1.4 @ 1.7+ ?

Alright. Today I was FINALLY satisfied that my overclock at 1.6 was fine, and I wanted more. So I tried a new multiplier (12x) and posted it at 100FSB. Worked fine, so I kept going until I was yet again at 140FSB. Wasn't very stable. So I bumped my v-core to 1.92. Very stable...for a while. On average it'll work for 3-4 hours then reboot. I'm obviously not satisfied with this kind of dependability.

Anyway, It's stable at 1.644 now. Thats fine. But geez, I KNOW this thing can do more. I KNOW IT!!!

I've see the volt mods for the KT7A board but I've also heard a few horror stories about pins falling out and boards getting toasted.

This is my only computer. And I won't have a job probably for another month or so. No money to replace the board if I mess it up.

So, for those of you that have done it. Is it very safe? Should I go ahead and do it? Is it worth the risk?

When you speak of people pulling off the pins, that's because they soldered to the pins. I soldered once and it was a complete nightmare. (pulled both pin 7 and 10 off) Doctor introduced my to these grabbers that are a substitute for soldering. Using the grabbers it only took my about 15 minutes to complete my mod! I would say go for it! Link for grabbers: http://www.elexp.com/clp_5243.htm

The current volt mod sticky is great too!


This was created by colin, which I followed:




Here are my instructions for boards that use the Intersil HIP6301.

K7G specifics:

You may want to use a 100k pot between Pin 7 and ground. This will allow you to return the board to stock voltage. A 47k pot will cause the board to boot at around 2.0 volts.

The mod is the same as the KT7 series except for the change in trimmer value for Pin 7. With 47k between ground and Pin 7, the board will boot at about 2 volts. Using a 100k trimmer allows the board to boot at normal voltage and obviously makes it possible to reverse the mod by dialing the Pin 7 and Pin 10 trimmers back to full resistance.

KT7 series, KK266, etc:

Solder wires to Pin 7 and Pin 10 of the IC that controls the voltage to the CPU. Put a 47k trimmer (49 cents at Radio Shack part # 271-283) between Pin 10 and ground. Put a 100k trimmer (271-284) between Pin 7 and ground. You can add a 1k trimmer (271-280) in series with the 100k trimmer if you would like to make it easier to fine tune the voltage. Use a spade lug or loop under a motherboard mounting screw for your ground connection. For convenience I suggest you mount the trimmers on a piece of breadboard and secure it to your motherboard tray with Velcro.

Pin 7 controls the voltage, Pin 10 controls maximum voltage threshold. Turn the trimmers to full resistance boot your PC and start VIA Hardware Monitor. Set the polling interval to 2 seconds and slowly dial up the Pin 7 trimmer until the screen blanks. Your PC will probably reboot when the screen blanks. Note the voltage and back it off a tad while the computer reboots. Then dial up the Pin 10 trimmer until your screen blanks and back it off a tad. Go back into VIA Hardware Monitor and dial the Pin 7 trimmer up to 2.3 volts. You may be able to go higher but I don’t recommend it.

Caution this will stress your cooling. Be careful or your CPU could end up a crispy critter. I also suggest buying a third hand device from Radio Shack to hold a pre-tinned wire to the IC leg while you solder. The magnifying glass on the third had will come in handy too. Get in and out fast so you don’t toast the IC. Lay off the caffeine and if you are of age, have a beer a half hour before soldering to steady your hands.

Be sure to tie your wires down to the board. A dollop of five minute epoxy works well for this. After doing several boards, I finally screwed one up. The mod went fine but I snagged the wire to Pin 10 on the end of my workbench and ripped the IC pin right off the board.

Thanks JAWS!

I checked out the sticky too. I think I'm a little more confident now. With the SMB grabbers I think the process will be considerably safer as well.

Only thing is...Has anyone ordered a bunch of these or has an extra that they could sell to me? I don't really want to buy anything other than that since I already have a friend that I can get pot's and resistors from for close to nothing. Well, give me a PM if you have one that you could spare!

I have one more site to check. Check this out first, while I check:http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49123 Meatpipe said he had a couple!

Never mind, Grainger said they wouldn't ship unless you have a business!

I am running a kt7a with the volt mods for both the regulator and voltage. I use resistors plugged into fan type sockets so as to easily change the voltage range on the board. This works very well for me. I just ordered the shuttle board and though I have had no problem soldering on the boards I went ahead and got the grabbers to do this vmod. As for the kt7a, the vmod works great and I am able to go as high as 2.7 should I really be feeling frisky. The first chip I used this vmod on was a duron 750 which I got to 1120 at 2.3, yet this same chip would only do 960 at 1.9 (stock settings) prior to this. The problem of course is the heat goes up dramatically. I watched my duron run under load at (2.1v 1050) go right through the 50s and at 54c I killed the power and backed it off. I then went to water cooling. This allows me to put 2.2v to both it and my present 1.4 without going over 47c under full load. i.e. use a grabber and take it easy on a heatsink. Biggest gain is 1.9 to 2.1v range. Run a cooling program such as vcool so as to kill temps (and prolong life) while the cpu is under no load. With proper cooling you may be surprised what you can get out of the board with the vmod, I was.

BTW, northgate cooling did little for me. I can get 144 or so on fsb but it is unstable (lockups) at 3.9v on ram. Seems that best stability is to run at most 139 fsb with 3.7volts on the ram. This really does not pose a problem as with the newer bios you have the 13 multiplier (12x above). It does not say thirteen but all testing will show it as thirteen times ram speed. Thirteen X 130 = 1807 plus enhanced cpu should test out around 1810 (assuming you can get there with a 1.4 t-bird. Hope this helps.

Silver said:

BTW, northgate cooling did little for me. I can get 144 or so on fsb but it is unstable (lockups) at 3.9v on ram. Seems that best stability is to run at most 139 fsb with 3.7volts on the ram. This really does not pose a problem as with the newer bios you have the 13 multiplier (12x above). It does not say thirteen but all testing will show it as thirteen times ram speed. Thirteen X 130 = 1807 plus enhanced cpu should test out around 1810 (assuming you can get there with a 1.4 t-bird. Hope this helps.

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I agree with you Silver , anything over 143MHz and my network card starts to act up!

Silver said:

BTW, northgate cooling did little for me. I can get 144 or so on fsb but it is unstable (lockups) at 3.9v on ram. Seems that best stability is to run at most 139 fsb with 3.7volts on the ram. This really does not pose a problem as with the newer bios you have the 13 multiplier (12x above). It does not say thirteen but all testing will show it as thirteen times ram speed. Thirteen X 130 = 1807 plus enhanced cpu should test out around 1810 (assuming you can get there with a 1.4 t-bird. Hope this helps.

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Thanks for the info about the 13X multiplier. I did see the "12above" but had no idea what they meant and didn't want to mess with it. Should have just asked . If I could hit 1800 I'd be one happy camper!!! I hope I had get one of those clips soon to try it out!

Best of luck. My 1.4 gets tempramental at the higher clock speed and with more voltage just gets temp. Got in under safe mode last night at 1782 but as temps kept climbing it eventually went into auto boot. This was prior to getting any real testing done. The chip will do it, I just have to cool it.