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HexaCore Restoration Project underway (AMD Phenom II 970 Zosma) *Pending 960T*
- Thread starter storm-chaser
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2004
And it's free.http://www.softnology.biz/files.html
The reason I was going to buy it is because I thought that I had read somewhere that in order to be able to modify the SPD you needed the full-featured version, as the freeware only allowed you to read the SPD.
I've gone ahead and downloaded the freeware version and will give it a try to see what limitations it has.
Mr.Scott, which version do you have?
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2004
Found the limitation on the freeware version that I was referring to. It was in the FAQ section.
I have the paid version.....but I didn't pay for it, if ya know what I mean.
I won't say a word to anyone.
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2004
OP
storm-chaser
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- Sep 2, 2011
- Location
- Upstate NY
- Thread Starter
- #26
CPU pins have been re-aligned!
Well, here's a little update: I spent the better part of the last two hours fixing bent pins on my beloved 970 CPU. Talk about blood sweat and tears! Very delicate process working on my last good nerve. I'll tell you what. Every move you make has to be right on or you risk making the situation worse. I used a razor blade and I literally went row by row, covering all 938 pins, multiple times. You need to have good lighting and a steady hand. Luckily I had an old AM3 board laying around so every so often I would test my work, and eventually, it dropped right into place. That is one hurtle I am glad we've crossed.
All better! I'll never leave another CPU unprotected like I did this one... I swear!
If you've ever wondered what a de-lidded Thuban looks like:
Come to think of it, the last time I had to fix bent pins on a CPU was on a Pentium 133 from a very early computer build... my 2nd, IIRC. I was about 15, circa 2000... My Uncle said it was all mine if I could fix it. Of course the process goes much faster when you only have 296 pins to deal with and I had it booting into Windows 95 in short order!
In fact, I still have that very chip to this day. Who knows, maybe I will do a retro build with it someday... For your viewing pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Now, with that mission objective complete I can finally settle down, relax and read an old favorite:
Well, here's a little update: I spent the better part of the last two hours fixing bent pins on my beloved 970 CPU. Talk about blood sweat and tears! Very delicate process working on my last good nerve. I'll tell you what. Every move you make has to be right on or you risk making the situation worse. I used a razor blade and I literally went row by row, covering all 938 pins, multiple times. You need to have good lighting and a steady hand. Luckily I had an old AM3 board laying around so every so often I would test my work, and eventually, it dropped right into place. That is one hurtle I am glad we've crossed.
All better! I'll never leave another CPU unprotected like I did this one... I swear!
If you've ever wondered what a de-lidded Thuban looks like:
Come to think of it, the last time I had to fix bent pins on a CPU was on a Pentium 133 from a very early computer build... my 2nd, IIRC. I was about 15, circa 2000... My Uncle said it was all mine if I could fix it. Of course the process goes much faster when you only have 296 pins to deal with and I had it booting into Windows 95 in short order!
In fact, I still have that very chip to this day. Who knows, maybe I will do a retro build with it someday... For your viewing pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Now, with that mission objective complete I can finally settle down, relax and read an old favorite:
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Alaric
New Member
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- Dec 4, 2011
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- Satan's Colon, US
I've had good luck with credit/debit cards for straightening pins.
OP
storm-chaser
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- Sep 2, 2011
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- Upstate NY
- Thread Starter
- #28
2000Mhz Memory or Bust!
One question remains after all that's been said... will I be able to overclock the 8GB G.Skill memory kit to 2000mhz?
Digging through my build archives and old benchmarks it appears I've pushed this memory kit to 926Mhz (~1852mhz) @ 8-9-9-24 CR1. Running on an 880 chipset and paired with the same AMD 970 Zosma CPU. I am banking on the more advanced 970 series chipset as it should allow for more headroom in the memory bandwidth department. I know the IMC on high end Thuban chips (such as the Zosma 970) respond well to overclocking. IMC clocking is tied directly to L3 cache speeds and RAM latency. So make no mistake - I will be pushing the IMC to the absolute limit. This is an essential component in order to achieve the superior Thuban overclock and must not be overlooked. You wouldn't believe how many folks will go straight to 4.0Ghz overclock on the CPU and leave the IMC / CPU-NB at a poultry 2000Mhz. Totally obvious to gains that could be had! Unbelievable! My old 880 mobo straight maxed out the IMC @ 3.122Ghz. Any higher than that and the system would not post. Again, with the updated and state-of-the-art 970 chipset, I should be primed to shatter the 3GHz barrier. Although this is all uncharted territory for me.
Here is an AIDA64 screenshot of my old hexacore rig with a best effort on ram speed and timings... I am confident we will improve upon this in the near future. Definitely added as a goal and mission objective within this project. 2000Mhz memory or bust!
One question remains after all that's been said... will I be able to overclock the 8GB G.Skill memory kit to 2000mhz?
Digging through my build archives and old benchmarks it appears I've pushed this memory kit to 926Mhz (~1852mhz) @ 8-9-9-24 CR1. Running on an 880 chipset and paired with the same AMD 970 Zosma CPU. I am banking on the more advanced 970 series chipset as it should allow for more headroom in the memory bandwidth department. I know the IMC on high end Thuban chips (such as the Zosma 970) respond well to overclocking. IMC clocking is tied directly to L3 cache speeds and RAM latency. So make no mistake - I will be pushing the IMC to the absolute limit. This is an essential component in order to achieve the superior Thuban overclock and must not be overlooked. You wouldn't believe how many folks will go straight to 4.0Ghz overclock on the CPU and leave the IMC / CPU-NB at a poultry 2000Mhz. Totally obvious to gains that could be had! Unbelievable! My old 880 mobo straight maxed out the IMC @ 3.122Ghz. Any higher than that and the system would not post. Again, with the updated and state-of-the-art 970 chipset, I should be primed to shatter the 3GHz barrier. Although this is all uncharted territory for me.
Here is an AIDA64 screenshot of my old hexacore rig with a best effort on ram speed and timings... I am confident we will improve upon this in the near future. Definitely added as a goal and mission objective within this project. 2000Mhz memory or bust!
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OP
storm-chaser
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- Upstate NY
- Thread Starter
- #31
Well, I've definitely got my work cut out for me. Those are some damn good overclocks and I'll tell you what, it's gonna be a struggle to get over 4.2Ghz on air. I could be wrong but I don't particularly like the Hyper 212 EVo fan design. Not sure on flow rates but it looks like the standard Hyper 212+ has a superior fan and blade design. I have four of those regular Hyper 212+ units in stock so I suppose I can pick and choose to find the ideal configuration for maximum cooling. Will definitely involve a push-pull scenario and again, this will be uncharted territory. Not sure if "salvation" is the right word for an extra fan on the back of a 212. I have my doubts be we shall see..
Anyone want to donate a water cooler for this project? See if we can match our friends Johan45 and Mr. Scott and perhaps go for 4.5GHz? You'll get your name in the credits once the restoration is complete! This hexacore needs to stretch its legs and we need to find the extreme limits... this is all about shattering barriers!
Anyone want to donate a water cooler for this project? See if we can match our friends Johan45 and Mr. Scott and perhaps go for 4.5GHz? You'll get your name in the credits once the restoration is complete! This hexacore needs to stretch its legs and we need to find the extreme limits... this is all about shattering barriers!
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Hahaha Not sure about barriers here.
I agree with you on the fans for the 212 + and Evo. I much prefer the latest 212X. The fan is way better. It's actually quiet-ish. Compared to the Evo it's silent. I can tell you from experience you wont see any consistent improvement from adding a pull fan on the + or Evo.
I agree with you on the fans for the 212 + and Evo. I much prefer the latest 212X. The fan is way better. It's actually quiet-ish. Compared to the Evo it's silent. I can tell you from experience you wont see any consistent improvement from adding a pull fan on the + or Evo.
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2012
This is on water (most likely chilled) judging by the voltage, but it gives you an idea of what you can run the memory at. These are my really good Ripjaw X sticks 2133 7-10-7 Psc Ic.
OP
storm-chaser
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- Upstate NY
- Thread Starter
- #35
Mainboard has arrived!
Epic arrival this morning. The Biostar TA970 is here! Looks to be in mint condition.
I have a couple business related items to take care of and then I will jump right in to this.
If all goes well, I should have my Hexacore rig up and running sometime later tonight
Beautiful Day CHECK!
Biostar TA970 CHECK!
Inline skates CHECK!
Country Music CHECK!
We are good to go Ladies and Gentlemen! This is going to be a fun build and I just cannot wait to awaken the beast! Chomping at the bit!
I have to go for a 20 mile skate after all this, so it's gonna be a long day, that's for sure. But hey, I'm doing what I love so I can't complain.
Epic arrival this morning. The Biostar TA970 is here! Looks to be in mint condition.
I have a couple business related items to take care of and then I will jump right in to this.
If all goes well, I should have my Hexacore rig up and running sometime later tonight
Beautiful Day CHECK!
Biostar TA970 CHECK!
Inline skates CHECK!
Country Music CHECK!
We are good to go Ladies and Gentlemen! This is going to be a fun build and I just cannot wait to awaken the beast! Chomping at the bit!
I have to go for a 20 mile skate after all this, so it's gonna be a long day, that's for sure. But hey, I'm doing what I love so I can't complain.
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- Joined
- Feb 26, 2004
All I've got to say at this point is that there are way easier ways to go 20 miles than on skates!
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- The Empire State
Reefa, I've used Typhoon Burner before. Great little proggy with awesome info. I'm shocked you didn't know about it.
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- Jun 1, 2003
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- Reality most of the time.
W0w, perfect timing on my part to stop by. I dropped in to get some voltage reference points and saw this thread. Just finished reading it while working on my AM3+ Extreme4 board (lost PCI-E lanes). Maybe some day I'll figure out why the bios stopped allowing anything over 800! Maybe tomorrow (not). Just want it to limp to the Zen2 finish line.
I'm quite enjoying the read, especially the shot of the old p54 single plane socket 7 chip (IIRC the 166 was P55 and dual plane [mmx]). I was teaching my nephew back then as well, brings back good memories.
Hi Scotty.
And if Dolk is reading this, thanks again it's all good now tuned out to be VT6.
I'm quite enjoying the read, especially the shot of the old p54 single plane socket 7 chip (IIRC the 166 was P55 and dual plane [mmx]). I was teaching my nephew back then as well, brings back good memories.
Hi Scotty.
And if Dolk is reading this, thanks again it's all good now tuned out to be VT6.
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2004
I have been aware of this program for years...going back to the days of the rebirth of Winbond BH-5 in the unmarked UTT chips and even played around with it some back then...I just didn't know the newer versions could identify the memory ICs.
...so in that respect I'm just as shocked as you.
OP
storm-chaser
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- Upstate NY
- Thread Starter
- #40
Well, I didn't want to post the results before I posted the rest of the build, but I guess I'll just go ahead and do it anyways. The build phase will be posted tomorrow....
In a nutshell: Not super impressed with the overclocking options and overclock potential with this board. Granted, the board itself is in perfect condition and works as it should. It's just not up to the task of taking the reigns of this particular CPU. In fact, I would say my old Biostar TA880GU3+ had a higher NB O/C right out of the gate and offered more in the way of overclocking options, despite running an older 880 series chipset.
I'm going to need something better, faster and stronger If I really want to meet the mission objectives of this project. However, not all is lost. We have completed phase one in a sense. Because we achieved the 4.0Ghz goal across all six cores with a CPU-NB speed of 3.0Ghz. This is only at DDR3-1600 speeds, however. I have not tried for DDR3-2000 as of yet, but I will make a go of that as well.
Here we have the AIDA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark
with the CPU at 4.0Ghz and CPU-NB at 2.0Ghz:
And here we have AIDIA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark
with the CPU at 4.0Ghz and the CPU-NB at 3.0Ghz:
So what's next for this build? Either we chose an older 880 series board like it's previous life form, or we jump up to the newer 990FX. I'll keep ya'll posted!
In a nutshell: Not super impressed with the overclocking options and overclock potential with this board. Granted, the board itself is in perfect condition and works as it should. It's just not up to the task of taking the reigns of this particular CPU. In fact, I would say my old Biostar TA880GU3+ had a higher NB O/C right out of the gate and offered more in the way of overclocking options, despite running an older 880 series chipset.
I'm going to need something better, faster and stronger If I really want to meet the mission objectives of this project. However, not all is lost. We have completed phase one in a sense. Because we achieved the 4.0Ghz goal across all six cores with a CPU-NB speed of 3.0Ghz. This is only at DDR3-1600 speeds, however. I have not tried for DDR3-2000 as of yet, but I will make a go of that as well.
Here we have the AIDA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark
with the CPU at 4.0Ghz and CPU-NB at 2.0Ghz:
And here we have AIDIA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark
with the CPU at 4.0Ghz and the CPU-NB at 3.0Ghz:
So what's next for this build? Either we chose an older 880 series board like it's previous life form, or we jump up to the newer 990FX. I'll keep ya'll posted!
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