An Overclocking Journey:
What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been…
So, what part of my “baby” brings a smile to my face every
time I think of it? My CPU. By a long shot…
Here’s the “meat” of my current system:
- PIII-500 SL37D processor from Computer Super Sale (99360307 Malaysia)
- ABIT BX6-R2 Motherboard
- Alpha P-3125S Heatsink Combo & Leufkens 50w peltier kit. (If you
need ANYTHING for any type of PC cooling, check out Millisec.com. Jim has the absolute lowest
prices, and the best service and selection of any of the cooling websites I’ve been
to. Just take a look for yourself and I’m sure you’ll agree)
- Creative Labs Annihilator GeForce SDR version
- EMS
128MB PC133 HSDRAM
IBM Deskstar 24GXP 13.5 gig UDMA 66 (72K RPM/ 2 mb cache) hard drive
 
The chances were slim and I knew that I might be making
a huge mistake if I bought a PIII 500. Especially when I emailed Mike at Pretested CPU’s and I got a less than
positive reply: “The P3-500 is by far the worst overclocker of the bunch. I can only
get about 1 in 5 to even reach 600.“
Things were a bit more promising when I got my package
from Computer Super Sale and I scanned through the cryptic codes on the retail box sticker
and found “SL37D,” “9936,” and “Malaysia.” Hmm… Recent
week, stepping, and good plant. Not bad. Things really got good when I popped off the
retail heatsink/ fan combo and found NEC 3.6ns L2 cache nestled on the PCB. I’m in
business now! I was very anxious to install this processor now.
I quickly installed the Alpha P-3125 heatsink that was
patiently waiting for 2 weeks for its soulmate to finally arrive. I installed the CPU and
booted into bios. I wanted to see what this baby would do. I set it to 124 FSB, rebooted,
and my system booted right into Windows 98 SE at 620 at 2.3v without as much as a hiccup
from the CPU. I ran for half the day and it was perfect… No problems at all. I then
decided to go a bit further.
I removed the backplate from the CPU, made spacers, and
installed my peltier and copper cold plate. Again, I wasn’t so smart. I used silver
thermal paste that was clearly marked on the tube “Silver Conductive Grease.” I
ended up shorting out my processor because I wasn’t careful with it. The CPU wouldn’t
even post at that point and I had to put another processor back in my machine. I thought I
had fried my “baby.” Eventually, after a suggestion from a friend, I got some
rubbing alcohol and thoroughly cleaned the processor. I ended up scrapping the silver
grease and resorting to “Old Faithful”, Radio Shack thermal goop.
Next page: Did it worked?
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