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1700+ T-Breds and MSI K7D Master-L question.

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Mr B

Senior Admin Emeritus
Joined
Dec 28, 2000
Location
East Bridgewater, MA
I'm helping a bud fo mine put together his first duallie, and he's got coming in the mail;

MSI K7D Master-L
2x 1700+ T-Breds (don't know A/B yet)
512MB ECC Reg. PC2100 Crucial

Now...I've got the MSI myself, so I can help him tweak the BIOS as needed. I've read that the 1700+'s will drop right in and the multi's will be unlocked automatically.

My question has to do with enabling SMP on them. I know that closing the L5 bridge is what's required to enable SMP, but....;

Is there a way to enable SMP by putting a jumper wire in the CPU socket that is the equivalent of physically closing the bridge on the surface of the chip??

I had to do a similar trick with my 2100+ "B" on my Iwill XP333-R, to unlock the 5.5 to 12.5x multi's..drop a 1/4" long wire in the socket, connecting two pins. I was just wondering if there's a way to enable SMP by doing something similar...

TIA!!

Brian
 
I just did the L5 mod on my XP1700+ chips.... it's not nearly as hard as the Palomino unlock job. You can just paint around the end of the pit rather than going over the pit if you so desire.

Is there a reason why you'd want to actually modify the board instead of the CPU's?
 
SickBoy said:
I just did the L5 mod on my XP1700+ chips.... it's not nearly as hard as the Palomino unlock job. You can just paint around the end of the pit rather than going over the pit if you so desire.

Is there a reason why you'd want to actually modify the board instead of the CPU's?

Reversability, incase the need ever arose to RMA. I understand the simplicity of closing the one L5, and that the pit not needing to be filled. I was hoping that it might be possible to jumper two pins in the socket to accomplish the same task without modding the chip in any way.

This is my friend's first "adventure" into overclocking, and SMP. We're planning on kicking the multi to 12.5x just as soon as the OS is installed..and then going for the FSB. I'm hoping he gets a nice pair of "B"s, that will run 12.5 x 150 (1875MHz) at or close to default vcore...from what I'm reading, some of these newer stepping 1700+'s just might do that. :)

I steered him in the direction of the 1700+ over the 2100+'s he was looking at, because I wasn't completely sure the MSI would properly recognize the 13x (and higher) multipliers without "blowing bridges" or putting a hunk of wire in the CPU socket anyways, to force 12.5x. Plus, most of these 1700+ T-Breds will easily overclock higher than the MSI will run (12.5 x 150) anyways.

If it can't be done via a wire in the socket, I've got a bottle of defogger paint here handy... ;)

B.
 
The way I see it, the CPU's combined cost are cheaper than the mobo....

Actually, the K7D recognizes higher multipliers just fine, but you can't set a multiplier (manually) higher than 12.5x. You can hardcode a higher multiplier if you feel brave.

For overclocking purposes the 1700+ chips are about as good as it gets for the K7D, anything more expensive is kinda pointless.
 
SickBoy said:
The way I see it, the CPU's combined cost are cheaper than the mobo....

Actually, the K7D recognizes higher multipliers just fine, but you can't set a multiplier (manually) higher than 12.5x. You can hardcode a higher multiplier if you feel brave.

For overclocking purposes the 1700+ chips are about as good as it gets for the K7D, anything more expensive is kinda pointless.

Pointless.... that's the point I was trying to get across to my friend. If they'll hit 1875MHz, you're doing well enough. ;)

Ok...so in a way I was right? 13x and up will be recognized, but cannot be changed in the BIOS?

Thanks again, SB. :beer:
 
Mr B said:
Ok...so in a way I was right? 13x and up will be recognized, but cannot be changed in the BIOS?

Spot on. :)

So the moral of the story is, if you wanna overclock you dual, get cheaper chips and overclock. If you want speeds faster than about 1.8 GHz, build a system with CPU's that run faster than that at stock. (or try hardcoding multipliers)
 
Ok, there are too many green stars in here ;)

Yes, Mr B, if you want to, you can mod the socket with a piece of wire, instead of modding the CPU. I read a story about doing this on the internet some time ago. I can't remember where the story was, but I clearly remember that they dropped little wires into some of the pin-holes of the socket, to modify for SMP.

I wouldn't personally recommend this method, though. It would be VERY likely that the little wires would come out of the socket any time you removed the CPU and then you would have to remember where to put them back.

Modding the CPU by painting around the pit is the easiest way and a little acetone on a Q-tip can completely remove it, if the need arises.
 
cmcquistion, if you could track down a link for that, or a jpeg of where in the socket the wire needs to go (I've already got one on file for the T-Bred, for enabling 5.5 to 12.5x..needed it for the Iwill XP333-R I'm running)...I'd be extremely grateful.

I don't think my friend is one to be pulling CPU's on a regular basis, so using a wire jumper isn't too much of a concern. I myself have only pulled the CPU's out of my duallie once since building it (when I went from H20 back to air cooling). I'd be inclined to say once it's together, it'll stay that way for some time.

Thanks a ton!!! ;)

Brian
 
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