2.0V is fine for the clock you are running.

The 550 MHz K6-3+ Low Voltage was rated for 1.8V, so this would be the reference here. At 2V it´s overvolted by 11%.
This is no tragedy, but the Low Voltage edition was designed / selected for extremely energy efficient and cool operation. I think it´s a pity to have it operate at the voltage of the regular K6-3+.
Why not get a Mobo that can provide 1.8V or mod the regulator of the K6BVIII+ and use a smaller cooler?

Thanks for the input!

Sadly hardware from that era, especially later Socket 7 boards that support below 2V seem really hard to come by, at least for reasonable prices (reasonable for me is around 20€ for a board).

Modding the board sounds interesting, I've already seen it has a jumper, that's not populated with pins, that should allow lower voltages but I'm afraid to break it and then I don't have a board for this CPU at all 🙁

Another thought is, I dont know how much lower I could go for 550MHz anyway, so it's a bit of a gamble. At the moment the board runs its highest possible clock setting with the lowest possible voltage.

majestyk wrote on 2022-08-28, 19:55:

The 550 MHz K6-3+ Low Voltage was rated for 1.8V, so this would be the reference here. At 2V it´s overvolted by 11%.
This is no tragedy, but the Low Voltage edition was designed / selected for extremely energy efficient and cool operation. I think it´s a pity to have it operate at the voltage of the regular K6-3+.
Why not get a Mobo that can provide 1.8V or mod the regulator of the K6BVIII+ and use a smaller cooler?

This seems like a lot of effort for what is effectively an underclocked K6-3+. Embedded motherboards are hard to come by, especially in working condition, and they may not include niceties like AGP or USB. I think that most K6-3+'s could work at this voltage and clock speed, but they weren't tested for this configuration outside of this specific SKU.

Hi LordWaldemar,

These (ultra) low power 1.6V - 1.8V versions of the K6plus were designed for embedded fan-less applications, and in my experience it is completely safe to run them at 2.0V Vcore.
I believe that these low voltage versions use the same 0.18 micron die as the faster 2.0V models and were just binned to run stable and cool at these lower voltages. However when run at 2.0V, they will behave like other K6plus 2.0V versions and will need a cooler/fan, but they will also run faster then.

Running your 1.6V K6-IIIE+/400 at 2.0V and 550MHz at 37C is great! Just enjoy this nice ss7 build. 😉

Jan

You need a pretty large passive heatsink to get a k6-3+ running without getting crazy hot (or just a little air flow from a case/psu fan over a passive sink)

They are pretty cool chips at 400/1.6v though

The coolest socket 7 chip I have played with is probably the tillamook. It is on a whole other level. I’ve ran those for extended periods underclocked and under volted with NO heat sink. Lol

Anyway, that chip and the other 3+/2+ cpus are basically all the same thing. Amd set them up differently to make the different models. Some will have better overclocks than others. But they are all the same core. The higher binned 2+ chips usually unlock to 3+ like the 570, 550 but the lower speed binned ones it’s a crap shoot.

Here has been my experience with voltage on these chips:

Consider 1.6v undervolted for lower tdp you don’t want to go much lower than this. Doing good to get above 500 at this level.

1.8v you may have issues above 500mhz, 600 is possible

Consider 2.0v stock voltage usually good for 600mhz most chips

Consider 2.2v upper end of normal voltage decent chance of 630 with many chips.

Consider 2.4v overclocking upper limit. (Be careful) 600-690 is possible

-

2.0v on this chip is totally acceptable despite the label and is no cause for consern.

If you want to lower the voltage or check it,

Re: Socket 5/7/SS7 (Voltage Interposer) Tweaker. (Beta)
Interposer^

Read voltage>
Read the voltage to ground of the middle outer notch pin on the cpu socket with a resistor leg in it

Btw, set that cpu at 2x setting on mobo for a fun surprise 😀

I set it to 2x and it didn't post, it was a surprise but not a fun one 😅

That interposer looks like it's a little over my abilities but thanks I will try it maybe some time in the future.

LordWaldemar wrote on 2022-08-29, 17:43:

I set it to 2x and it didn't post, it was a surprise but not a fun one 😅

That interposer looks like it's a little over my abilities but thanks I will try it maybe some time in the future.

Not the intended surprise...

Reminds me of this joke by Jack Handey: "One year Dad decided he was going to take us on a "surprise vacation." We wouldn't know where we were until we got there. We were all real excited when we piled into the station wagon early one morning. We went about five blocks, then we got in an accident at a four-way stop.
I guess it was a pretty good surprise, but why did we need all that camping gear?"

LordWaldemar wrote on 2022-08-29, 17:43:

I set it to 2x and it didn't post, it was a surprise but not a fun one 😅

That interposer looks like it's a little over my abilities but thanks I will try it maybe some time in the future.

Bummer. Try 2.1v and 95 fsb

2x = 6x on that cpu

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-08-29, 17:48:

Not the intended surprise... […]
Show full quote

LordWaldemar wrote on 2022-08-29, 17:43:

I set it to 2x and it didn't post, it was a surprise but not a fun one 😅

That interposer looks like it's a little over my abilities but thanks I will try it maybe some time in the future.

Not the intended surprise...

Reminds me of this joke by Jack Handey: "One year Dad decided he was going to take us on a "surprise vacation." We wouldn't know where we were until we got there. We were all real excited when we piled into the station wagon early one morning. We went about five blocks, then we got in an accident at a four-way stop.
I guess it was a pretty good surprise, but why did we need all that camping gear?"

Haha

Maybe I'll try 2.1V but 95x6 would just be another 20MHz with slower RAM (don't know if RAM speed even really matters on the system), that doesn't seem like a good idea to me 😅

There really should be no issue at all running that at 2.1.

Yeah, 95 may hurt more than 570 helps.