Unlocking?

Can someone explain to me what unlocking of your cpu does? I really don't know and would like for one of the pros out there to explain this if you would. Thanks

I wouldn't call myself a pro but here goes. A processor is basically delivered with a fixed multipier. Take the speed of your front side bus and multiply that by the multiplier and you get your CPU speed. So say you have a FSB of 133Mhz and a multipier of 10 that would make your CPU run at 1330 Mhz. On Intel chips the multipliers are locked period. AMD chips however can be unlocked which allows you to raise or drop the multiplier thus over or underclocking your CPU.

Forgot my manners, Welcome to the forums

Welcome!

foxmulder (Who sometimes gets a post in before me!) is quite correct in his explanation.

If it's Intel, you can raise or lower the FSB speed to alter your CPU speed. and with AMD's some come factory unlocked, some need you to reconnect some of the bridges on the CPU to enable multiplier adjustment.

For more info on that sort of thing, Have a browse through the ecxcellent guides on the Front Page. www.overclockers.com

Well, not having done it myself...I do know the general idea.
When you get your shiny new amd chip (athlon-duron) it will be "multiplier locked" which means that it has a "set" multiplier like 7 and the bus speed of your motherboard runs at 100mhz....so using simple math you get 700mhz e.g. 7x100=700
and to "unlock" the AMD chip you have to bridge a few connections on the chip, usualy done with a special pen that has electrical properties...and once unlocked you can set it to 8x or 9x or even a lower number..and the math still works the same...8x100=800mhz and so on. this is as simple as I can make the explanation.
I hope it is enough to help you understand.
BTW, all intel proc's are multiplier locked, and nobody so far has figured out how to unlock them...but AMD's I understand are as easy as pie.
Cheers, Doc

Thanks

Thanks for the help guys!

Yer welcome