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P4 2.80GHz Overclocked to 3.917GHz

vwbus writes "The guys at Muropaketti have taken a brand new Pentium 4 2.80GHz chip, bought a pint or so of liquid nitrogen and overclocked it to an astounding 3.917GHz. The Finns describe how they put together the system on their web page, and luckily there are a whole set of pictures which demonstrate exactly what they've done, so you don't need to understand Finnish to figure it out. The pictures show wisps of nitrogen evaporating from the jar sitting on top of the CPU, and they publish some SiSoft figures to demonstrate the kind of speeds they attained." The folks at Muropaketti have had a lot of practice with this cooling method.

109 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Its soo cold in finland by Hougaard · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why not just keep the processor outside :-)

    1. Re:Its soo cold in finland by psavo · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why not just keep the processor outside :-)

      Cuz the bears would eat it ;) (or at least shit on it).

      --
      fucktard is a tenderhearted description
    2. Re:Its soo cold in finland by Camillo · · Score: 2, Informative
      Actually, one of the problems they had was that the processor got too cold:

      Prosessori ei kestänyt todella alhaisia lämpötiloja. Testit alkoivat rullaamaan huomattavasti paremmin, kun kulho ei ollutkaan aivan umpijäässä.

      "The processor didn't handle really low temperatures. The tests ran significantly better when the bowl wasn't completely frozen."

      So, now you know why we can't keep the processor outside - it would get too cold!

      NB. Daily temperature maximums for Helsinki the last few weeks have rarely dipped below 25 C. Not that you would care, though. :)

    3. Re:Its soo cold in finland by Hougaard · · Score: 2

      Daily temperature maximums for Helsinki the last few weeks have rarely dipped below 25 C. Not that you would care, though. :)


      Hehe.. Actually I live in Denmark so I know how good the weather has been here lately, but that would make a very good fp :-)

    4. Re:Its soo cold in finland by richie2000 · · Score: 5, Funny
      Because it would mess up the local ecosystem.

      In university, we got an old huge VAX which we had to run with open windows, but after a while they told us to stop. Not because of the immense power drain, but because the palm trees were starting to push out the birch, fur and pine trees in the local forests and they were concerned that tigers were next. This was in northern Sweden, BTW. You Americans can probably relate to Minnesota, if it helps.

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    5. Re:Its soo cold in finland by OpCode42 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh great, then intel would trademark Intel Outside as well...

    6. Re:Its soo cold in finland by radish · · Score: 2


      (or at least shit on it).

      Only if it was in the woods ;-)

      --

      ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

    7. Re:Its soo cold in finland by Space+Coyote · · Score: 2

      And if it was prime.

      --
      ___
      Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
    8. Re:Its soo cold in finland by plaa · · Score: 2

      Why not just keep the processor outside :-)

      Quite ironic you should say that. While most of central Europe is battling floods, the first drops of rain to southern Finland for at least four weeks came yesterday. It's been around 25 degrees Celcius the whole month, probably a bit more inlands.

      --

      I doubt, therefore I may be.
    9. Re:Its soo cold in finland by skotte · · Score: 2

      in our defense, Celsius only works if you have some idea how hot 'boiling point' is in people terms.

      F works kinda nice because it gauges the standard human range of temperatures. 100 is much too hot, 0 is much too cold. 50 is a nice day out. 30 is damn cold. 70 is a tad warm.

      (actually here's where it shows its european roots: the scale is a bit chillier than americans like. so really 40 is much to cold, 60 is a nice day, and 80 warm. just bump it up 10 degrees to measure american whims.)

      but yeah. F is people terms, 0-100.

  2. Climate change by dr.Flake · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not for long!!!

    --
    Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
  3. Re:just picked up a pint of liquid nitrogen by prockcore · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't know about liquid nitrogen, but you can pick up a pint of ben & jerry's anywhere... much tastier.

  4. Now, Kids... by OpenSourced · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't try this at home. If you feel tempted, watch three times in a row "Terminator 2", and remember you are not made of liquid quicksilver, or whatever.

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
    1. Re:Now, Kids... by OpenSourced · · Score: 2
      Yeah, as a matter of fact, that was the idea. But of course, if somebody thinks it's informative, then it's certainly informative for him, because he should definitely not try that at home :o)

      --
      Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
    2. Re:Now, Kids... by cwebster · · Score: 2

      Liquid Nitrogen is actually fun to play with. A friend any myself went to many industrial gas suppliers while in high school, and finally found one willing to fill a stainless steel thermos with it. Had fun shattering random objects, pouring it on top of normal bodies of water, etc.

  5. Money to burn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    person 1: "I just got this brand new P4 2.8GHz CPU. What should I do with it?"

    person 2: "Get a Radeon 9700 and get on top of the 3Dmark2001 benchmark list at Mad Onion?"

    person 1: "Radeon hasn't come in yet..."

    person 2: "Compile some software?"

    person 1: "Already did that."

    person 2: "Create a new anthropomorphic CGI character with a Jamaican accent?"

    person 1: "Tried it, but for some reason the CGI software refuses to let me. Something about digital rights management and George Lucas."

    person 2: "Rip some DVDs to DIVX?"

    person 1: "Already did that. I think it's what pissed off George Lucas."

    person 2: "Ah hell, lets just dump some liquid nitrogen on it and overclock it. It'll be like the Fast and The Furious if it blows up."

    person 1: "Duuuuude! Great idea!"

    1. Re:Money to burn by loply · · Score: 2, Funny
      It'll be like the Fast and The Furious if it blows up

      Liquid Nitrogen != Nitrous Oxide :)

      Although Id like to see what happens if you atomize and spray liquid nitrogen into your engine :)

  6. Just the CPU, or.. by dr.Flake · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At this point they are only extreme cooling the CPU. Some of the "coolness" will also cool the MB a bit.

    At what point will it be "necessary" to dip the total package of MB, memory, GPU and CPU in the nitrogen?

    I mean, you would want to increase FSB and memory timings as well if you want to get half-decent Quake3 fps's scores.

    --
    Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
    1. Re:Just the CPU, or.. by Sampsa · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here is a picture of LN2-cooled GeForce 4 Ti4600 display adapter:

      GeForce 4 GPU running at 409MHz and Memory 777MHz

      :)
    2. Re:Just the CPU, or.. by Phosphor3k · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You dont "dip the whole thing" in liquid nitro. Thats how you end up with a fried computer.

      A better idea would be to put the "entire thing"in a tub of 3M fluorinert(a completely non-electrically conductive liquid) which comes in different flavors ranging from low heat transfer with low flamability, to very high heat transfer with very high flamability, and run pipes full of liquid nitrogen through the fluorinert in order to cool the system.

  7. Rip off Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    This Slashdot article is a blatant rip off from The Inquirer

  8. Alchimists we are by HacTar · · Score: 2, Funny

    I want nitrogen evaporating from my pc too!
    It's too cool!

  9. I'm so cool... by CoderByBirth · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...I don't even need liquid nitrogen to overclock my CPU.
    I just give it The Fonzie and it runs like hellfire.

    1. Re:I'm so cool... by Myco · · Score: 3, Funny
      Just make sure you don't decide to "give it the Fonzie" after you've immersed it in liquid nitro.

      Jumped the shark indeed.

  10. Re:What's next ??? by Hittite+Creosote · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The coolest gas you could get normally would be liquid Helium, at about five degrees above absolute zero. Believe me, it's not easy to work with in the lab (and if you think waving a vacuum cleaner around is the way to reduce surface pressure, you shouldn't go anywhere near it).

  11. Correction by XNormal · · Score: 4, Informative

    The pictures show wisps of nitrogen evaporating from the jar sitting on top of the CPU

    You can't see the evaporating nitrogen. The wisps are droplets of water condensed from water vapor in the air by the low temperature.

    --
    Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
    1. Re:Correction by micromoog · · Score: 4, Funny

      And you can't really "see" water vapor. The resulting "vision" is actually photons reflecting from or refracting throught the water and stimulating retinal nerves.

    2. Re:Correction by sporty · · Score: 2

      Ug, and you really don't have any humour, since trying to make fact funny doesn't always work. Wait a sec... damnit.

      --

      -
      ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only

    3. Re: Correction by XNormal · · Score: 2

      Actually, you're right. You can't see water vapor either. Only the condensed droplets.

      Thanks.

      --
      Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
  12. What some guys do for the kick... by axllent · · Score: 3, Funny

    It really surprises me what some guys do... I mean what is the practical advantage of this? Just to proove what exactly?
    Now, if they were to use the same system to get instant cold beer.. now that's something we can all use, but to work with a freezer on your desk....

    1. Re:What some guys do for the kick... by Quixote · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you have to ask the question "why do these guys try to push the boundaries?", then you are in the wrong place. I can't speak for all techies, but all the ones I know are always interested in seeing how far you can push the envelope. Think of it like art.

    2. Re:What some guys do for the kick... by Peyna · · Score: 2

      I think 2x2ghz processors would be cheaper and probably more effective than 1 4 Ghz processor. Much cheaper to get 2x2 than 1x4 with they way they've done it at least =]

      --
      What?
    3. Re:What some guys do for the kick... by Reziac · · Score: 2

      It proves that the 2.8GHz chip is probably a 3.9GHz chip under the hood. :)

      Did you see the recent article about how all those overclockable Celerons really ARE the max speed they'll clock to, but were remarked down to fill the market demand for cheaper chips .. this has been going on at least since the P75 era. (Most "P75" CPUs were really remarked P90 and P100 chips. In fact I've got one of 'em in my Closet. True P75 chips won't overclock.)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    4. Re:What some guys do for the kick... by adolf · · Score: 2

      Er.

      The P90 and P60 were completely different cores from the rest of the vanilla Pentium line, and always were rather rare, being the first generation.

      P75, 100, 120, 133, 150, 166, and 200 shared the same core.

    5. Re:What some guys do for the kick... by Reziac · · Score: 2

      There were two different P60 chips (I've got one of each -- and an old motherboard that will only speak to one of them!) And I've personally seen evidence of different grades of P75. Also, per info at the time, P90 was same core as P100, tho maybe there was a previous P90, I dunno.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  13. Re:Faster than 3.917 by ymgve · · Score: 2

    Do my eyes deceive me? [muropaketti.com] I doubt it. WCPUID is noting 3998.24 MHz in that picture! (It's most of the way down the page, if you want to see it in context.)

    If you read the english summary, it says that they managed to run the CPU at 3998 MHz, but had to knock it down a notch to keep it stable.

  14. The Risks of Using Technology Evolve... by perfects · · Score: 5, Funny


    1972: Typist's Elbow
    1982: Space Invaders Wrist
    1992: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
    2002: Your entire hand shatters after being frozen in liquid nitrogen.

    1. Re:The Risks of Using Technology Evolve... by cheese_wallet · · Score: 2

      " I've actually had liquid nitrogen poured on me[hand] before... but nothing happened because your body heat is enough to vaporize the nitrogen about an inch before it touches you."

      More like a millimeter, unless your body temp is 120 degrees.

    2. Re:The Risks of Using Technology Evolve... by Jonny+290 · · Score: 2

      Hey, you also left out:

      1994: alt.binaries.pictures.* Wrist Syndrome

      --
      Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
  15. Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only by stereoroid · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It is possible to hold some on your tongue and blow "smoke rings", but if you want to know what happens if you swallow it, you may end up in the running for a Darwin Award. This guy did it and failed to qualify (i.e. lived to tell the tale). It's in his own words, and he left out the goriest details, but it's still cringeworthy.

    If you've seen this article before: yes, I know. Some people haven't. This is for them. Thanks.

    --
    (this is not a .sig)
    1. Re:Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only by stereoroid · · Score: 2

      Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to type the phrase "begging the question" into Google and read every hit returned.

      In other words: HUH?

      --
      (this is not a .sig)
    2. Re:Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only by davecl · · Score: 2

      A friend of mine tried gargling with it (it can be done) and swallowed some. He belched for about a minute solid, but that was it. And he thermally shocked his teeth, knocking the dental cares off, which was perhaps a good thing...

    3. Re:Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only by Mt._Honkey · · Score: 2

      I spent the better part of this tuesday playing with Liquid Nitrogen. It turns out that you can stick your entire hand in it, and it won't hardly get cold at all for a second or two, so you can splash it at people with your bare hands. Because your hands (mouth) are so far above the boiling point of N2, it boils instantly upon contact with your skin. That means that you end up with a layer of gas around your hand, sheilding you from the brunt of the cold. Just don't leave it in for more than a second or two, because the LN2 WILL break through and give you cryo burn. Cryoburn (frostbite) is much much worse than a heat burn, partly because there has been little evolutionary reason to build up defences against it. Maybe Inuits would be better off.

      --

      Don't Bogart the fish sticks
    4. Re:Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only by dschuetz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, I was just thinking about this the other day, for some reason.

      I first read the story years ago on USENET (it might even have been when I was still in school, so late 80's early 90's). I remember that he even mentioned in his posting that "this is not an urban legend, so if it ever turns into one, you'll know it started with fact. Expect to see a journal article soon."

      It looked a lot like the story at the darwin awards, but for the lack of mention of urban legends (of course, if I really *did* read it 12 years ago, then I may be having a memory lapse).

      That said, the story looks more and more like a joke. I did a quick google USENET search, and didn't find the original article, but found plenty of reprints, mostly in joke groups. There's no mention of time (where and when did this happen?). And you'd certainly think that it would have made it to the journals by now.

      So, has anyone found any definitive research on this story? I'd believed it was true, when I first read it, then forgot about it for years. Now, I'm not so sure. And snopes doesn't have anything on it.

    5. Re:Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only by Fnkmaster · · Score: 2
      Not an urban legend. Even though it has made it on to joke pages, the jokes are all based on a real event. The one sketchy thing about this telling is the part about "machines digesting for me" (there's no such thing I've ever seen, and I've seen several major gastrological surgeries).


      The guy's name is Michael Mazur and he was at WPI. Here was the original story from WPI. Also there are other similar incidents on record, so the injuries are accurately described.

    6. Re:Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only by Fnkmaster · · Score: 2

      Damn, my link to the press release didn't come out before.

  16. Re:Faster than 3.917 by Sampsa · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hello, That's correct. I was able to run the last test with 3998MHz CPU clock Here is the original size screenshot: http://www.muropaketti.com/bench/nw2800/superpi_39 .gif

  17. this pic shows 4339mhz!!!!! by dcstimm · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.muropaketti.com/artikkelit/cpu/nw2800/l n2_5.jpg

    1. Re:this pic shows 4339mhz!!!!! by WWWWolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, the caption says that they checked what's the highest speed they can get to the POST... If it would have actually booted, that would have been interesting =)

  18. Re:Hmmm, 145MHz FSB, 21x Multilier = 4Ghz - eh? by Sampsa · · Score: 5, Informative
    Hello,

    We have modified TurboPLL-module on Asus P4T533-C motherboard which allows us to use higher front side bus.

    Thanks to this module, when we set 145MHz from BIOS, the FSB is actually 186MHz.

    You can check out the pictures of modified motherboard here.

  19. Re:just picked up a pint of liquid nitrogen by forged · · Score: 4, Informative
    Just don't put fingers in it or they'll snap like glass !

    By the way, no one has made mention of the price of such a setup. OK they had 15 minutes of excitment for the price of a _really_ expensive CPU, custom motherboard, not to mention the nitrogen-cooling gear, the voltmeters and other lab equipment they use.

    For the moment I'll stick to that 1.5Ghz processor which barely produces any heat & is so damn quiet:)

  20. Re:Thermal Stresses by Sampsa · · Score: 5, Informative

    CPU still works fine and actually we are already planning for the next test with liquid nitrogen

    Earlier we tested Pentium 4 2,4GHz CPU with liquid nitrogen over 20 times and it's still kicking

    We dry the components very carefully after the test with compressor.

  21. It can't be all that good... by The_Guv'na · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't see any "AMD Approved" sticker.

    Ali

    [Apoligies, but someone was gonna say it sooner or later!]

  22. wow... by DarkHelmet · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's strange seeing a processor run at sub zero. I'm used to popping popcorn inside my Athlon's case whenever I wanna watch a movie.

    --
    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
  23. You can dip your fingers in LN2 by October_30th · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually you can dip your fingers/hand in LN2 without hurting yourself. I used to do it every time to amuse/bemuse visitors who came to our laboratory. Just make sure you're not wearing a ring or other jewellery.

    --
    The owls are not what they seem
    1. Re:You can dip your fingers in LN2 by Elbereth · · Score: 2

      Actually you can dip your fingers/hand in LN2 without hurting yourself. I used to do it every time to amuse/bemuse visitors who came to our laboratory. Just make sure you're not wearing a ring or other jewellery.

      Yeah, I used to dip my hands in hydrochloric acid. It's perfectly safe, and it amused the people who came by my lab.
  24. Over 4GHz? by r6144 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    If someone can make 4.3GHz mode stable, I suspect some software may break for storing the Hz number in a 32-bit number, and they may say "45,336,372 Hz processor detected".

    Thank god, in linux/arch/i386/time.c an unsigned long is used to measure KHz's.

    1. Re:Over 4GHz? by VAXman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually there were problems in going above 2.2GHz since that is negative number (using 32 bit signed). See here for example.

    2. Re:Over 4GHz? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Why the fuck would you use a signed integer for processor speed? Are you expecting to travel back in time and execute code backwards so it run forwards, to control the interaction? It doesn't work that way anyway.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  25. Danger? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would think that this is best done in a well ventilated area.

    A relatively small jar of liquid N2 evaporated and warmed up to room temperature in a short time can replace many liters of air by pure N2. Trying to breathe the stuff won't cause a drowning or suffocating feeling or even a smell, as the air we breathe normally contains 70% of it.
    The first symptoms of suffocation by lack of O2 in the air (rather than lack of air) are some kind of euphoric feeling and wooziness, so you wouldn't necessarily start thinking of finding a way to reduce the effect.

    I bet that euphoric feeling is just what they experienced when they saw it working ;-)

  26. You can speed up a mac the exact same way by eclectro · · Score: 5, Funny


    See this this link for full instructions and pictures.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  27. Re:Apple, catch up. by boaworm · · Score: 2

    Apple's latest CPU's run at 1.25 Ghz, which is more like 3 times slower than that P4. Still, 1.25 is without liquid nitrogen cooling.. so that's not really relevant either...

    And the most interesting part is that Mac users (like myself, love my Titanium Powerbook) are very happy we have sufficiently powerful non-wintel CPU's which consumes only a small amount of energy. Imagine putting one of those P4 2.8 in a laptop... ;-)

    --
    Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
    Aristotele
  28. slashdot effect by flonker · · Score: 2

    Their server seems to be withstanding the slashdot effect quite nicely...

  29. Talk about.... by pjdepasq · · Score: 2

    Wow. I'm impressed. Talk about your home brewed....

  30. Fingers by Pathwalker · · Score: 2

    Since nitrogen is such a good insulator, you can dunk your hand into a bucket of liquid nitrogen for a second or two, and as long as you make sure you don't touch the sides, you will be just fine.

    As it flash evaporates from the heat of your hand, it forms a protective layer that slows the heat loss quite a bit.

    I did it back when I was in high school, and visiting a collage physics lab. It feels strange, like a cold wind blasting your hand.

    1. Re:Fingers by hrieke · · Score: 3, Informative

      So, excuse me for yelling, but:
      YOU SHOULD NOT TREAT LIQUID NITROGEN AS A TOY. YOU CAN CAUSE SERIOUS HARM TO YOUR BODY.

      I'm speaking from the hindsight of a lawsuit from Johny can't count to 21 with out taking off his pants. (Check out my web site listed in the URL.)

      --
      III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIIIV IIVIIIIIIVIII...
    2. Re:Fingers by stevelinton · · Score: 2

      Someone once told me that LN2 is almost exactly as dangeous as boiling hot coffee -- a few drops won't hurt, but soak your sleeve in it and you in trouble, etc.

  31. Re:Thermal Stresses by radish · · Score: 2


    *ahem* branch prediction?

    --

    ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

  32. Once Upon A Chemistry Class... by Kibo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I had a professor who told us of a practical joke he'd do every few years. He was fond of explosions and other cool things liquid oxygen and nitrogen being no exception.

    Appearently he used to fill on of the fingers in a latex glove with hamburger, then put his hands in the glove. Careful to conceal his deception, he would stick stick his false finger into a some liquid nitrogen, while telling the class about how if one just left a finger in there it would shatter if struck. He then proceeded to demonstrate this by smashing the false and frozen finger with a hammer.

    The way he tells the story, he was forced to discontinue this irregular practice when a bit of frozen hamburger hit a girl in the front row, causing her to faint.

    And a styrofoam cup with a piece of what appears to be copper pipe, held together with duct tape and dreams, while it might be cool, doesn't rise to what I would consider "gear".

    --
    --Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
    1. Re:Once Upon A Chemistry Class... by forged · · Score: 2
      • ...he was forced to discontinue this irregular practice when a bit of frozen hamburger hit a girl in the front row, causing her to faint.

      This must have been funny as hell :) I can just about imagine the look on people's faces then!

  33. wasted time, but cool by f00zbll · · Score: 2, Insightful
    have to admit it's cool and all. But I can't help but think all this geek exploration isn't doing much good other than waste money, time and energy to prove something most every geek already knows. Now if Intel or AMD could come out with a 2 ghz chip that doesn't require a bad ass cooling fan, which uses a fraction of the power the P4 requires, i'll be impressed. Until then, all this is just a waste of time and leads to the growing power problems we see in CA.

    How many roving black-outs do we need to start thinking about energy conversation. It's great for your wallet by the way. Instead of eating up say 100 kilowatt hours a month, the system only used 5 kilowatt hours you'd save money. Businesses would save even more money when you take into consideration everything else it affects. Sure IBM is working on it, but it about time every CPU manufacturer start getting serious about reducing power consumption.

    1. Re:wasted time, but cool by Sj0 · · Score: 2

      If you Want a via, buy a via.

      The rest of us want fast computers.

      --
      It's been a long time.
  34. Great by AppyPappy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now it can wait on the hard drive faster.

    --

    If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem

  35. Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by Florian · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Any chance to underclock this beast at, say, 1.4 GHz w/ passive cooling? (Would still fulfill my computing needs.)

    But really, what a waste of electricity, heat, and what a noise pollution. I'm waiting for desktop CPUs with SpeedStep which clock down to 100 MHz when you're doing vi editing and go up to 2.8 GHz, turning on all fans, when you compile software or transcode video streams.

    I hope there will be enough consumer demand for such CPUs, pushing AMD/Intel towards saner technology.

    --
    gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
    1. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by dschuetz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Any chance to underclock this beast at, say, 1.4 GHz w/ passive cooling?

      I've been thinking about that a lot lately, myself. I'm trying to rebuild my network at home (now that I have a cable modem, but don't start me on that! :( ). It's occurred to me that 350MHz is probably too much for a firewall (plus, I need a box for experimentation), so I set out to try and build a simple, low-profile, low-speed box for a firewall.

      Can't be done. Everywhere I look, I see 1GHz+ systems. I could find 500 MHz K6 CPUs, but that was about the lowest. And anything on eBay is both too fast and too big. I want something simple and small, that I can maybe put a four-port ethernet card into. Something like a 1U PIX, but running BSD.

      This becomes more of an issue as I think about set-top boxes -- I want to be able to do video/audio/games/web to the TV, but I don't want to have whirring hard drives or whiny fans in my bedroom. Once again, I need a decent speed, but not super kick-ass (especially if I can do MPEG decoding in hardware), but, again, I'm out of luck. Stuff that slow (and cool) just isn't easy to find.

      'course, I'm not looking *too* hard, either. And, no, I don't want to go the PC104 or SBC route -- if it comes to that, I'd just buy an Athlon 2600 and retire my Duron to firewall duty, for the same cost.

    2. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by 0xA · · Score: 2

      I just bought a P133 and put 16mb RAM and an HD in it for $70

      Works really well with OpenBSD, if you want to try use Linux (or at least one of the piggy distros) you probably want something a little newer. Try your_city.forsale on usenet.

    3. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by Jagasian · · Score: 2

      Buy a VIA's "Eden EPIA" instead. It is a tiny x86 motherboard with integrated ethernet, audio, video, and CPU. It costs $80. Just add ram, harddrive, and powersupply, and you have a tiny computer great for settop box projects. The entire setup doesn't need any fans, just a small heatsink on the CPU. It also consumes very little power. The CPU runs at 533mhz, and the built in video has TV-Outs.

    4. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by psych031337 · · Score: 2

      Look in the classifieds of your local newspaper, where the non-geeks hide. You will find quite some people there trying to get a buck out of their old typewriter type-of-computer. Lots of 486 und P75/100/133 boxes to get there. My firewall/router runs a 486/75 with 32megs on a linux fli4l minidist system and crunches seti in its spare time (ok, that IS 1 packet every 12 days, but what the fuck....)

      --
      +++ath0
    5. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by Yokaze · · Score: 2

      >I could find 500 MHz K6 CPUs, but that was about the lowest.

      Well, no one forces you to run it at this speed.

      I have a K6 400MHz running at 166MHz without a fan.
      Front side bus reduced from 100MHz to 66MHz
      and a multiplier of 2.5.

      The CPU doesn't get very hot, since it is idleing most of it's time.

      IIRC, there is even a patch for the Linux kernel out there, which let's the CPU idle when it gets too hot.

      But maybe you'd prefer the VIA C3 processor.
      Passive cooled, up to 866MHz, combined with VIA Apollo CLE266 chipset with integrated graphics, hardware support for MPEG2 decoding, integrated networking and audio, it might do the trick for your set-top box.

      --
      "Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
    6. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by GoRK · · Score: 2

      Try a Soekris Engineering Net4501. It's an AMD Elan 133MHz processor based SBC with a slot for a CompactFlash card (up to 1GB microdrive), 3 10/100 ethernet interfaces, a serial port (console), a MiniPCI slot, and a 3.3v PCI slot. Best of all, it's inexpensive.

      http://www.soekris.com/

      It works great as my router. I know you said you didn't want an SBC, but I think that you probably just don't know that you really do want one :)

      ~GoKR

    7. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by Reziac · · Score: 2

      I have a stack of 386s I'd be happy to sell you :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    8. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by TheSync · · Score: 2

      I want something simple and small, that I can maybe put a four-port ethernet card into.

      Boxer PC dual Ethernet, 11cm x 16.5cm x 22cm.

    9. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 2

      True, but those low end 1 gig processors are DIRT cheap and you can of course underclock them in the BIOS yourself to whatever you want! If you truly don't need the CPU horesepower and want to save on Electricity/fan noise, clock that 1 gig whatever to 200 Mhz! Easy!

      --
      Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
    10. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by dschuetz · · Score: 2

      Wow. This must be the most replies any of my posts got. 17 (at this time). I'm impressed.

      I have to admit, I never considered underclocking a 1GHz chip to, say, 200 MHz. That might be worth a try.

      Also, ARM chips have been something I've been wondering about, especially for multimedia set-top use (they seem to work okay for Rios and (I think) TiVo). The Via board's kinda cool, as is that little 3-port SBC (I forget what it was called), though I'd have to use a PCI card on it for wireless (I want to keep that on its own DMZ, not actually "in" the net).

      Thanks, all -- you took a one-off, "hey, anyone got any ideas" post that was actually vaguely offtopic, and saved me the trouble of putting together an AskSlashdot item. :)

      david.

    11. Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? by adolf · · Score: 2

      To put this into context, I've got a P133 over in the corner for light web browsing and such. It runs seti@home, and has a very low-speed, low-noise PSU fan. The hard drive is an oddly quiet 6.5 gig Seagate.

      There is no CPU fan in this machine. It does have a fairly large heatsink, aligned properly to promote convection currents, and the appropriate amount of heatsink goop between it and the CPU.

      I found the big heatsink attached to a (dead) fan in another machine I was working on. Pulled the fan off, and things have been dandy.

      It gets warm. Not hot. When I first told people about this, they thought I'd kill the CPU instantly. But it's been running for years now, and I really don't miss hearing the bearings go bad on yet another CPU fan.

      For finding big heatsinks new, try looking at Alpha's product line - they ship their stuff from the factory fan-less, and their VARs generally put together kits with hideously noisy fans. Ask for one without, and you'll probably be able to buy one without difficulty.

      Also, ISTR old Packard Bell Pentium machines having a positively huge heatsink on the CPU, without a fan. These machines are very likely to be available for free, these days...

  36. A pint or so... by Marton · · Score: 4, Funny

    is not ten liters. Ten liters is ~20 pints.

    You work for Nasa?

  37. overclocking story every month by peter303 · · Score: 2

    These stories are slashdot's equivalent of the "grow three inches" spam. Its done everytime a new chip is released.

  38. Re:just picked up a pint of liquid nitrogen by Tim+C · · Score: 2

    When I was in University, in my first year, we had a lab experiment on superconductors. It involved (amongst other things) using liquid nitrogen to cool the conductor down to 77K, in order to make it superconducting.

    I never did it, but I saw others put their fingers in the container, and splash liquid nitrogen around on the desk, etc. As long as you're quick, it's perfectly safe.

    Also, as for the cost, back then I remember being told that liquid nitrogen, bought in sufficient quantity, is about the same price as milk, so I imagine that theirs didn't cost them that much; probably no more than most people would spend getting drunk. They wouldn't have cooled the nitrogen themselves, just bought a container of it precooled.

    Cheers,

    Tim

  39. Re:Anyone know... by Maran · · Score: 2

    "why the fuck Mozilla takes so long to start on my Windows ME box?"

    Maybe it's protesting because you haven't got a liquid nitrogen-cooled P4 in your machine.

    Maran

  40. Server NOT slashdotted by timeOday · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess P4s really DO make the Internet go faster!

  41. DANGER!!! That is NOT nitrogen vapor, it's water! by MarvinMouse · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know where you can get Liquid Nitrogen, it's incredibly easy to do. But a word of note to those who may want to keep their electronic systems working longer then the test time.

    Unless you live in the sahara desert or another place that has incredibly low humidity. This is incredibly dangerous to the motherboard. Those whisps that you see coming from the Liquid Nitrogen is not Nitrogen vapor. It is water!! Nitrogen vapor is not visible. The fact of the matter is, that the air around us has a lot of water in it, and when you start to cool it suddenly to -160 and below, you create a lot of water vapor. Now doing this with a computer will likely leave a nice little pool of water on the motherboard when you are finished. So unless you are willing to take that risk. I do not recommend doing this.

    There is even a pic there where it should the frozen water buildup on the outside of the containing device they built. Can you imagine what the motherboard would've looked like after a while of this?

    Having working with Liquid Nitrogen, and knowing how dangerous it can be even without electronics. I don't recommend this as a friendly try with buddies experiment.

    --
    ~ kjrose
  42. Isn't that near the temp for superconductors? by gelfling · · Score: 2

    Minus 160 is near the functional limits for 'high temperature' superconductors so it would seem that if you have a stable technology for maintaining that level of cool you could use a completely different compute technology altogether and not worry about slow hot silly old silicon at all.

    1. Re:Isn't that near the temp for superconductors? by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 2

      Well, making semiconductors and integrated circuits is far more than just the temperature properties of the material. High Tcrit ceramics may not be suitable for ICs and photolithography.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  43. Re:DANGER!!! That is NOT nitrogen vapor, it's wate by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 2

    One thing I noticed was that they weren't working with gloves. From my experience working with LN in the lab is that getting even tiny drops on your hands is like getting splattered with hot cooking oil and to get a good splash from it I'd expect would create a flash frostbite burn.

    As for the condensation issue I wonder if it would be worthwhile to make a dewer vessel chassis for the motherboard with the ports/power supply connector the only (sealed) connections to the outside. Put the board in, connect the ports, bolt it shut (with a low temp gasket seal), then fill it with LN. Problem here would be having to constantly vent the gas boiled off by the heat of the board and having to always add more. Sudden thermal contraction might also crack circuit board traces or even ICs.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  44. No it isn't.... by Slashamatic · · Score: 2
    It isn't that cold. I tried the hole in the ice in February (at a balmy -20), no worries!!!!!!! Perhaps that could be a new use for an overclocked Pentium, making that ice hole!!!!!

    If you want really cold you need to find that place in Siberia where they have down to -57C.

  45. Re:Apple, catch up. by be-fan · · Score: 2

    I have a P4 2.0 GHz laptop. The battery life is fine, but I can feel it through the 3/4" wood of my desk!

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  46. Re:I Betcha by be-fan · · Score: 2

    Seriously.. This whole speed thing is becoming quite the moot point now. How much power does a fella need? I'm still sitting behind a 600mhz machine and don't feel the need to upgrade at all.
    >>>>>>>>>>
    You're obviously not a real man. How long are you? 3"? Seriously, this is /., News for Nerds, not /., News for People who Do Nothing but Surf and E-Mail.

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  47. Use an ARM chip instead? by horza · · Score: 2

    Use an ARM chip, I think the StrongARM 208MHz runs at something like 30mW, as opposed to the several W a lower power Intel runs at. Pick up an old RiscPC and install ARM Linux on it. Not only is it lighteningly quick but it runs cool so doesn't need a fan (saving even more electricity, and the no noise an extra bonus).

    Phillip.

  48. Translation of Muropaketti article by Novus · · Score: 4, Informative

    I did a quick translation from Finnish of the Muropaketti article:

    There are probably more than enough articles about the Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz, so standing out from the crowd with some LN2 overclocking tests is a good thing.

    For the tests, we ordered 10 litres of liquid nitrogen from Porin Hitsauslaite Oy and Messer (well known for [his|its] good service) supplied a 20 litre tank at the same price.

    As a test bed, an Asus P4T533-C with an i850E chipset (which had been found to be satisfactory) was used. Samsung PC800 RDRAM modules were used for memory. The motherboard had TurboPLL, Vcore and Vmem modifications, which are better documented here.

    This was the first LN2 test with this processor, so we started off by trying to get a feel for how the CPU behaves at low temperatures and what sort of results to expect in the future. For this reason a PNY GeForce 4 MX 440 display adapter was used, which has been found to tolerate very high bus speeds. Later, we'll do some ATI Radeon 9700 Pro tests and try for a new 3DMark2001 record.

    Below a series of pictures describing the events and some general pictures of the [assembly|system].

    [lots of pictures]

    The tests didn't start easy, even though the system did agree to start Windows XP at 3913MHz. The Pifast test didn't complete at all. After testing for a hour we started to get a grip on the situation. The CPU didn't tolerate really low temperatures. The tests started running noticeably better, when the bowl wasn't frozen solid.

    [more pictures]

    At the end of the first day of testing, I managed to run the Pifast test at 3917 MHz and reach a new record of 24.17 seconds.

    Finally, I managed to complete the Superpi test at 3998 MHz at 39 seconds, which is the current record on the Superpi ranking list maintained by [the|some] Japanese.

    I also ran the SiSoft Sandra CPU and Memory benchmark tests at 3920MHz (21 x 186MHz). The results speak for themselves.

    Sandra's CPU tests says the bus speed is 145 MHz, because a TurboPLL coupling was used on the motherboard. A 18.43 MHz crystal was used, from which the correct bus speed can be derived:

    (18,43MHz / 14,3MHz) * 145MHz = 186,55MHz

    Finally, we checked how high we could go and still get the CPU to wake up.

    [POST picture]

    The system managed to POST at 4339 MHz with a bus speed of 206 MHz. Let's hope we break the magical 4 GHz boundary in our next test. In other words, there's more to come...

  49. Re:DANGER!!! That is NOT nitrogen vapor, it's wate by TheSync · · Score: 2

    From my experience working with LN in the lab is that getting even tiny drops on your hands is like getting splattered with hot cooking oil and to get a good splash from it I'd expect would create a flash frostbite burn.

    Oh, let's not get wimpy! You can pour (a bit) of LN2 into your palm, quickly turn it over, and not get frostbite. Tiny drops are no big deal, just shake them off quick. You are to some extent insulated by the gaseous N2.

    Safety goggles OTOH are probably a really good idea. Aprons are good too (I once had a bit of LN2 go down my pants into my crotch - it gets ya jumping!)

  50. Chemistry Teacher Throught Liquid Nitrogen at us by Nazmun · · Score: 2, Informative

    And nothing really happend... he was throwing it everywhere and for the most part it just evaporated before it could really do anything. A human won't even feel a few drops of liquid nitrogen if it were to start falling on him.

    Liquid Nitrogen is very cold but it cannot survive in the extreme heat of room temperature. When the Liquid nitrogen was on the surface of our lab tables it acted like water on a top of a 600 degrees frying pan. It danced wildly then evaporated. A cup of nitrogen should be no problem unless one of these guys dipped their hands in it.

    --
    Hmmm... Pie...
  51. Re:Liquid Propane for Overclocking by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 2

    Your hand, and that "in your mouth" story reminds me of that Darwin Award wannabe that actually SWALLOWED liquid nitrogen based on remembering wrong about the "in your mouth" trick. He wrote up a great article about all the damage and surgery required to fix that little mistake :)

    --
    Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
  52. Re:I Betcha by Sj0 · · Score: 2

    ...which is still perfectly alright for what many people do. Believe it or not. If you find the right software(in this case, I'd guess Windows 98 + 98lite + microGUI), even a 486 can fly.

    --
    It's been a long time.
  53. Re:DANGER!!! That is NOT nitrogen vapor, it's wate by Sj0 · · Score: 2

    Water is an insulator on it's own. it won't short out a clean motherboard when we're talking about time periods of a few minutes to a couple hours. After that though, you should worry about the liquid water causing corrosion or absorbing enough conducting materians to gain the properties of a conductor.

    Actually, I've used water in the past to clean low-voltage electronics, such as keyboards. As long as you ensure there is no liquid remaining when you put it back together, and ensure that actual components aren't saturated, the keyboard will run like new for another few years(before someone spills beer on it again. :( )

    --
    It's been a long time.
  54. Undervolting / Underclocking site by Guppy · · Score: 2

    There's an article on SilentPC Review where they reduce a 1 GHz Athlon at 1.79V to 600 MHz at 1.17V, dropping the power consumption from 49to 13.8 watts. Link..

    They also have plenty of information about quite power supplies, hard drives, heatsinks, etc.

  55. Re:DANGER!!! That is NOT nitrogen vapor, it's wate by LadyLucky · · Score: 2

    What's wrong with water? It doesn't conduct electricity.

    --
    dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
  56. Re:Win98?! by Sj0 · · Score: 2

    Slackware?! No offense, but I'd much rather be using my Operating system than trying to haggle with it to get applications installed. If I were to choose an alternative to Wndows on a 486, it would be OS/2 Warp(after MS got kicked out of the project and all the MS code was rewritten). It would be a good OS to run on(Fast? Fast!), but I'm not sure if there would be a browser as slim as K-Meleon or Galeon for it.

    --
    It's been a long time.
  57. Re:DANGER!!! That is NOT nitrogen vapor, it's wate by toriver · · Score: 2

    It can dissolve salts/"dirt" from whatever surface it condenses onto, and thus get enough free ions to start conducting, though...