help; crappy bottleneck

[bleed3r]

I'm in a predicament with my system.

After hours of effort, I'm still in the same little rut. It makes me not like this box as much as before

I have an SN45G, with the 250 watt powersupply.

A 2500 XP-m with 1x512 mushkin bh5

Mods I've done:

-3.3vdimm
-vdd mod
-lapped NB and SB
-modded silentboost heatsink on NB (giant piece of copper)
-sb sink

My bottleneck is concerning the fsb.
I've been around 215fsb 2-2-2-11 before the nb lapping and such and vdd mods.

With all everything done, right now, I can bump my fsb all the way up to 240 fsb! It is insanely unstable though. I could take a screenshot though, and I can do a superpi 1M just before it gives the final time.

My BH5 is no problem. Timings have never changed stablility or allowed higher fsb. I leave them at 2-2-2-11, no diff even for 240 fsb.

There are two things I think of for the bottleneck: the motherboard, and the cpu

I dont think its the nf2 chipset crapping out yet though. The thing is, I have no medium stable area. After about 220 fsb, everything is unstable. I'm still sitting at my previous 215 fsb after everything!

Does it sound like my cpu can't keep stable at high fsb?
Its not even that great of a XP-m stepping.

I've tried different bios settings. High vcores, low vcores, cpu interface optimal/aggressive. Nothing really changed. I don't know if there is anything else that makes a difference, maybe like apic mode, but I tried disabling it and booting into knoppix cd with no difference. (Even though it still stated "APIC bios detected" ?? )


Any ideas? I know its kind of becoming an "ancient" system, but I'd really like to be able to get stability for like 230-235 fsb to have any gain from all this.


The one thing I will do when I have a spare day, is to remount the nb cooler to make sure I had the pressure even and add a bit more as5 to the small amount of areas that I could not make contact to the heatsink even after lots of lapping. (Probly went from 10-15% contact to 85-90% after lapping)

Also, I've tried vdd from default 1.7v up to a high of 1.9-1.95 ish. Couldnt notice any changes.

 

[quakefiend420]

what happens when you multiplier overclock that cpu? does it crap out at the same spot as it did when you were raising the fsb?

how are your temps through all of this? also what kind of cooling is on that cpu?

have you tried increasing the voltage to your northbridge?

 

[bleed3r]

Well I can get this xp-m to around 2400mhz easier, and 2500 with higher voltage (maybe 1.85+)

When testing the fsb, i try leaving it just on the lowest multi (8x)
It doesn't get close to that crap out point.

240x8 would be 1920mhz for example, which I can normaly handle fine, unless the cpu just isnt stable at that sort of fsb.

As for temps, I mentioned I tried high vcores and low vcores.
Normaly I leave the vcore at about 1.55v, and temps stay under 40 load

If I try something like 1.7 or higher, I think maybe around 45, definatly under 50.

As I mentioned before, I've tried changing the vdd (northbridge voltage) from 1.7v all the way up to ~1.95v and didnt notice anything

If you think cooling on the cpu might be a problem, or that you think I should try some higher vcores that would stabilize the fsb on this cpu let me know.
I just switched to a nexus 120mm, but I still have my 200cfm 120mm sunon fan I could try.