CAUTION: Modifying your motherboard involves soldering components and radically changing the voltage to the CPU. If you elect to follow this procedure, Overclockers.com nor the author will be held liable for damages.
Updates 4/19: I forgot some things and had some questions that I hopefully answered. Also I have some info on the 2nd stage mod (if need be)
OK – I’ve been an overclocker for about a year and have been learning all I can find. I’ve done the KT7 mod already and that gave me practice for this project. One thing I have to say is that I’m not responsible for your mistakes and this mod worked on my KK266. I also recommend reading this complete tutorial and making your own decisions before you start modding and asking any questions if necessary. Remember – you need proper cooling as this can create serious heat problems.
First off you I’ll give you the parts required:
- A soldering iron preferably 15 watt or less w/ a fine tip
- Thin electronic solder;
- Small heatshrink tubing;
- 5-minute epoxy (I’ll explain later);
- 2x 1000k ohm resistors from Radio Shack (come in a 4 pack I think);
- Mini 4.7k POT (Variable Resistor – Potentiometers – 4700 ohms);
- Mini 1k POT (Variable Resistor – Potentiometers -1000 ohms)
- AA or AAA Black Project Box;
- Thin Wire;
- Liquid Electric Tape;
- I recommend putting heatsinks on the transistors since they will have to work harder and thus produce more heat;
- Patience – this took me about an hour till I got all soldering points done.
Now lets start:
Take the project box and rip out all contents, including the metal plates for the batteries. Next take some thin wire and cut 2 pieces about 12 inches in length. Strip all 4 ends and about 1 cm from end. Next, take the wires and thread the wires thorough the project box’s hole (where the battery lead wires used to come out). If you have the 22 gauge wire from Radio Shack, the wire should be snug. Now we have to get the proper lengths for the wires to be attached to the project box. Our 2 destination points for the wires are shown as follows:
The Southbridge is our mounting spot (via epoxy), so allow enough wire to reach. Now that you have the proper length, I recommend applying liquid electrical tape or epoxy to the hole where the wires enter the box. This way you don’t have to worry about it moving and you don’t have any excess wire on the board.
Next, you need to cut one side of the resistor off – I’m talking about the silver solid conductor coming out either end. It doesn’t matter which side, I’m just using the piece as a smaller wire because the point we are soldering onto is SMALL.
Finally, solder the cut-off piece onto the end of the one wire outside the project box and apply heatshrink tubing to it. Leave about a 1/2 cm of it showing, the rest covered in heatshrink tubing.
Next, prepare your soldering iron. Get it hot and make sure the tip only contains solder. Bend the heatshrink/wire at a 90-degree angle facing the CPU (horizontal to the mobo), so you have the wire running along the PCI slot and taking a right towards the CPU. After the bend you should only have about 1 cm of wire/heatshrink tubing going towards the CPU.
Then take the showing amount of 1/2 cm cutoff resistor and bend down (towards the mobo – vertical) to another 90-degree angle. Here’s a picture demonstrating the 1st soldering point. This is your destination point to solder:
I’ve numbered the different spots of importance. Number 1 shows the location of the motherboard pad that I advise you to solder onto. As far as I know, the other mobo pads that are covered in red also should work – just be careful (I advise using the one circled). Others say that it’s better to solder directly onto the chip so that you don’t rip up the traces, but that’s where the epoxy comes in. For reference, it’s the 3rd solder pad in from the bottom of the HIP6301. Number 3 is showing us the groove in the HIP6301. This is used as reference and helps to know where you are in relation to the chip. Here is a diagram of what I’m talking about:
The numbers are the same in both pictures. Number 2 corresponds to the pin you are attempting to ground and thus change the core voltage. As you can see, there is the groove which is critical in figuring which pin is what.
Now comes the hard part – soldering it to the motherboard. Hopefully you have some past experience with soldering. Hold the wire in place and just “dab” the soldering iron until you get a hold on the pad.
Caution: after you solder onto the board, be very careful about NOT PULLING the wire. You will pull up motherboard traces, which could result in a non-operational motherboard.
Next, if you did the bend correctly, you should have the wire soldered and the wire also touching the PCI slot. You then apply epoxy to the wire and PCI slot. If you want, you can apply it to the board – it shouldn’t hurt since epoxy is non-conductive (at least mine was – I recommend you take some epoxy and put it onto metal and use your multimeter and make sure it’s non-conductive).
Next, you take the other wire and solder it to spot 2 in the first picture. It doesn’t matter which transistor, I just chose that one. Use the left piece coming from the transistor, which is a ground.
If you don’t want to do that, you can always just wrap it around a motherboard mounting screw. It’s your choice, as long as it’s a ground.
Next (which I forgot to mention earlier and I thought it would be assumed but I guess I should tell you how it’s done anyway) is putting the POTS in series. The resistors go between the ground and Pin 7. I recommend testing the resistance and turning the POTS to their highest resistance (this way when you hook it up you can turn the pots down until you get the voltage you want). Then solder the 2 POTS and the one fixed 1k-ohm resistor in series. So it should look like this.
The order doesn’t matter as long as they are in series.
You are done as far as soldering.
All you need to do is either epoxy your “project box” onto the Southbridge or do what I did later – just zip-o tie it to the motherboard tray. Finally go into the BIOS and tweak it. The 1k-ohm resistor gives you 0.2v more and you can change the pots to get higher voltages.
I’ve got 2.12, but I’m guessing that you can do the stage 2 KT7 mod to get higher. I haven’t needed it yet so that’s why I haven’t attempted it (also don’t have the cooling).
Just go into the PC Health Status, turn the pots and watch the Vcore rise. If the system kicks out, then you have hit the overload protection and you have reached max voltage. Turn the pots back, turn the power supply off, then on, and try again. If you turn your system on and it doesn’t post, maybe it’s because you have the resistors turned above the overload protection.
Turn the POTS back the other direction and try again. Remember which one is the 4.7k POT and the 1k POT because the 1k is the one you can tweak more – the 4.7k is more radical. Also the 4.7k will make a bigger difference, so if you cannot post, I recommend turning it to the other extreme. Good Luck!
Due to demand for higher vcore’s then the projected 2.37 volts, I will introduce the 2nd stage KT7 and Iwill mod.
Looking at the last 2 pictures, number 4 in the pictures refers to Pin 10 on the HIP6301. This pin is connected directly to the core voltage of the processor. What you again are doing is grounding this pin and tricking the HIP6301 into giving out more voltage. As always, I’m not responsible for your mistakes and I haven’t tested this – I am only writing this on knowledge.
All you need to do is get another POT with a value of 47k (47,000 ohms) and hook it between a ground and Pin 10. I would recommend putting a fixed resistor in it so you don’t get a dead short. It will looks like this:
Pin 10 – Fixed Resistor (I would recommend 1k since you probably have one from the stage 1 mod) – 47k POT – Ground
First, in BIOS, turn the stage 1 mod almost to the max (before overload protection cuts the system out). Then turn the 47k ohm (Stage 2) almost to where the overload kicks out (you will know these “values” after testing), then stage 1 again until you get the voltage you want.
If you do the stage 2 mod it’s almost required that you give the power transistors a heatsink since they will be doing double time (working a lot harder). Happy Overclocking and ask me any questions as they arise.
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