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Northwood P4 dying?

Elrein

Elrein

Elrein

Associate
Joined
17 Aug 2004
Posts
1,777
Hi all, just a quick question id like to throw out

I have a 2.8GHz Northwood P4 and as of late i have been getting hard drive skips (like the head is hitting the disk) and after a few skips it freezes my pc with a loud buzzing from the hard drive. So i thought it was my HD dying. I then found out that after improving the cooling to my CPU this would happen less frequently and as the temp dropped it wouldnt happen at all. But now i cant run my CPU @ the full 2.8 anymore even with the CPU Fan @ full speed. I should mention i only get this problem during Gaming (SWG/WOW) etc, i suffer no problems at the desktop carrying out daily stuff eg word and the internet.

The chip has been overclocked to 3.0GHz but that was for a very short time (2-3days max) as i couldnt keep it stable.

I am now at the stage of having to lower my P4 to 2.6GHz to keep it happy

Has anyone else had such a problem? and should i consider this terminal and start shopping for a new system. Im still on AGP and would consider and new system for PCI-E

Thanks.............
 
I had similar problems with a 2.4b. Eventually, I started getting 'missing file' errors on boot-up and then it died :(. I had it at 3.0Ghz for over a year, but it had been running at stock for months (in another rig) before the problems started.
 
Em out of curiosity. Would reducing your processor speed increase the life span of your chip. You said the chip is now happy at 2.6Ghz does it mean it will now die in less than 6months rather than 6 weeks.
 
Good point.........

I hope it does hold out for a while longer @ 2.6 although im definetly needing more MHz in the near future :)
 
From my own and others experience with SNDS (Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome) it'll inevitabily need to be clocked lower and lower until eventually it'll be useless, however your circumstances don't appear in the normal criteria for SNDS which is usually high volts and frequency (though more to high volts). You may have had a dud core to begin with since it could'nt even do another 200Mhz stably at first if i'm reading correctly, no 2.8 i have and have ever had did under 3.4GHz at stock volts, my best is a 2.8 HT 800FSB @ 3.5Ghz stock voltage and 3.8Ghz on a non HT 533FSB 2.8 at stock voltage.
 
Ok now im confused, i thought that since my CPU was on its way out i might as well juice it up again and see how she goes as if it pops ill have to upgrade sooner rather than later ;). So i brought it back up to the stock 2.8GHz and fed it 1.53 volts and ding dong it is now (for the last few hours playing SWG) rock solid stable as ever :)

Do these units usually require more voltage during a breakdown?
 
Hmm.. i think that cores voltage was 1.525V ? 1.53 ain't too far, maybe its not your chip, i'd try it in another motherboard to make sure.
 
Iceberg2 said:
ok now thats just wierd
Click to expand...

Couldnt agree more
......................................................................................................
Ok just an update, seems my mobo was starting to undervolt my cpu for some reason and since ive started feeding it the 1.53 volts via the BIOS its been humming along @ 3026MHz all day with zero issues

I disabled PAT on my i875 board which was mabye the cause of my instability @ 3GHz and over

Happy times again :)
 
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