motherboard seems to even unlock multiplier-locked CPUs! :wink:

Bye!

Nimo
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:41 am

Post by Nimo » Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:46 am

Abit NF7-S2 (not the same as NF7-S rev 2.0) doesn't support undervolting, nor does it support multiplier changing.

Nimo
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:41 am

Post by Nimo » Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:54 am

Jojo540 wrote:
patord wrote: Based on manuals: (I'm thinking of buying these soon to test)

ABIT KV7
VIA KT600
vcore 1.1 to 2.1 via BIOS
I have downloaded the manual and din't found anything about Vcore figures.

Please some KV7 owners can confirm?
According to http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTA4LDI= it seems to support undervolting.

Image

Prahella
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2004 2:06 pm

Re: mATX undervoltable SoA mobos..

Post by Prahella » Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:03 am

DonP wrote: Ok, hot off the press - I can confirm from first hand experience that the Soltek SL-75MIV2-L will go down to 1.1V in BIOS. I've just put the thing together - booted Knoppix but not much more yet.
In the BIOS settings it gives me options down to 1.1V and even recognised my Athlon XP mobile 2400+ correctly (NB it recognised it as a mobile chip).
It might be worth adding the Soltek SL-75MIV2-L as a seaprate entry in the undervoltable list - right now it says 'Soltek-all "recent"' but this is a micro-ATX board - the only one I've found after exhaustive research that'll go down to 1.1V. ATX boards from other manufacturers often do undervolt - but when it comes to their micro-ATX boards these features aren't present, so I think this is a special case.
Excellent! I think of buying this board as well.

Now I have to find a good dealer... preferably in the Netherlands. I found one for 56.29 euro at this shop. Too bad it's a vague shop and has high shipping costs. If I'm not able to find an alternative, I'll go with that one.

DonP, where did you buy that board? And another question, the board is completely fanless?

Anyone other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

By the way, it's not correctly listed in the "Undervoltable Motherboards" list:

Soltek MicroATX SL-75MIV2-L Socket-A VIA KT600 1.1 µATX 06.08.04

It does not have a KT600 chipset, but a KM400 chipset, look here.
Last edited by Prahella on Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Edward Ng
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 2696
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:53 pm
Location: Scarsdale, NY
Contact:

Post by Edward Ng » Thu Dec 09, 2004 6:00 am

I think it's been mentioned enough in other threads, but add the DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb to the list of S754 undervoltable boards.

-Ed

Prahella
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2004 2:06 pm

Post by Prahella » Tue Dec 14, 2004 5:01 am

According to the Chinese manual, the forthcoming A8V-E Deluxe supports a voltage range from 0.8V to 1.5625V. The board would be released in Januari.

MikeC
Site Admin
Posts: 12285
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Post by MikeC » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:28 am

Prahella wrote:According to the Chinese manual, the forthcoming A8V-E Deluxe supports a voltage range from 0.8V to 1.5625V. The board would be released in Januari.
Unless it's stated as being manually adjustable, this only means that the board can deliver such voltages if/when the CPU calls for it -- which is true for all boards that do cool-n-quiet.

JimK
Posts: 345
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2003 6:02 pm
Location: Hudson Valley, NY, USA

Post by JimK » Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:43 pm

A8V-E Deluxe, interesting uATX 939 board :) but what is that silver thing in the middle of the board with wires sticking out of it. :(

Edit: Oops, took a quick look at the pix of the board and saw the three slots and thought it was a micro. A longer look showed that it is a PCI Express board :oops:
Last edited by JimK on Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Post Reply