Weird T-Bird 1.2g (?)

[UNiVERSE ELECTRiC]

I've finally got my new Asus A7A board and a 1.2G Axia core T-bird with it... now here is what's strange:
After inspecting the L1 bridges on it, I realized they were already CONNECTED! But when I went to the bios, the multiplier was locked at 9x.

What's up with that? I am now running the T-bird at stock 1.2g at 133mhz fsb, with the kickass swiftech fan that keeps it at 40 degrees temperature. So:

Is there anything I should know/do to unlock the multiplier? I even looked under a magnifying glass, L1\s ARE connected...

OR, should I rather try to increase FSB? The ASUS bios allowes to jump the FSB up to 134,135,136... etc. I tried, and it seemed to work fine, but I bumped it back down being afraid something will mess up (memory, my ethernet card, scsi card or something along those lines). Is it ok to overclock this way?

Thanks for any advice! =)

[Rob Cork]

You ought to be able to increase the fsb by a few MHz without any risk - many people run at 150MHz+, and I've heard of some at 180MHz+! If any of your components don't like a high fsb speed they should show it by becoming unstable at higher speeds, not frying instantly (same as with your cpu). Just keep raising the fsb 1Mhz at a time, and test for stability each step of the way. 140Mhz ought to be possible, as your PCI bus is only 35MHz then, that's only 2MHz above stock. Most things should be able to handle that.

FSB is really the best way to oc if you can, as the whole system gets oc'ed - RAM, PCI/AGP cards and mobo chipset, as well as of course the cpu, so you get better performance increase per MHz than if you just raised the multiplier.

Dunno why the multiplier is locked - only thing I can think is that the L1's aren't really connected, you might want to take another look at them.

[UNiVERSE ELECTRiC]

Thanks, I tried that and I'm running at 140mhz w/o problems now. I didnt push my luck any higher just yet, it's hard to tell when something is unstable until the right (or wrong for that matter) circumstances arise, so I'm going to see how it fares now for several days of usage with different apps/games, and if there are no glitches whatsoever I might try to bump it even higher.

The cpu runs at 60-63 C though now :(. Even with the nice Swiftech HSF. Thats a little on the hot side isn't it? I think the problem is that the springs on the HSF arent that tight, so the heat doesnt conduct as well as it would to a heatsink with a tighter grip. I considered modding the springs by adding washers of some sort under them, to strengthen the pull.

At any rate, I wanted to add that I had a look over my CPU and the code on it is:

A1200 AMS3C
AXIA 0114UPAW
954 82452101

Whatever that means.. maybe someone can decypher that =)

Also I had a look over the L1's again, with a pretty powerful magnifying glass, and I'll be darned if they are not connected. Maybe I'll try to run the HB pencil lines over them anyway, just to be sure 8)

Anyways if anyone else had this or has something to add please do! :)

Regards,
uE

[kat]

I also thought the same thing about my 462 the springs just didn't seem tight enough I added 3 small washers to each spring and my temps came way down ;D

and then I got greedy ..I figured that if a few washers made such a great improvement then a little more pressure would yield even better results,so I cut a hole in my motherboard tray so that I could install new screws and wingnuts, after I put every thing together sure enough I was able cool the bird a little more...feeling very good about what I just accomplished I decided to post a thread and before I could log on I heard a sharp snap and my screen froze

I now own a nice little 1.2 tbird key chain ;D