Epox 4PEA+ and my Voltages

[MadMax]

Hey :)

Just before Christmas I finally sold my 1800+ and Apogee motherboard, and started looking for something for my 1.8A. Well I'd planned to get a BD7-II (BE7's not in the country yet), but had trouble actually finding any in stock. Day after Christmas I was looking around and found the 4PEA+ on sale. I thought 'Hey, why not - looks pretty damn good' so just bought. When I came here yesterday I realised that I seemed to have made a pretty decent choice :D

Anyway, my basic system specs are as follows:

4PEA+
1.8A
512MB Corsair PC3500
Chaintech 128MB Ti4200

I have a cooler I got for free, but it's a decent-sized copper one that's doing quite a good job of it.

This is the first time I've ever tried to overclock a P4, and you guys have so far been an amazing help. I'm hoping to buy a Vapochill sometime in the next couple of months, but that depends what my funds are like when I'm back at Uni.

Now, I'm having a few problems with my overclock. The highest that I can get through 3DMark is at 2.3GHz. Anything higher than that and I get thrown straight back to the desktop. I can boot into Windows at 2.4 @ 1.75V, but can't get too much higher than that.

I'm running at 2.25GHz at the moment (@ 1.7Volts), it's solid as a rock, and I can throw absolutely anything at it. I just looked at my Voltages in Sandra however and noticed the following.

http://www.forumnz.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=45453

Considering that my Core Voltage is meant to be at 1.7, and that the 3.3 line is, well, a little low to say the least I assume I should get a new PSU. I'm currently running a 400watt Wintech PSU, but have been browsing around for a long while trying to work out what new one to get.

So after all that, my questions are: Do you think it would definitely be my PSU that is the problem? Is there anything else you suggest I try? And lastly,, what PSU would you recommend for my system? (I'm also running 2 80GB HDD's, DVD, CD-RW, Second Network Card, Soundblaster).

Thanks for your help :)

Oh yeah, I came here a month or so ago, but was pretty busy before Christmas so never really came back. I think i'll most definitely be staying around this time however :)

Cheers,
Max.

[Jupiler]

Those numbers don't look very normal to me.
Have you tried running MBM or the proggy provided by Epox on the CD?
Your 5V and 12V lines look OK, so I doubt it's the PSU.

[MadMax]

I'll give that a go now then... haven't got around to installing MBM yet.

[MadMax]

The 2.8 was my Vdimm :/

Thanks :)

I'll try and work out how to get to 2.4 and higher some other way :D

[PiLsY]

CPU voltage in sandra is the Chipset voltage (incorrectly labelled as AGP voltage in bios), Aux voltage in sandra is the CPU and the 3.3v voltage in sandra as you already know is your vdimm.

PiLsY.

[Alexandrus]

Are you sure it is not the CPU that is holding you back ?
I mean, not all P4 1.6A and 1.8A OC very much. I can do 2.8GHz on my 1.6A, but not everybody with a P4 1.6A can pass 2.13GHz.

[MadMax]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just my P4. We tend to get less than wonderful overclocking chips down in New Zealand :(

Ah well, I'm having fun anyway, and just trying to eliminate anything I can before I settle for the completely stable 2.25 I'm running at right now :)

I *did* only pay About US$85 for it, which is a bit under half what you can get them for new over here, so I'll just sell it in a month or so and drop in a 133FSB chip that will hopefully overclock more, and enable me to make better use of my RAM :)

[GreenBeret]

We tend to get less than wonderful overclocking chips down in New Zealand

It's the same in Aus :p

Anyway you should get a new 1.8A SL68Q or SL6LA or SL6S6 :) The newer the pack date/ week the better. They OC just as well as 2.4B (same multiplier even).

[MadMax]

K, I'll keep that in mind :) I'll be back in Adelaide mid-February, so depending on how much cash I have after setting myself up for Uni again, I'll decide what to do about a CPU. :D

[MadMax]

Well my voltages are great. This cheap Wintech 400 watt PSU is doing an excellent job of it. I can get to 2.4 and run whatever I want, but I need to increase the Vcore to 1.85 - not something I want to really be doing for too long ;)