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Hardware

P4 2.80GHz Overclocked to 3.917GHz 380

Posted by CowboyNeal from the colder-faster-better dept.
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.
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P4 2.80GHz Overclocked to 3.917GHz More

P4 2.80GHz Overclocked to 3.917GHz

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  • Its soo cold in finland (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hougaard ( 163563 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @05:32AM (#4162086) Homepage Journal
    Why not just keep the processor outside :-)
    • Not for long!!!

    • Re:Its soo cold in finland (Score:4, Funny)

      by psavo ( 162634 ) <psavo@iki.fi> on Thursday August 29, 2002 @05:35AM (#4162094) Homepage
      Why not just keep the processor outside :-)

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

      • 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 :-)

    • Re:Its soo cold in finland (Score:5, Funny)

      by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Thursday August 29, 2002 @06:28AM (#4162204) Homepage Journal
      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.

    • Re:Its soo cold in finland (Score:5, Funny)

      by OpCode42 ( 253084 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @06:28AM (#4162207) Homepage
      Oh great, then intel would trademark Intel Outside as well...
    • Why not just keep the processor outside :-)

      Quite ironic you should say that. While most of central Europe is battling floods [bbc.co.uk], 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.

  • Now, Kids... (Score:5, Funny)

    by OpenSourced ( 323149 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @05:37AM (#4162100) Journal
    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.
    • 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.

  • Money to burn (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29, 2002 @05:43AM (#4162113)
    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!"
    • 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 :)

  • Just the CPU, or.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dr.Flake ( 601029 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @05:44AM (#4162115)
    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.

  • Rip off Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This Slashdot article is a blatant rip off from The Inquirer [theinquirer.net]
  • I want nitrogen evaporating from my pc too!
    It's too cool!
  • ...I don't even need liquid nitrogen to overclock my CPU.
    I just give it The Fonzie and it runs like hellfire.

  • Correction (Score:4, Informative)

    by XNormal ( 8617 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @06:14AM (#4162170) Homepage
    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.

  • What some guys do for the kick... (Score:3, Funny)

    by axllent ( 220868 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @06:20AM (#4162178) Homepage
    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....
    • 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.
    • 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 =]
    • 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.)

  • The Risks of Using Technology Evolve... (Score:5, Funny)

    by perfects ( 598301 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @06:24AM (#4162193)

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

  • Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stereoroid ( 234317 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @06:24AM (#4162194) Homepage Journal
    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 [darwinawards.com]. This guy [darwinawards.com] 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.

    • 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...
    • 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.

    • Re:Liquid Nitrogen for External Use Only (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <.gro.tensad. .ta. .divad.> on Thursday August 29, 2002 @08:59AM (#4162564)
      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.
  • http://www.muropaketti.com/artikkelit/cpu/nw2800/l n2_5.jpg

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

    Ali

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

  • wow... (Score:3, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <mark&seventhcycle,net> on Thursday August 29, 2002 @07:03AM (#4162271) Homepage
    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.

  • Over 4GHz? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by r6144 ( 544027 ) <r6k&sohu,com> on Thursday August 29, 2002 @07:07AM (#4162279) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Danger? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29, 2002 @07:10AM (#4162289)
    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 ;-)

  • You can speed up a mac the exact same way (Score:5, Funny)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @07:17AM (#4162298)

    See this this link [mac.com] for full instructions and pictures.
  • Their server seems to be withstanding the slashdot effect quite nicely...
  • Wow. I'm impressed. Talk about your home brewed....

  • wasted time, but cool (Score:2, Insightful)

    by f00zbll ( 526151 )
    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.

  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by AppyPappy ( 64817 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @08:05AM (#4162405)
    Now it can wait on the hard drive faster.

  • Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Florian ( 2471 ) <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de> on Thursday August 29, 2002 @08:07AM (#4162412) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Underclocking, anyone? SpeedStep? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <.gro.tensad. .ta. .divad.> on Thursday August 29, 2002 @09:06AM (#4162601)
      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.
      • 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.

        • 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.
      • 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....)
      • >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 [viatech.co.jp] processor.
        Passive cooled, up to 866MHz, combined with VIA Apollo CLE266 [via.com.tw] chipset with integrated graphics, hardware support for MPEG2 decoding, integrated networking and audio, it might do the trick for your set-top box.

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

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

        Boxer PC [saintsong.com.tw] dual Ethernet, 11cm x 16.5cm x 22cm.
      • 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!
      • 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.

  • A pint or so... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Marton ( 24416 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @08:27AM (#4162474)
    is not ten liters. Ten liters is ~20 pints.

    You work for Nasa?
  • These stories are slashdot's equivalent of the "grow three inches" spam. Its done everytime a new chip is released.

  • Server NOT slashdotted (Score:4, Funny)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @09:39AM (#4162808)
    I guess P4s really DO make the Internet go faster!

  • DANGER!!! That is NOT nitrogen vapor, it's water! (Score:3, Informative)

    by MarvinMouse ( 323641 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @10:28AM (#4163203) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • 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.
      • 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!)
    • 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. :( )
  • 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.

  • Translation of Muropaketti article (Score:4, Informative)

    by Novus ( 182265 ) on Thursday August 29, 2002 @12:46PM (#4164310)
    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 [muropaketti.com].

    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 [big.or.jp] 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...

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