Fairly new mobo, would like to vmod it. P5VDC-X

[MrRuckus]

Hey all.

Recently purchased this Asus P5VDC-X along with a P4 930. Only problem is the board doesn't have anykind of voltage adjustments via the Bios. Being that its a very inexpensive board, would like to see if I can vmod it. (Currently am running it on water. With default vcore it only hits 3.55Ghz)

It seems to have the ADP 3181 chip by the socket. If I could get pointed to a board with the same chip? Would it be as simple as that to follow the same instructions for a vmod?

Sorry for the noobness. Would be my first vmod. But Im confident in my soldering skills. :)

[MrRuckus]

Well, I went ahead and did a little research and performed the simple Pencil mod as shown here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=94659

Good news is it worked. Bad news is it only worked for about 20mins before my PC completely shut off. Before I was hitting 3.55Ghz and under load I was well under 100F and running under 1.2v due to vdroop. I didn't have anything else to measure the temps with so I just went by what the mobo was advising. After the mod, my volts went up from 1.1v under load to 1.3v which was excellent and let me get up to 3.75Ghz on my P4 930, but while in windows right after I posted this screenshot my PC turned off. I checked the waterblock and it was damn hot. I have a small entry level kingwin watercooler that is normally supposed to kewl both a GPU and a CPU, but I took out the GPU cooler and use it to only cool my CPU. This is the cooler I have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835124007

I use it externally and the temps have been great. I also verified the pump is still functional by hooking it up to an external power source. There are no kinks in the hoses and the water is circulating.

My question is: How could the Waterblock have gotten so hot? I had this hooked to a Barton 2500+ before with 1.85v going to it and it was running @ 2300Mhz. Under load it was hitting 116F and that was cooling my 9800 Pro @ XT speeds as well.

My CPU block was not hot running @ 3.55Ghz. Im seems like this Pencil voltage mod may have caused this. I have since removed and reseated the water block. system powers on and then right back off. I also took a small brush and brushed away the pencil lead mod. Still no change. Seems like I may have to RMA this new mobo. :/

Here's a pic of the temps via the mobo right before the shut off.
http://home.comcast.net/~clamarr/before_and_after.JPG

[psyconut713]

i was thinking about getting this mobo my borhters rig, since he still has an agp car, aside from the vcore mod, is there anything else the board is lacking?

[MrRuckus]

Not really. Besides the voltage mod the board ran fine for the 2 or 3 days I had it up and running. Does well with the 65nm Dual Cores. Ran 2 instances of SETI with no troubles. Detects everything correctly in XP Pro. The Onboard HD Sound is nice. Noticable difference from my old Nforce 2 Ultra Board.

Just remember if you do OC at all to set the AGP bus to 66Mhz. I left it on "Auto" and realized later that it was holding me back as it was raising with the FSB as I raised it. After this was realized, I was able to go a lot higher.


Also, just safe warning. I did the Pencil mod and one of the voltage chips went up in smoke. This was after I had removed the lead and tried to boot the board. Im not sure how it happened, but the boards going to be RMA'd to newegg. :/ most likely something I did, but I used compressed air when I removed the lead and the mobo was outside of the case.

In anycase, it was a nice board when it was workin.