Xtremely OLD benching

[yankee]

Hey guys, I just dug out my second PC i ever owned, a PII 450, to rebuild for a friend who has never owned a PC.

In doing so, I wanted to see if I could OC it and possibly run some benches.

http://picasaweb.google.com/d.hopero/OldSchoolOc

some pics, including a SPi 1m run. 4min45sec, eat my dust! :rofl:

My question to you all is, what can I use to OC this bad boy? I did a lot of searching, and found softFSB but that's for win98. I also found a version of setfsb for 440BX, but that wouldn't work either. It's an OEM board, so there are no bios options.

The spi screenshot shows motherboard and bios info.

[T_M]

Didnt mobos of that era have jumpers for OC'ing?

[bobbobson]

Yup. Back in the era where you tuned cars with a screwdriver :up:

[yankee]

I've made a little more progress.
Turned out i wasnt running the actual softfsb program(the extractor :slap: ).

When I run SoftFSB, it give an error:
softfsb.sys Dynamic Load NG!
Then I run it again and the gui opens with no errors. But it still doesn't work.

I found which chip is the clock generator. You can see it in the pic. It's an IC Worldwide 149h. The numbers on the chip are 'w149h b468 1844ka'. I selected w149x in softfsb, and when i click get fsb, the keyboard freezes. I can still move the mouse and open things but i always have to do a hard poweroff.

Oh yea, and it's an OEM board so no low level oc possibility at all. Bios or jumpers. Only software.

[STEvil]

Sure you got the right chip?

Hard to tell for sure in this picture but looks like its made by ICS: http://picasaweb.google.com/d.hopero/OldSchoolOc/photo#5160642382092392354

[yankee]

Wow! I didn't realize how blurry that pic was when i uploaded it. Newcastle will do that to ya. ;^)

Gallery updated with better pic.

http://picasaweb.google.com/d.hopero/OldSchoolOc/photo#5161023401526122466

[STEvil]

may just be out of luck with that motherboard.

[yankee]

Yea, that's the case. Thinking the OS was the problem, i loaded 98 onto it. Softfsb still locks up in the same manner. SPi won't even complete a run, it throws an exception and barfs all over me.

I had great expectations, but it was not to be. Ah well. I'll have to wait until I'm finished with my C2D build to have any fun.

[billb]

Sorry to jump in here so late. I've been playing around with a 440BX-3 (Dell OEM mobo with a PIII 550).
CPUFSB (V2.2.18 Oct 20 2006) works on mine.
Trial version: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/CPU-Tweak/CPUFSB.shtml

You have to choose
Mainboard = Intel
Type = AL440LX
PLL = cypress/icw
Type = W149

The FSB choices are 66.6, 66.8, 83.3, 100, 100.2, 103, 124, 133, and 133.3
Mine is a 100 FSB board, so 124+ crashes.

There's supposed to be a PCI lock mod for this board somewhere here on XS, but I haven't found it yet.

[yankee]

Sweet it worked! CPU needs more volts it seems. :-(

I benched 103 FSB for a time of 4:16!

I can set to 124, but SPI gives an error after the 3rd loop.

Thanks! :up:

[billb]

Sweet it worked!

I can set to 124, but SPI gives an error after the 3rd loop.Glad to help.
My PIII 550/100 will run for a minute or so at 124 (5.5 x 124 = 682 mhz) then locks up. I suspect it's the PCI buss going from 33 to 41.3 wacking the VooDoo 5 card as I left the card overclocked (160>180) and tried 125 and it destroyed the VooDoo driver...?

Try Intel, Seatle BX-2, should go right to cypress/icw, W149.
Try disabling L2 cache in your bios. Lowers performance, but sometimes it will allow you to overclock further and get the performance back ...or maybe more.

If you're interested, here's a BIOS "tweaker" that gives access to settings not in the BIOS screen (like memory timings).
http://www.miro.pair.com/tweakbios/

[STEvil]

Does your 550 have 512kb L2 or 256kb L2?

If its 512kb then you're not going to be able to break ~600mhz very easily. Either that or your memory timings are too tight for 124mhz.

There are no PCI lock mods for 440bx/lx/etc. Is your Vooodoo 5 AGP or PCI? Either way it shouldnt matter as they have run over 83mhz AGP easily. They also come stock at 166/166 by the way.