Undervoltable Motherboards: ADD to the list!!
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
-
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2003 3:51 pm
-
- Posts: 52
- Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
Soltek nForce2 board with video onboard
According to Tweaktown it's undervoltable. Voltage adjustable from 1.1 to 1.85
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?d ... 47&dPage=8
http://www.soltekusa.com/product/showpr ... 1045186570To help you in your quest for the almighty MHz, Soltek has included what is known as RedStorm Overclocking. Simply put, this gives you a lot of power when it comes to settings within the BIOS. The AWARD BIOS has some decent overclocking options, but the additions made by the folks at Soltek make it even better. To give you an example of what I mean, you get the ability to adjust Vcore voltages from 1.1 – 1.85v in 0.025v increments, DDR voltage settings from 2.5 – 2.8v on 0.1v increments, AGP voltage settings of 1.5 – 1.8v in 0.1v increments and VDD voltages of 1.6 – 1.8v in 0.1 increments. You can also adjust FSB settings to upwards of 200MHz for those who really want to push their systems to the outer limits.
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?d ... 47&dPage=8
Re: Abit ST6
Ralf, that's amazing! I'm really excited to try this now... can I please ask you a few quick questions?Ralf Hutter wrote: I'm running my PIII-S 1.4Ghz at 1.23V right now, 100% "32hrs ofPrime95" stable. Default for it is 1.45V. I haven't tried any lower yet, I kinda have a feeling that more than 15% undervolting at default FSB would be pushing things too much. At this (1.23V) Vcore the Prime95 load temp is only 3°C hotter than the idle temp!
Are you still running your 1.4Ghz rig at 1.23V, or have you tried reducing the voltage still further? (I'm really hoping that you tried to push it to a voltage even lower than 1.23V - wow!)
What are your temps at this undervolt, both idle and under load? Also, are you getting these results using the SLK800 and a 5V Panaflo FBA08A12L, or with some other cooling solution?
-
- SPCR Reviewer
- Posts: 8636
- Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
- Location: Sunny SoCal
Re: Abit ST6
Still running at 1.23Vcore. Temps are real cool so I haven't felt the need to push the envelope. I've used about four other PIII-S 1.4 CPUs and their lowest stable Vcore seems to range around 1.25-1.325V, that's why I don't want to push this any lower.al bundy wrote:Ralf, that's amazing! I'm really excited to try this now... can I please ask you a few quick questions?Ralf Hutter wrote: I'm running my PIII-S 1.4Ghz at 1.23V right now, 100% "32hrs ofPrime95" stable. Default for it is 1.45V. I haven't tried any lower yet, I kinda have a feeling that more than 15% undervolting at default FSB would be pushing things too much. At this (1.23V) Vcore the Prime95 load temp is only 3°C hotter than the idle temp!
Are you still running your 1.4Ghz rig at 1.23V, or have you tried reducing the voltage still further? (I'm really hoping that you tried to push it to a voltage even lower than 1.23V - wow!)
What are your temps at this undervolt, both idle and under load? Also, are you getting these results using the SLK800 and a 5V Panaflo FBA08A12L, or with some other cooling solution?
CPU temps vary with ambient temps (of course!) and are about 5-6°C above the case temp at idle. Full load temps are about 3-4°C above idle temps. My case temps vary from high 20°C in the early morning to mid 30°C in the late afternon. CPU idle temps run from 35-40° during a typical day and load temps are proportionally higher.
These temps are with the SLK-800 + 7-volted M1A as listed in my sig.
Re: Abit ST6
The max Intel temp spec for the PIII-S 1.4 is 69C I believe, so you have plenty of temp room to work with there... which leads me to wonder this next question:Ralf Hutter wrote:Still running at 1.23Vcore. Temps are real cool so I haven't felt the need to push the envelope. I've used about four other PIII-S 1.4 CPUs and their lowest stable Vcore seems to range around 1.25-1.325V, that's why I don't want to push this any lower.
CPU temps vary with ambient temps (of course!) and are about 5-6°C above the case temp at idle. Full load temps are about 3-4°C above idle temps. My case temps vary from high 20°C in the early morning to mid 30°C in the late afternon. CPU idle temps run from 35-40° during a typical day and load temps are proportionally higher.
These temps are with the SLK-800 + 7-volted M1A as listed in my sig.
With those excellent undervolted temps, do you think you might actually be able to instead use an L1A at around 5V on the cpu after all? Now that would be very silent indeed... What do you think, and have you tried that?
Re: Abit ST6
I think that your motherboard reads the temp from the internal diode, right? Because I'm getting even lower temps...Ralf Hutter wrote:CPU temps vary with ambient temps (of course!) and are about 5-6°C above the case temp at idle. Full load temps are about 3-4°C above idle temps. My case temps vary from high 20°C in the early morning to mid 30°C in the late afternon. CPU idle temps run from 35-40° during a typical day and load temps are proportionally higher.
These temps are with the SLK-800 + 7-volted M1A as listed in my sig.
I have 1.3 GHz Celeron II, with ABit BX-6 rev.2 (slot-1). I use PowerLeap's adapter. My board doesn't support reading directly from the diode (it would work if someone soldered few SMD resistors to the board), but from external sensor. I have this sensor under the retail heat sink (using the retail fan too).
Temps are 35-37°C, depending on the ambient temp and there is only a small idle/load variation; (tried playing some games, encoding MP3s and Sandra's processor burn-in tests) only 1-2°C. I haven't (yet) undervolted the processor, the adapter has settings down to 1.1V (stock is 1.5V). SpeedFan allows me to control one fan, if I throttle down the CPU fan to 65% (at which point it's inaudible compared to the PSU), I get temps around 38-40°C.
I have an older version of Enlight 7237, with 235W PSU. No extra fans (I'd like one in the back, but there is no mount for it (yet... )). Do You have any extra fans in your case?
I'm going to undervolt when I get more free time...
Cheers,
Jan
Re: Abit ST6
This shows the quite high leak current of 130nm Pentiums. Are you able to run it passive at idle? My Palomino is able to do it with a Alpha 8045.Ralf Hutter wrote: CPU temps vary with ambient temps (of course!) and are about 5-6°C above the case temp at idle. Full load temps are about 3-4°C above idle temps.
-
- SPCR Reviewer
- Posts: 8636
- Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
- Location: Sunny SoCal
Re: Abit ST6
I'm sure it would run OK with a 5V L1A but I haven't tried it. I can't hear the 7V M1A in the enviornmemt that I'm in anyway so I'm not in any hurry to try and make this any quieter.al bundy wrote:The max Intel temp spec for the PIII-S 1.4 is 69C I believe, so you have plenty of temp room to work with there... which leads me to wonder this next question:Ralf Hutter wrote:Still running at 1.23Vcore. Temps are real cool so I haven't felt the need to push the envelope. I've used about four other PIII-S 1.4 CPUs and their lowest stable Vcore seems to range around 1.25-1.325V, that's why I don't want to push this any lower.
CPU temps vary with ambient temps (of course!) and are about 5-6°C above the case temp at idle. Full load temps are about 3-4°C above idle temps. My case temps vary from high 20°C in the early morning to mid 30°C in the late afternon. CPU idle temps run from 35-40° during a typical day and load temps are proportionally higher.
These temps are with the SLK-800 + 7-volted M1A as listed in my sig.
With those excellent undervolted temps, do you think you might actually be able to instead use an L1A at around 5V on the cpu after all? Now that would be very silent indeed... What do you think, and have you tried that?
Currently the only time I can (even barely) hear anything from this system is around 3-5AM when things are real quiet around here. After that the ambient noise level of people's daily activities far exceeds the very low noise output of this system.
Well Ralf, look what you've done... now I just have to try it out!Ralf Hutter wrote:I'm sure it would run OK with a 5V L1A but I haven't tried it...
I'm going to buy an undervoltable Tualatin motherboard to use with my PIII-S 1.4, and set vcore to 1.3V or less. I'll attempt to cool the processor with an SLK800A and a 5V Panaflo L1A. I'll retire the TUSL2-C for the time being. This is kinda exciting for a 'silent PC freak' like myself!
Please do feel free to share any further experience you've had doing this, that you think could help me succeed with this project... and wish me luck!
-
- SPCR Reviewer
- Posts: 8636
- Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
- Location: Sunny SoCal
Just be careful down at 1.3v. Like I said, that's the low range of what most PIII 1.4's will run stable. If you are going to try low Vcores you should test your stability just like if you were overclocking (running low Vcore is kind of like OCing, you're trying to find the max stability at a certain Vcore, in this case a low Vcore) by running Prime95 for 12+ hours. If it doen't run Prime95 100% stable you should increase the Vcore by .025V and try again.al bundy wrote:I'm going to buy an undervoltable Tualatin motherboard to use with my PIII-S 1.4, and set vcore to 1.3V or less.
Please do feel free to share any further experience you've had doing this, that you think could help me succeed with this project... and wish me luck!
Thanks for the advice Ralf,
OK, perhaps as low as 1.3V might be a bit too ambitious to try out first.
Perhaps I should instead start out at some mild undervolt level, test prime95 for many hours (wow, is 12+ full hours really necessary?), and then lowering the voltage a little more if I receive stable results...
Do you agree with this strategy, and if so, what initial undervoltage level do you recommend that I should start with please? Also, what readings or behaviour will I see with prime95, that will indicate when I have undervolted too much?
OK, perhaps as low as 1.3V might be a bit too ambitious to try out first.
Perhaps I should instead start out at some mild undervolt level, test prime95 for many hours (wow, is 12+ full hours really necessary?), and then lowering the voltage a little more if I receive stable results...
Do you agree with this strategy, and if so, what initial undervoltage level do you recommend that I should start with please? Also, what readings or behaviour will I see with prime95, that will indicate when I have undervolted too much?
Just a sidenote to testing stability with prime95... In some cases you might find that your machine will run 12+ hours of prime95 fine, but then crash in other applications. Or, prime95 might crash within 10 minutes, but then your other applications can run faultlessly.
So even though prime95 can give a good indication of stability, it isn't the be all and end all. Remember to test it out in some other capacity too (I'm thinking of games myself).
So even though prime95 can give a good indication of stability, it isn't the be all and end all. Remember to test it out in some other capacity too (I'm thinking of games myself).
-
- SPCR Reviewer
- Posts: 8636
- Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
- Location: Sunny SoCal
I'd do something like 1.4v under Prime95 for an hour or so, then try 1.35-1.375V for an hour until Prime 95 finally errors out. Then boost your Vcore by .025-.5v and try again for 5 hours or so. The reason I say to give it at least 12+ hours is that I've had it fail after 8-10 hours but never after 12+. I usually run a new system (or any clocking/Vcore mods) for 24-48 hours before I declare it stable. I may go overboard but I place a very high value on stability. It's just not worth it to tweak the last few Mhz out of a CPU or try and undervolt to save a degree or two if you run the risk of corrupting your data.al bundy wrote:Thanks for the advice Ralf,
OK, perhaps as low as 1.3V might be a bit too ambitious to try out first.
Perhaps I should instead start out at some mild undervolt level, test prime95 for many hours (wow, is 12+ full hours really necessary?), and then lowering the voltage a little more if I receive stable results...
Do you agree with this strategy, and if so, what initial undervoltage level do you recommend that I should start with please? Also, what readings or behaviour will I see with prime95, that will indicate when I have undervolted too much?
I've been OCing for a long time now and have always relied on Prime95 and Memtest86 to determine stability and have NEVER been bit yet (knock wood). If the box I'm working on happens to be a gaming box I'll usually run some looped 3dmark too.
Re: Underclocking motherboards
Nope on the SilentTek. You can monitor temps and speed, but the Windows software adjustment feature is not yet (as of this post date & and it looks, from their forums that it has been a know problem for many months) developed by their engineers, despite the SilentTek utility available for download for this mobo from the AOpen website AND SilentTek listed in the product description. Wish I knew before I bought. Hope this helps others. FWIW, it might be good to check other AOpen boards carefully (ie AOpen eforums and readme files) prior to purchase just in case.johnc wrote:There are many nice options.
If your friend wants a P4 with on-board VGA, sound and LAN, the AOpen AX4GPRO would be a good choice.
It offers continuous cpu core voltage control from 1.10 to 1.85 volts in 0.025 increments AND SilentTek. $99, delivered, from NewEgg.
Add a 1.7 GHz P4 for $54 (delivered, from Newegg), and a rather powerful, inexpensive and quiet machine is well on its way.
John Coyle
Just ordered this very undervoltable board. Take a good look at the BIOS screen shots near the bottom. Lots of clearance at the CPU socket. As many BIOS options as you could ask for since it's an overclocker's board.
http://www.lanaddict.com/review.php?ID=67
Dan
http://www.lanaddict.com/review.php?ID=67
Dan
Keep us posted Dan. I see you have a 1700+. Is this the 1.5v version. I have heard that the 1.5v version can run stable @ 1.1v. with no underclocking. I was going to get an abit nf2 board as these appear to offer 1.1 vcore but I think i'll wait and see how you get on. What I would really like is a micro-atx solution.
nan0dog wrote:Keep us posted Dan. I see you have a 1700+. Is this the 1.5v version. I have heard that the 1.5v version can run stable @ 1.1v. with no underclocking. I was going to get an abit nf2 board as these appear to offer 1.1 vcore but I think i'll wait and see how you get on. What I would really like is a micro-atx solution.
It runs at (default) 1.6 volts on my current board. Palominos run at 1.7 I believe. Many Soltek boards have a wide voltage range both under and over the default voltage. Usually when you read a review they only discuss how high the voltage can be goosed because most boards widen the range on the high side and neglect the low side. Not so with many Soltek boards.
I ordered a new power supply since it has that auxiliary P4 power connector so it may take a week for my under volt report. Auxiliary P4 power connector is supposed to make for a more stable board. I got mine here on discount: http://www.newegg.com/app/listProduct.a ... 11&order=0
Abit nf2 board..... I don't know the voltage range. You should go to NewEgg and check out the customer comments on it, other nforce and on the Soltek I got. Here's a shortcut: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.a ... on=nForce2
Dan
New Shuttle SFF SN61G2 seems to be undervoltable
At least somebody in the forums at Sudhian (http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.c ... adid=36454 found this in their manual. The manual for the new Athlon model (SN45G) doesn't seem to be online. Does anybody know if this is undervoltable too?
Woohoo! Undervoltable mainboards are the only thing that can make an SFF really quiet (unless you go with a VIA CPU).
Bye egghat
Woohoo! Undervoltable mainboards are the only thing that can make an SFF really quiet (unless you go with a VIA CPU).
Bye egghat
The manual is online now @ http://www.shuttle.com/new/support/down ... odel=SN45G
I'll put you out of your misery. 1.1v to 1.0 vcore Excellent.
I wonder will shuttle ever sell the motherboard on it's own ( FN45 ). I love the board but i'd prefer low profile case like the pundit or smaller.
I see Soltek are selling a new cube, the EQ3701 with two 5" bays This might be undervoltable as their nforce2 atx boards undervolt to 1.1v. I can't download the manual at the moment.
I'll put you out of your misery. 1.1v to 1.0 vcore Excellent.
I wonder will shuttle ever sell the motherboard on it's own ( FN45 ). I love the board but i'd prefer low profile case like the pundit or smaller.
I see Soltek are selling a new cube, the EQ3701 with two 5" bays This might be undervoltable as their nforce2 atx boards undervolt to 1.1v. I can't download the manual at the moment.
Oh thanks for the link. Downloading now.nan0dog wrote:
I wonder will shuttle ever sell the motherboard on it's own ( FN45 ). I love the board but i'd prefer low profile case like the pundit or smaller.
I see Soltek are selling a new cube, the EQ3701 with two 5" bays This might be undervoltable as their nforce2 atx boards undervolt to 1.1v. I can't download the manual at the moment.
The Pundit is somewhat cool, but nonstandard. I'll guess we'll have to live with the fact, that the really small computers will be bundled with a case and a PSU.
I'll check out the Soltek one. Have you seen a review somewhere on the net with noise measurements?
bye egghat.
-
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Tue May 27, 2003 12:23 pm
- Location: Northern California by way of Finland
Abit NF7-S 2.0 undervoltable.
Abit NF7-S v2.0 is CPU undervoltable. In 0.025V increments, if I recall from 1.1V upwards. Currently we have two NF7-S boards running AMD T-BredB 1700+:s at 1.30V (1.6V default) with a slight 5% overclock. Both CPUs are stable through Prime95 and pass memtest86. Note: I do not know whether this degree of undervolting is normal with 1700+ processors though; it is quite possible that we have gotten very lucky.
Edit: we're just breaking these processors in and will experiment more with them soon, including undervolting further while increasing clock speed.
Edit: we're just breaking these processors in and will experiment more with them soon, including undervolting further while increasing clock speed.
Btw every cheap motherboard support undervolting and overclocking!
You just have to unlock the processor and do some wireing to the socket
here http://www.overclockers.ru/news/newsite ... 1050266349
and somewhere here http://www.ocinside.de/index_d.html
You just have to unlock the processor and do some wireing to the socket
here http://www.overclockers.ru/news/newsite ... 1050266349
and somewhere here http://www.ocinside.de/index_d.html
-
- Patron of SPCR
- Posts: 857
- Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2002 1:49 pm
- Location: Somerset, WI - USA
- Contact:
From the AOpen Forums:britannica wrote:The AOpen MK79G-N is a possiblity. It does come with Ezclock which allows adustment of cpu clock and FSB from within Windows, but Vcore has to be adjusted in BIOS. Worth posing the question on the AOpen eforum Motherboard section.Zergling wrote:Any undervoltable microATX board?
Also has SilentTek fan control software.
ß
http://club.aopen.com.tw/forum/viewmess ... geID=41861
Which is sad because I thought maybe this may would actually work. Is there any reason why I can't find a microATX board that undervolts? Is it that there isn't "room" on the board for all functionality? Or is it just that they manufacturers don't see this as a big enough market to spend the time on? Frankly I don't see why ATX is still the biggest market. How many people use 5 PCI slots?The manual for this board claims the Vcore is adjustable from 1.1 to 1.85Vbut there is no option in the CMOS set up for Vcore ajustment.