unlocking verification

i read the sticky, at least the main posts. question is this.

what are the signs of needing to unlock a chip. i've been able to change my multiplier. it's just never stable even if i drop it down to 11 or 10. does the unlock trick make it stable at different multipliers given proper voltage? since i was able to change the multi i figured my chip didn't need to be unlocked and was just one of the weaker chips for overclocking as it's a random ordeal in whether or not the chip will be stable.

I dont think your chip is unlocked, no athlon xp chips are shipped unlocked (some athlon tbirds were). Your BIOS will still allow you to change the multiplier but it will have no effect on the speed of the chip (meaning it will still use the default multiplier). You can still oveclock your chip by raising the FSB though.

You should download WCPUID from this site, it will tell you what multiplier and FSB you are at, as well as the speed your cpu is running at (among other things). Unlocking you chip isnt really necessary to overclock, it just allows you to use a lower multiplier so you can attain a higher fsb (provided all of your PCI cards ect can keep up).

Try to change the multiplier and leave your fsb at default then run WCPUID and you should still be at the default (12x) multiplier and the default speed (1600mhz). If wcpuid reports that the multiplier has changed then your chip msut be unlocked but If you havent unlocked it then it shouldnt be unlocked.

yeah i did overclock using the FSB.



this is a lil lower than my first boot into this setup. it's at [email protected] but it's about 10Mhz over. i changed my SDRAM freq from auto (133:100) to 133:133 and gained some Mhz and a buttload of speed.

my chip wont make it much past 150 fsb on the default multiplier, if you can run at 150 that will be 1800mhz or xp2200 speeds.

If your chip tops out at 1800mhz (just an example) then if unlocked your chip you might be able to run at 11.5x156, which would be the same speed (roughly) but you FSB would be higher so your RAM and other system components would be running faster giving you faster performance overall. That is the reason to unlock but it isnt necessary, just a way to tweak your system a little further.

1) The ultimate OC goal is to get your processor as fast as possible, with the MEMORY running as fast as possible too, AND BE STABLE.

DaddyB's point is right on. At some point, you can't get the processor any faster. At that point, you can (usually LOWER the multiplier, and RAISE the FSB, so that your proc runs at the same speed, but you get much better performance because of the increase in memory bandwidth. You noticed you gained a "buttload" of speed with faster memory.

2) There are some of us who unlock so we can make our processors go FASTER with higher multipliers. I can often get xp1600+ (1400 mhz) to go at 1700 or so mhz by increasing their multipliers.

3) NOW IN YOUR CASE .... I don't know if you will have much success if you were to lower your multiplier and increase your FSB ..... MY GUESS is you've not maxed out your processor yet, but 1800 mhz is still a good OC if you have.

My guess is you've pushed your memory to the limit. 149 FSB is a good OC for GENERIC memory that's only designed to hit 133 (133 FSB = PC2100).

If it IS your memory thats causing instability, unlocking your CPU DOWN and increasing the FSB won't help at all, you may be already going faster than your memory can. In this case, if you could unlock and get a HIGHER multiplier then you could go faster. 150 FSB * 13 multiplier would be faster than 12.

4) Your sig says you have an "ASUS A 7V266-E ". I am NOT familar with that MB. One other trick you can try, that is somewhat more dangerous, is to INCREASE the volts / power going to your processor and memory. Some motherboards allow you to do this in the bios, some you have to use other tricks.

Often increasing the volts allows you to increase the FSB even higher. BUT, you also run more risk of completely burning out your memory and processor.

Good luck,

i'm on PC2100 i was told not to do more than 150 FSB so i haven't tried. also i was told not to go higher than 39Mhz on teh PCI bus which is also 150FSB. i'm thinkig of taking it higher on these drives and seeing if it will "scramble" like advertised. i'm about to back up to an old 8 gig and install win2k. so once the backup is done i'm going to push it. than put both these drives in a RAID 1 or 0+1 if i can.