Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm
Mike C made a comment in a recent post about lowering VCore to reduce heat. I've just bought an Asus P4B533, with P4 Northwood 1.6 Ghz, but the bios setup does not seem to allow for reducing VCore below 1.5V. Is this possible with this mobo? (I read the article in Mods/Projects about silencing a P4 system, but no mention of reducing VCore).
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<BR>I've been reading a lot about laptops and intel's 'speedstep' technology, which reduces the chip speed in battery mode to extend battery life. If this works for laptops and batteries, then logic would suggest that it should work for desktops and heat/noise.
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<BR>While I may occasionally use my system for heavy duty work (video compression, etc), it spends 95% of it's time either idle, editing emails, or routing internet traffic to my other PCs. So - I'd be more than happy to drop my 1.6 GHz cpu to 800MHz or thereabouts!
<BR>
<BR>How practical is this? I tried to reduce the FSB on my 'test' system (a throwaway Athlon 800 system that I picked up for $200 from a friend) but I could not get it down less than 90MHz (from it's default of 100MHz). When I selected 66MHz, the system would not boot.
<BR>
<BR>I've bought a DigitalDoc5 to measure temps and control fans, and I'd be happy to have fan noise on the odd occasion when I stress the system.
<BR>
<BR>So how about it - can you seriously underclock a desktop PC, and by doing so, do you really lower heat?
<BR>
[addsig]
<BR>
<BR>I've been reading a lot about laptops and intel's 'speedstep' technology, which reduces the chip speed in battery mode to extend battery life. If this works for laptops and batteries, then logic would suggest that it should work for desktops and heat/noise.
<BR>
<BR>While I may occasionally use my system for heavy duty work (video compression, etc), it spends 95% of it's time either idle, editing emails, or routing internet traffic to my other PCs. So - I'd be more than happy to drop my 1.6 GHz cpu to 800MHz or thereabouts!
<BR>
<BR>How practical is this? I tried to reduce the FSB on my 'test' system (a throwaway Athlon 800 system that I picked up for $200 from a friend) but I could not get it down less than 90MHz (from it's default of 100MHz). When I selected 66MHz, the system would not boot.
<BR>
<BR>I've bought a DigitalDoc5 to measure temps and control fans, and I'd be happy to have fan noise on the odd occasion when I stress the system.
<BR>
<BR>So how about it - can you seriously underclock a desktop PC, and by doing so, do you really lower heat?
<BR>
[addsig]