How to: unlock thornton extra cache

[Jimmy53]

Hi everybody,
I posted a couple weeks ago about receiving a Thornton CPU, which was unexpected but apparently serendipitous.

See: http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=238952

At this point my whole system is setup. It’s rated for 133 FSB x 12.5 (1.66 GHz) but I have it running at 200 FSB x 10 (2 GHz) NO SWEAT. My CPU temps haven’t exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit (cant remember the Celsius sorry). I'm extremely happy with the system but I have a deep burning desire to tweak.

I have been looking around the forums and the web trying to find more specific instructions on how to unlock the extra cache. I found a couple articles that say "just do it" but do not explain the materials or specific procedure. If somebody posting to this forum has performed the procedure, or knows of an article or post somewhere on the web that explains it in detail, please reply. Much appreciated.

James

[felinusz]

Here is a link to check out.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20030930171549.html

It explains in detail gow to mod the thorton CPU to enable to extra 256K of cache :).

BTW - the stuff you should use, "rear window defogger repair kit paint", is easily found at a Canadian Tire, or hardware store, just ask for conductive repair paint for the defogger strips that are on the rear windshields of most cars. I thinkt he brand name is "Permatex".

Good Luck!

[Jimmy53]

Thanks for the post, however, im not sure if you put the correct url. This links to info about a new line of AMD cpu's nothing in regards to modding one. Thank you though, now I know what materials I will need.

[felinusz]

I fixed the link - it *was* wrong before (sorry!!). Try it again for the correct article :)

It is also a good idea to "line" the little grovve between the L12s with white-out before putting the conductive paint in there - but make sure that you leave the two "dots" on either side of the bridge uncovered. You may also want to "seal" the bridge mod after you have confirmed that it worked.

These chips seem to usually do 2400 Mhz with around a ~1.85 Vcore.

[MastaTam]

Originally posted by felinusz
It is also a good idea to "line" the little grovve between the L12s with white-out before putting the conductive paint in there - but make sure that you leave the two "dots" on either side of the bridge uncovered. You may also want to "seal" the bridge mod after you have confirmed that it worked.


I thought you're supposed to bridge the gap in the L2, not the L12. Or am I completely off here?

[deathstar13]

Originally posted by MastaTam


I thought you're supposed to bridge the gap in the L2, not the L12. Or am I completely off here? yeh i think he had a typo its the L2
also i hope you have a brown packaging on it and not this fun green fake pcb.

some people have been reporting "just fill the pit with conductive meterial and go" that is NOT correct.
what felinusz stated on how to do this is CORRECT way to mod this chip.
then of course if its the green packaging let me know and ill fill you in on how to get around that. has been tested and working from "taco" at es.org

[MastaTam]

Originally posted by deathstar13
some people have been reporting "just fill the pit with conductive meterial and go" that is NOT correct.
what felinusz stated on how to do this is CORRECT way to mod this chip.


I don't see how "just fill the pit with conductive material and go" is different from what felinusz said. Doesn't felinusz basically say to put the defogger repair paint (the conductive material) in the pit , albeit very carefully?

Sorry for my n00bness

PS. Perhaps this is a ridiculous question, but would plopping a drop of solder in the pit work?

[grusso7]

Fill the pit with a non-conductive material if you do otherwise you'll burn the chip most likely. After filling the pit with NON-CONDUCTIVE material then connect the dots on the bridge.

[felinusz]

Sorry about that, my post was ripe with typos up there...

Also - don't even think of using solder! The job is waaaay too delicate for that, and the heat involved is probably a chip-killer if I ever thought of one.

The difference between what I said, and "drop the conductive material in and go" is that I mentioned the non-conductive white-out ;)

[Jimmy53]

Thank you all so much for the advice. Just to make sure im understanding what is going on. I am going to get some white out and some window defogger paint. I am going to put a miniscule amount of white out inside the burn hole between the two dots on the l2 bridge that must be crossed. After the white out dries out I am going to take a miniscule amount of window defogger paint and use a toothpick to VERY CAREFULLY make a line of this paint that goes all the way from one dot to the other dot. This paint is going ON TOP of the white out and will need to stretch all the way to both dots. Do I got it? Or am I a fool? Thank you all again.

James

[deathstar13]

yup thats exactly it.
just a few small tips that will help.
make sure your cpu is the brown one and not green as it requires more work.
also, scraping the top of the pin with a straight-stick pin will make sure it connects to the defogger paint 100%
also finger nail polish remover and or lighter fluid work well to clean the defogger paint off in case you make a mistake.

if its green ya better speak up as it requires xtra work!

[Jimmy53]

When you say if it is green are you refering to the PCB or the chip itself or the packaging of the chip on the cpu? Obviously this is important, im not trying to damage my chip. If you look at the article posted on the top of this thread it has a picture of a thornton. The PCB where all the pins are on the underside is brown, is that what you are refering to?

[felinusz]

He is speaking of the color of the PCB. The green chips have an extra layer - a "fake" PCB on top of the open bridges on the PCB below the "fake" one.

If you have a green chip with an extra "fake" PCB on top of the open bridges then you will need to "dig" through the "fake" PCB to get at the L2 bridges and unlock the cache.

Digging through the fake PCB is dangerous, and will require a pin, or some dental equiptment and steady hands to get through safely.

If you have a Brown colored PCB on your chip than you are fine, and you can short the L2 bridges exactly the way you stated in your above post. :) Good luck! Tell us how it works out!

Just to make sure im understanding what is going on. I am going to get some white out and some window defogger paint. I am going to put a miniscule amount of white out inside the burn hole between the two dots on the l2 bridge that must be crossed. After the white out dries out I am going to take a miniscule amount of window defogger paint and use a toothpick to VERY CAREFULLY make a line of this paint that goes all the way from one dot to the other dot.

(And you can get the Window Defogger Repair paint at any good hardware store, or at a well stocked car garage - if you can't find any I can mail you a small amount for free, PM me if you want some :)).

[deathstar13]

ok here is how you tell what color it is.
go outside,find a large tree and climb to the top of it.
be carefull not to drop the chip! when you get up there pull the chip out. face it to the NORTH ONLY!
if its cloudy try a little to the east as thats ok.
yell out in a loud voice "LET THERE BE GHZ!"
now look at the cpu right at that moment. is it green or brown that is covering your hand.

here is a copy of a green one http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/0103/barton_2500+.jpg

lol sorry about my attemp at humor but this cpu stuff latley has been confusing as hell latly to me and i really couldnt think of anything but something funny.

[Jimmy53]

Death star, we have near identical systems, not counting ram, psu and video card. But I have BH5 so it's pretty much the same (or so they say). Anyhow, thanks all for the advice. I feel at this point I am comfortable with performing this mod, which will be my first mod ever. Hopefully I will post later this week with the results, either positive or negative. Once again, thank you all for the advice, this forum is absolutely invaluable.

James

[NinjaZX6R]

Is that the right link??? I cannot find any steps or procedures on how to do this. I read the thread, and for the most part I understand, but I just want to make sure I am about to do it in the right place. On the L2 bridge, there are a few metal conductors....I see the one with the darker spot in the middle....this is the right one??? Please let me know! Thanks!

[pepsimanz]

I got a XP2000 Thorton from Fry's and here is the stepping

AXDC2000DUT3C
AQXDA 0323MPM


I was about to do the 512 L2 unlock and realized that the my L2 connections look different than the one showed at xbitlabs.com

The one shows in xbitlabs is like this

|:||

and we are suppose the connect the 2nd jumper from the left (or 3rd from the right)

However, my L2 connections look like this:

:|||

My 2nd jumper is already connected. I don't have my Mobo yet, so I am not sure what it is running now at default. Does anybody has this similar stepping/chip?

Should I just connect the 1st jumper from the left instead of the 2nd jumper as shown at xbitlabs?

any suggestion would help. Thanks

In addition, I heard somebody said to connect the l2 without the need of filling the gap, but it seems in this thread that the L2 gap must be filled first (whiteout, etc..) just want to clarify. Thanks

[NinjaZX6R]

Hey there,

I have the same stepping as you, and got it at frys as well. My L2 bridge has the pit in between the third contacts. I started the job, but then I stopped, because mine looks different too! I really don't know what to do...did you find anything?

-Collin-

[deathstar13]

|:|| is what my L2's look like on the locked thorton i own.

first of all,fill any pits with non conductive meterial. someone is gonna get a fried chip by listning to whoever is saying just fill it with conductive goop.

once that is done its gonna be experimental on your part.
for one you cant access the xtra cache on a locked thorton.ive tried many times.

just connect any open bridges on the L2 and try the cpu and look at cpuid for cache changes.i doubt if you do things right in filling the pits with non conductive stuff,i use wax. it will hurt anything.
remember you will need to use the old pins under the green pcb,if its a new green packaging.

the L2's on unlocked bartons are not cut from what ive seen,so simply just buy connecting any laser cuts should enable it on unlocked thortons/durons.

[pepsimanz]

My week 23 thorton AQXDA is unlocked!!!

My chip has a brown PCB clearly showing the connections between bridges and my L2 looked like this

:|||

All I did was used some conductive grease and connect the 1st bridge (without filling in the gaps with non-conductive materials). I thought I will give it a try first since somebody reported that this will work on some chips that doesn't have the extra layer of PCB (green ones). Well, I booted to windows and looked at CPUID, and waalaa 512kb L2 cache!!!

Well, from what I read it seems like some of the older brown chips can be unlock by just connecting the open bridge, but YMMV, other chipes might require filling in the gap or some also require scraping off the fake extra layer I heard.

[pepsimanz]

I went ahead and started overclocking my L2 unlocked thorton and I was able to get it to boot 2.5ghz (12.5x200) on my MSI K7N2 at the max voltage 1.8v only, but it crashes five seconds after i started prime95. Temp was about 45C before load, and I am not sure what it is during load.

The chip won't boot up above 2.2ghz without getting close to max voltage (1.8v) and it also won't let me do 200FSB at 9.5x or above without high voltage (1.75v and above). Does anyone know what the normal voltage these guys need to get a good OC?

I am currently trying to burn it in at 2.08ghz (12.5x166) at 1.625v running Prime95 24 hrs to make sure it is stable.

I might get another board with higher cpu voltage if necessary. However, for $65 and with a free board (ECS), i guess it's already a pretty good value.

[Jimmy53]

Awesome. I'm excited to try to mod mine (waiting for the defogger paint in the mail THANKS FELINUSZ). The bridges on mine are set up slightly different (one more to the right). Hopefully it will work just as well. What voltage are you running with that chip? My theory is they disabled the extra cache on chips that couldn't run on stock voltage... but that does not add up with the different core shape. Who knows.

Edit: Obviously posted a little late for that question.

[pepsimanz]

Jimmy53,

What voltage are you using right now for your L2 locked thorton at 2ghz?

Although I only raised the voltage by a little for it to run 12.5x166, I felt that this chip needed a lot of voltage when I try to run it at 200FSB and/or going above 2.1ghz (1.7+)

Similar to your guess, I am guessing my cpu is probably a XP2800 (12.5x166) barton just didn't run stable at default voltage, but the extra 0.25v seems to be kicking in nicely. Just a guess.

Now, I see that Fry's is having a 2200+ thorton for $10 more than what I paid for.

Assuming that I can get an earlier week unlocked multipler and easily L2 unlockable chip, does anyone think it will OC better? Of cource, I know YMMV

[Jimmy53]

Pepsimanz

Here is how my oc is going so far:

First off I got 10x200 out of the box at stock voltage and 2-2-2-5 timings. Raised the chipset voltage to 1.7, the mem to 2.8, and the cpu at 1.75 and I am now running at 10x217 at 2-2-2-6 rock solid. I am most definately trying to get that 10.5 with the same fsb and mem timings. I can post and get to windows with those settings only at 1.85 voltage and not stable at all. Stable only after relaxing the mem timings to 2-3-3-7. Got my fortron psu today, hopefully that will help out the situation a little. I am hoping that with the new psu, some south bridge cooling, and one of those nifty swiftechs on my north bridge that I will be able to run at 10.5x217 2-2-2-6. I might try a cpu burn in. Right now at 10x217 my cpu temp is at 40 c. I'm hoping that by getting some better cooling together I will be able to get that 10.5. Keep us posted on your results.

[NinjaZX6R]

OK, I've been reading this whole thread every day. I am confused. I am going to try to unlock the cache on mine...but the L2 bridge is whats stopping me. Maybe someone can help.

I have the brown pcb. Now I see some people saying that their l2 looks like this |:||| (Just an example).

Does the | mean that those two tiny contacts are connected? If so, not a single one on mine is connected. Mine looks more like ::::. There is one pit in between two of the contacts. Is there anyone that can help me? I don't want to just go painting that stuff on and hope. Thanks very much in advance, and my apology for sounding like a newbie :)

-Collin-

[motionk1]

Damn it...I did the mod carefully and gcpuid shows a barton with 256 L2. Oh well....time to oc my 2000 thorton xp a lil bit to compensate...
Btw, what a waste of 9 bucks at autozone!
Hopefully everyone else modding their thorton have better luck than me..

Since this is just a rig for my office, I used some old ram...one stick of kingston 2100 and one stick of micron 2700, 512 total. (Don't laugh!)

So my question is, how far should I SAFELY push the fsb? Or should I just mess with the multipier since the ram's are running at 266?

Any advice would be great!

[zikronix]

Originally posted by deathstar13
yeh i think he had a typo its the L2
also i hope you have a brown packaging on it and not this fun green fake pcb.

some people have been reporting "just fill the pit with conductive meterial and go" that is NOT correct.
what felinusz stated on how to do this is CORRECT way to mod this chip.
then of course if its the green packaging let me know and ill fill you in on how to get around that. has been tested and working from "taco" at es.org

explain when you mean fun green pcb are you reffering to the pcb with the epoxy over the bridges?