I decided to go with the P4C800 DLX(So far it's been excellent)and I read somewhere that theres some kind of tweak to get 533FSB CPU's to run the ram at 400. Since the bastards at Intel decided to release the 800FSB CPU's 2 1/2 months after i got my 533 3.06 I probably won't upgrade for awhile and see the benefit of dual channel DDR400...unless..can anyone confirm or even heard of this tweak? If so I'll definitely be buying another stick(Stuffs getting cheaper by the week!). Its at it's most aggressive settings and works fine at 333, but I'd like to see how DDR400 performs. Better yet how dual-channel performs. If not, I might just have to sell my cpu with my old Soyo P4X400 and try to recover some costs. Also, my CPU temp jumped dramatically with the new mobo(from 38-41 to 43-51!). Whats up with that? Maybe a new fan setup(Currently front and both on the side panel intake and rear and top exhaust)? Or perhaps some more thermal compound? Thanks in advance.
I'm not sure, but Asus has been known to report the CPU temps a little higher than other boards do. You don't want too much thermal compound. If you haven't cleaned off the stuff previously on the CPU and heatsink, you'll want to do that and then re-apply a thin coat of the stuff. Unless the fans aren't moving air in the same general direction (typically front/bottom to back/top), I'd say leave it. The only way I'd know of to get the RAM to run at 400MHz is to overclock the CPU. If you happen to have an engineering sample (most likely not), you'd be able to drop the multiplier on the P4 and run it at 800MHz.
So at what temp should I start worrying about my cpu? I've oc'ed it a little(@3.22)with no change in temp. Should I keep going?
I decided to remove and re-apply the thermal compund and it was a success..sort of. It dropped my temp to 42-46 oc'd at 3.3. But now my hsf is always at a constant 55-5900RPM and now the screen on my monitor "waves" with the speed of the hsf. When it slows down to 5500 its not as noticeable or not there at all but when it goes back to 5900 it really starts doing it. I have a vantec nexus fan controller and it's the back fan that causes the sudden increase on the hsf. If I turn it down it goes to 5500 but when its up all the way it shoots up to 5900. I dont mind the excess noise since it certainly does lower my temp but I cant have the monitor waves. Whats interferring?
I don't know how the stock P4 heatsink for the 3.06 works, but the one for the 1.6A worked quite well...I had some very nice OC's with it using the stock cooler. If you bought the CPU in it's retail package, I'd suggest giving the stock cooler a try. It's one of the best P4 coolers available, and is pretty quiet. I haven't used the Nexus, so I can't give any advice regarding it. If you don't like the fan control it's giving you, Zalman and Thermaltake have fan controllers that work with the typical 3-pin fans---like the Nexus, but are for one fan only-- and come in heat controlled and manual adjustments. You're looking at around ten bucks for one of these. The other thing you might be able to do is get a larger fan for the CPU heatsink. A bigger fan means that you can get the same airflow at a lower RPM, which equals less noise.
You're definitely right about the stock hsf. I bought a Thermaltake Spark 7 and the stock Intel performed a lot better. I've been running the stock hsf for awhile now. Thats whats so weird. It never idles down. When I reapplied the compound, I took the fan off and cleaned off the debris that was inside the hs. Perhaps I put it back together wrong? Also, I've found out that the cpu fan increases whenever nothing is in front of it. I put my hand in front of it and it slowed down to normal speed but as soon as I moved it it shot back up to 5900rpm. I'm going to reverse a fan in the case and see if it helps. It's not the rear fan, its one of the intakes on the side. If I turn it down it slows...kinda cool actually. It actually does drop the temp when I crank it up. The monitor "waves" havent been as bad. Maybe the compound needs to sit a little while longer because it was definitely a lot worse last night.
Hmm. Does the fan speed alter any noticeable amount when plugged directly into the fan header on your motherboard? Only reason I'm asking is because I'm not sure if Intel changed anything for the stock cooling on the P4's on some of these faster CPU's.
