Step right up and school the rookie...

[ghengisjam]

Well boys and girls...

I got everything together, it runs stable, and ME boots perfect. I also ran some benchmark Sandra numbers. As I expected for an XP 1600+ at 133/10.5, a rock solid 1.399. Now the fun can begin.
If you look at my sig, you'll note that I have an MSI K7T266a PRO2 RU with 512ddr, a Glaciator 2hs and so on. Now since I'm new to this, where do I start? I've read the beginners manuals, and fine tutes they are, and am wondering where to start? I've read references to "bridging" the XP to unlock it? Do I need to do this in order to overclock this CPU? Or, can I simply start cranking up the multiplier and FSB freq to gain the speed? I am aware that high temps are EVIL::eek: , and have my CPU hooked up to an external thermocouple and a Fluke. Any help here would be, well, helpful.
THANKS!

[joshsquall]

Indeed, you do have to solder the L1 bridges to change the multiplier settings on the XP's.. however, you can still change the FSB speeds. But, we all know that you can't gain much from that, unless you've got some badass cooling, and very overclockable components (ram, vid card, north and south bridge, etc). So you can give it a shot if you wanna solder around on your chip.. check out overclockers.com, tomshardware.com, etc.. it should tell you what to do there.
Josh

[Sonny]

Your going to need to bridge all 5 L1 bridges your CPU to unlock the multiplier. If your skilled at soldering then you can try it but there is a simpler way. Fill the L1 gaps with superglue then after it hardens you can use conductive paint to join them.

http://www.overclockers.com/tips713/tindoze.jpg

Mask everything you don't want the glue on. Try to make it as clean as possible. Good luck:beer:

Thanks to Tinhead & Dozer for the pics:cool:

[FRANK]

I've also just put a system together with the KT266A chipset and am able to run the FSB at 166MHz so far. Although I'm using a tried and true AXIA 1g T-BIRD, the theory remains the same. With the FSB that high, you may not need to increase the multiplier to realize a substantial increase in performance, possibly hitting the maximum for that particular CPU. An FSB at 166MHz will yield you an overall speed of 1743MHz with all of the advantages of increased overall system performance at that increased FSB.

I am planning to purchase an XP after the holidays and I intend to "unlock" it, from what I've read, one of the most reliable methods of closing the bridges requires filling the depressions with a non conductive epoxy then using the accepted method of conductive paint or rear window defogger repair kit. As far as soldering the bridges, I don't know what your experience is with the DURON/T-BIRD line of CPU's but unless you are very experienced with your soldering iron, I wouldn't recommend this intricate procedure as there are more forgiving alternative methods available.

[ghengisjam]

So I need to bridge all 5 L1's then to unlock the multiplier... No problemo, I'll get my wife to do it, she puts surface mount resistors on military radio boards all day. If she can't get it done, nobody can! God I love that woman...

[bigfoot]

I'v done some soldering on those minurature SMD resisters before but it was tricky as heck so when I get my XP, I'm not even going to think about soldering, I like the method of using something like superglue then conductive paint, It just sounds safer, plus you have nothing to lose with superglue because there is stuff you can use to remove it, you can't do that with solder.

[ghengisjam]

I'll try the super glue trick. does anyone have any conductive paint reccomendations? Brand? Color? Candy apple red? I started playing around with a bundled s/w item that comes with the MSI board called Fuzzy Logic. I installed this and ran the "Auto" feature. It ran the FSB up in 1 mhz increments until it failed and then rebooted. It got my FSB up to 147mhz and left the multiplier at 10.5. The clock speed went from 1.4 to 1.543. :D I didn't notice it doing anything with the voltage. The temps stabilized at 39c after running 5 reps of Sandras burnin with all the toys turned on.

Yeeeea I'm overclocked! I'm going to do the bridge mods after I play some more Red Faction in Sniper City. Lots of people need schooling there.... lots.

thanks again for the info.

[Sonny]

Buy a CW2200MTP (http://www.chemtronics.com/catalog/catalog.cgi?action=list_products&category=7#20140). It's a conductive "ink" pen(not really ink but silver based paint) but it's still easier to apply it with a toothpick. I would rather go into the BIOS to change the FSB 'cause you will need to up the VCore & RAM voltage when you have them run above spec & if you got your voltages right you will minimize the chances of data coruption that upping the FSB can create. That's one headache we can all live without:beer:

[dugans]

Just a thought for ya: I have an XP 1800+ (with a cheap hsf and tiny case) and I tried all kindsof things to overclock it- including filling the pits and using a defogger kit to connect the L1s.

I still achieve the best results with the stock multi and an fsb of 150 (MSI K266). I'm cheap, so non of the components in the system are especially oc-friendly but I still get 1725mhz out of it.

I have tried using the multi to up things a bit more, but ibstant crash when I do: the only way I can do a multiplier oc is to set fsb back to 133- and then I can only get 1667! Just a thought: seems to take fsb better than multiplier.

[ghengisjam]

thanks for the info on the FSB. Can anyone give me an idea of what the relation of the Vcore, FSB and the multiplier are? I saw an earlier post about corrupting data by only cranking the FSB and not doing anything with the voltage. Is there an established chart or scale of relationships?

[dugans]

I don't know of any chart or scale: what I've been doing is cranking volts up to max, going for the best oc I can and then trying to turn voltage down one step at a time until I lose stability.

My XP is still at max, but I have 2 athlons running much lower- 1 @1.75 and 1 @1.8

[Sonny]

Originally posted by ghengisjam
thanks for the info on the FSB. Can anyone give me an idea of what the relation of the Vcore, FSB and the multiplier are? I saw an earlier post about corrupting data by only cranking the FSB and not doing anything with the voltage. Is there an established chart or scale of relationships? The relationship of VCore & FSB & Multiplier are simple;) FSB & Multipler = Clockspeed. When you O/C you need more juice to run at a higher speed, you got to give it more gas:burn: Corruption occurs when you raise the FSB & not have the corresponding increase of voltage to either RAM or VCore you will have instability. With FSB O/C data corruption becomes an issue 'cause you use your RAM in retrieving & writing data so if your RAM is unstable then your data is corrupted. How much do I increase your voltage on RAM & VCore? Depends on stepping, PSU, # of fans & too many variables so adjust as required.:beer:

[oc jason]

well what i do is just set pt max volts to begin with, then jsut find the maximum overclock, and then try seeing if you can lower it by 1 until it is not stable, usually you need all the volts you can get

[ghengisjam]

OK I upped the FSB as far as I could keep it stable. I went from 133 to 146 and got a nice overclock up to about 1543 with a multiplier of 10.5. However, I noticed that my network card was acting up while I was beating down some players in Red Faction.
So I'm going to go with the unlocking the L1 and do the multiplier trick. Thanks for all the help, especially the explanation about the voltage. :D

[FRANK]

The NIC is often the first to succumb to higher than spec FSB's. What brand of NIC are you using? I've had pretty good luck with LincSys 10/100 (166FSB).

[dugans]

A lot of people also have good luck with 3Com- I have a 905 running with 150 fsb and no trouble.

[ghengisjam]

Originally posted by FRANK
The NIC is often the first to succumb to higher than spec FSB's. What brand of NIC are you using? I've had pretty good luck with LincSys 10/100 (166FSB).


I'm running a Lincsys as well. Personally I would rather go 3-com but it was free with the cable install and I'm spending my cash on other things at the mnoment. Hey, I'm still gettting throughput rates over 1900k/sec so why should I complain??

[ghengisjam]

It worked. I've increased the multiplier to 11.5 and it runs like a champ. Sandra even says it's now a Genuine Athlon XP1800+. YEEEEE HAW!:D Thanks for all the super help guys, I appreciate it big time!