Conroe on DDR and Conroe vcore pinmod!
For all you folks that are thinking of going to a Conroe based system but don't want to be spending a whole bunch of money at one time, there is now an Asrock board based on the Intel i865G chipset, called the 775i65G. I will be ordering this in the next few days so it will be waiting for me when I get in from work, so I can upgrade an older folding system that presently has an IC7-G and Northwood P4 in it. Since I already own an e6300 Allendale proc that is just sitting around since I got my e6600 in, I figured that this would be a good way to upgrade the folding prowness of that old rig without breaking the bank buying a new mobo, ram and vid card. I can just reuse my present DDR and vid card from that system and spend $50 for the board. BTW, this board can also run dual core Presslers too, but I would be very careful with overclocking a Pressler on it so you don't smoke the mosfets.
The board does have a few drawbacks though. I downloaded the manual for it and it has very limited vdimm adjustments (typical of Asrock) and no vcore adjustment that I can find. I think that with my OCZ PC3200 Plats, the high vdimm setting in bios might be enough for running decent timings, but depending on how well the old i865G chipset overclocks on the fsb, I might need to get a little more vcore. And this is when I found a nice guide on doing a pinmod for Conroe, which are actually pads instead of pins on the LGA775 processor package.
I found a link to a nice guide at VR-Zone, which shows just how easy this mod really is. I guess we should thank Intel for making our modding job easier.
With just a few dabs of conductive paint and depending on the vcore you want, a little creative cutting of some tape, you should be able to vmod your Conroe to what you need.
I will update this thread with results on how well this board does with my Allendale and I hope that the old chipset on an updated board like this will do well on fsb overclocking. And after the New year, Intel will start selling 200 fsb versions of the Allendale procs too, so it should make for even easier overclocks with this board.
The board does have a few drawbacks though. I downloaded the manual for it and it has very limited vdimm adjustments (typical of Asrock) and no vcore adjustment that I can find. I think that with my OCZ PC3200 Plats, the high vdimm setting in bios might be enough for running decent timings, but depending on how well the old i865G chipset overclocks on the fsb, I might need to get a little more vcore. And this is when I found a nice guide on doing a pinmod for Conroe, which are actually pads instead of pins on the LGA775 processor package.
I found a link to a nice guide at VR-Zone, which shows just how easy this mod really is. I guess we should thank Intel for making our modding job easier.
With just a few dabs of conductive paint and depending on the vcore you want, a little creative cutting of some tape, you should be able to vmod your Conroe to what you need.I will update this thread with results on how well this board does with my Allendale and I hope that the old chipset on an updated board like this will do well on fsb overclocking. And after the New year, Intel will start selling 200 fsb versions of the Allendale procs too, so it should make for even easier overclocks with this board.
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A Conroe instead of my 805d, Hmmmm. Or better yet, 2 Conroes instead of my dual Xeon.
Now I I'll be anxious to get in from the jobsite once it arrives at the house.:woowoo:
I'm getting the upgrade itch, bad!
Totally subscribed to this thread. Best of luck, Mudd!
Thanks for catching that, deicist. I had found the Conroe pinmod by first looking at the LGA775 P4 pinmod article and must have linked the wrong one.
I corrected my original link and for those of you that need a pinmod article for a regular LGA 775 P4, this link is for you.
I haven't checked in on the forum for a while now. Today I notice your post!
I've been running an ASROCK 775i65G for a while now with an E6400 and all the parts in my sig (have to update that).
Overclocking isn't that good. I have my FSB@284 giving me a C2D@2.276 ( 2.13 stock). The board has NO memory divider selection in the BIOS and defaults my MUSHKIN DDR500 to a 190MHz-3:2 ratio-2.5-3-2-6.
I have tried overclocking higher and I can boot up to a FSB of 300MHz but I get crashes. I am convinced that it is v-droop, the same damn thing that dogged me with my P5P800-SE. I've seen the vcore CPU mod at VR-Zone but I've been too busy to pull my CPU. My hope is that if I'me lucky I can get a stable OC to near 300FSB. I'm sure that it won't go any higher at all without a v-droop mod and I have yet to see one for this board. Cheap board=low quality power delivery.
I don't want to sound glum, this CPU kicks ass, just not as much ass as if I had a better board (requiering new memory and video). I am headed in that direction......slowly. I will try the vcore paint mod....but I have to buy a conductive pen this week, if I can find the time.
I have my eyes set on a P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi. I'd like to team that up with some G.SKILL F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-12. And then some really good video card from ATI.
Cheers!!!!!
I'm thinking that the high fsb speeds that these 266 fsb Allendales are going to limit the total overclock with this board. I think that this old chipset will be having problems dealing with fsb speeds over 300 and I think that the problem isn't due to board design or implementation, but rather the chipset itself. This will be a nice and cheap board for someone to migrate their rig to Conroe without having to buy everything at once though and at $50, it's pretty much a throwaway later on after you get enough money together for a better Conroe board and some decent DDR2 ram and a PCI-e vid card. Also, in the first quarter of next year, Intel is also supposed to start selling some Allendales with a 200 fsb (E4300) that has a 9 multi. That would be an outstanding processor for this board as it should allow for a 50% overclock out of the processor.
I will also check around and see if anyone has come up with a board mod to get more voltage to the northbridge for this mobo. More chipset volts might just get this old i865G chipset some more fsb headroom. BTW, I like the way that Asrock set up the nb mounting system on this board better than the setup that Asus used on my P5W DH or Abit used on the IC7-G. It uses 4 loops to secure the nb cooler down instead of just 2 like the others, so it should be able to mount any aftermarket nb cooler securely with no problems. The other big problem with this mobo is the fact that it doesn't have any vdimm options past 2.7v. My OCZ Plat PC3200 can't even run it's rated 2-2-2-5 timings at it's rated 200 MHz with just 2.7v it seems. And since this is a mATX board, it only has 2 ram slots so using a DDR booster is out too. The layout isn't too bad, but I don't like the placement of the ATX connector between the I/O connectors and the socket, but it's still livable. The ram slots are a decent distance away from the socket and there is still adequate room to install and remove the ram with the video card installed. There are also 3 pci slots as well as an AMR slot on the board.
So I guess I will have to do some drive swapping this weekend and get it back up again. I just wonder if maybe the instability I was seeing above 290 fsb was because of the dying Deathstar. I'm debating whether I should take that dead drive apart and scavenge the magnets out of it or bring it out to the Atchafalaya Levee and shoot the bastard and get some payback.
Gesundheit.
J/K!!;D;D;D