Intel P4 Heatsink and Fan

[davewhite04]

Hiya all,

I will be building a new system today or tomorrow and I'll be installing a P4 3ghz on a Abit Max 3 board. I'll be using a Coolmaster 210b case and a antec 550watt psu with control panel. Also 1GB of OCZ Dual Channel 3200 DDR memory. Fianlly a Raptor SATA HDD and a Seatgate 80GB SATA HDD with a DVD Re-Writer. I'll be using my old Geforce 4 Ti 4400 until the new radeon cards come out.

My question is this:

I want to dabble into overclocking but I'm unsure if the Intel Heatsink and Fan that comes with the retail version of my P4 will be good enough to cope with overclocking the cpu? I'm pretty sure the system as a whole will be very chilly due to the parts I've bought so I'm pretty hopeful but unsure whether to buy a 3rd party cooling unit for the cpu.

Your advice is much appreciated.

Dave

[Mista K6]

The Intel HSFs are very good, but you cant o/c that system much anyways. First, 3GHz is almost maxed out. If you bought a 2.4GHz or a 2.6GHz, you could pump it up to 3.0 or 3.2, but a 3.0GHz can maybe hit 3.4 safely, and at that you wouldnt get much performance because the FSB only went from 800MHz (200 x 4) to 907MHz 9226 x 4); when a 2.4 goes to 3.0, its FSB goes from 800MHz to 1000MHz. Also, that 3200 RAM is already running at its designated speed (200FSB x 2). So, to get anywhere you have to run the RAM over its specs, which really doesnt take it that far. My guess would be you could probably go from 3.0Ghz to 3.1, maybe 3.2. The standard Intel Cooler can def handle that, it'll just get a little louder. If you really want to up your performance, and can return some of those parts, trade in the 3.0 for a 2.4 or 2.6, and the 3200 for 3700. : peace2: Mista K6

[Soulburner]

It will handle any P4 processor up to 3.20Ghz as obviously its the same heatsink Intel uses for their 3.2. I wouldn't recommend it much higher even though the chips can clock much higher than that.

[davewhite04]

Thank you for the replies guys.

I have built my new system but two things are concerning me.

1) When I overclocked to 3.2ghz my hard disk wouldn't boot into the OS, I had to clear the bios to get things back to normal, any ideas why this is?

2) My cpu temp is between 40-45C and a little higher when running a game, is this anything to worry about?

Thanks a bunch.


Dave

[dryadsoul]

Thank you for the replies guys.
I have built my new system but two things are concerning me.
1) When I overclocked to 3.2ghz my hard disk wouldn't boot into the OS, I had to clear the bios to get things back to normal, any ideas why this is?
2) My cpu temp is between 40-45C and a little higher when running a game, is this anything to worry about?

Although i'm not familiar with your current hardware, it sounds like
either your stock HSF isn't effective enough for OCing/you need to make more changes in your bios setup: like FSB speed, voltage bumps for Mem,Cpu & AGP..............if ya didn't bump the volts, try
gradually bump'n them. And yeah the temps are well within reason, although, if you are anything like me, anything over 100f
tends to be unacceptable(if you're runnin' speed fan/other software monitor, change the options to farenhiet; till you get the OC funtional & you can oc comfotably till around 157f before ya have to pannic...............but, personally, i wouldn't settle for anything past 130f full load for a stable oc. If this don't help, stay tuned for advice from those more experienced with your Hardware
setup. And be causitious & have fun with your OC'ing project!!:D :cheers:

[Wiggo]

1/ Check to make sure that ya AGP/PCI speed is locked at 66/33 (between 67/34 and 70/35 does me though as I like to share the overclockin' burden a bit, this in turn creates a better overall performance value but higher values will generally screw ya stability) and set ya memory speed so that it isn't pushed over its limit (eg; 4:5 or 3:4 ratio) as PC3200 is at it's spec'd limit at the stock 200MHz FSB (maybe DIMM/core voltages need to be increased and/or memory timin's slowed down)
2/ Actually 40-45C could be a very good idle temp (dependin' on the room temp at the time) but P4's start to throttle themselves at around 70-76C so ya well within' ya limits atm (if throttlin' don't work then they just shut themselves down). So sleep tight.

[davewhite04]

Thanks for all the useful replies, it's good to know that my tempature is cool :)

Dave