Athlon 800 overclocked to ????

[TheWobble]

I have an athlon 800 with 128mb pc-133 ram and a voodoo5 5500, I am considering overclicking it but I have no idea how, i have overclocked other chips but that was with either JUMPERS or DIPSWITCHES, but my current MOBO and processor have no dips or jumps, so how do I do it???

[bloom25]

What board Wobble?

You should be aware that their are two ways to overclock a processor.  One way is to change the FSB (Front side bus) to above 100 Mhz.  This can be done on nearly every board, but it won't add much speed before the system gets unstable.  The other method involves changing the processor multiplier itself.  For example:  800Mhz Athlon = 100 Mhz FSB x 8 multiplier.  You might be thinking I made a mistake here, because you know for a FACT that Athlons have a 200 Mhz FSB.  They do, sort of, it's actually 100 Mhz, but DDR (double data rate).  This gives nearly the equivalant performance of a 200 Mhz bus.  Now you must know that changing the multiplier may not be an easy task, depending on the board you have.

First of all on the Athlon Thunderbirds (socket A) there are little jumpers that look like staples on the top of the chip itself.  A certain set of these must be closed (connected, as they are cut from the factory) by a conductive pen or even a pencil.  (I wouldn't encourage the use of a pencil though.  Most electronic stores have conductive pens.)  I'm going to send you to www.tomshardware.com  .  Look for an article about the ASUS A7V motherboard.  There will be two of them, the first about modifying the board itself is outdated and no longer neccessary.  The other motherboard that allows multiplier adjustments is the Abit Kt7.  This is done through the bios on this board.  (The ASUS is better IMO.)

If you have the older Slot A type athlon extensive processor modification is neccessary to change the multiplier.  It involves opening the plastic case of the processor and adding a small circuit onto a connector.  (These can be purchased.)

Well, that's the basics of overclocking in 2 pages or less.    There is more too it, but looking at Tom's hardware will give you all the info you need.



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[Frosty1]

Dunno about the 800 Athlons, but I think you need a GFD to o/c it without changing the FSB.

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===>Frosty
====>Exposure2k.com
=====>Frosty@exposure2k.com

[Vermillion]

With my Athlon "standard" , you overclock it thru the motherboard bios, by setting the FSB speed.

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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure

[MrSiD]

First of all, if you have an Abit or Asus motherboard, you can set FSB from bios directly.

Secondly, changing FSB on any Athlon based cpu will give you trouble without extreme cooling. Although that depends a bit from the cpu individual you have..

Generally Duron or T-bird overclocking is done by UNLOCKING the processor.
This can be done by bridging the 2 first missing resistors on the left top side of the cpu. A pencil will do..
After that you can set the MULTIPLIER and overclock your cpu without touching the FSB.
Before you do anything no your Duron, please go to www.hardocp.com  and read advice about Duron overclocking, proper cooling, correct method for unlocking the cpu etc.

Overclocking WILL KILL your cpu if you screw up, so do it the smart way.. When unlocking do not rub the graphite from the pencil anywhere else than the correct spots..
When applying a better heatsink/fan combo do not crack the processor core while installing it..
When installing the heatsink make SURE you have a good quality thermal paste applied on the contact surface of heatsink/processor!!

A 800Mhz Duron without cooling will burn to death in approx. 20 seconds.

On the other hand, if you study just a bit and do things like they should be done.. You will be able to get 1Ghz out of your 800 D-candy. With good cooling even more.. although the oc amount depends of the cpu individual you have... Cpu's of same make and model can vary 20% in the amount they will overclock! =)

When you start overclocking, change the multiplier 1 step at the time.. FSB changes should be done only to get the final peak of performance.. It is also good to know that if you want 1Ghz+ from a 800 Duron you have to give it a little boost, namely 0.2V more voltage - even more in some cases.
Anything over 0.2V increase can however do damage and will most likely shorten the lifespan of your cpu (But who cares, since you have to update it in 1 year probably anyway.. right?   )


If you change the multiplier too high and your computer wont boot.. Dont panic!
Just switch off your box from the mains, turn it back on holding the insert key and bios default settings SHOULD be restored.
If not, you have to reset your bios manually.
All this is found in the manual.

I hope this was some help..

- MrSiD (MrRipley callsign h2h only atm =()

[bloom25]

Verm, go digging through articles on tomshardware guide (link above).  There is another way to actually change the CPU multiplier, but it is a fairly involved process.  (Not hard though, but I wouldn't attempt it unless you can afford to ruin your cpu.)

Also, the pencil trick to close the L1 bridges is probably not the best way to do this.  The amount of Graphite in a pencil rarely exceeds 70%.  Basically this results in high resistance.  Eventually the graphite will probably fall out, resulting in boot up instability.  Conductive pens are not that hard, and the modification is permanent.  (It's like a conductive paint.)



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[MrSiD]

Bloom, at least here in finland those paint pens cost enough to buy a notch bigger cpu  

I agree its probably better way to do it..

Reports all over the world nevertheless say that pencil unlocking works just fine, and having experience with graphite coatings on electrostatic speakers, I can say that the graphite wont rub off in 3 years (when I made my first graphite coated mylar membrane which still works 100%)

In general, read as much as possible from different sources before doing it.

- MrSiD

[whels1]

 http://www.overclockers.com/  http://www7.tomshardware.com/


whels

 

Originally posted by TheWobble:
I have an athlon 800 with 128mb pc-133 ram and a voodoo5 5500, I am considering overclicking it but I have no idea how, i have overclocked other chips but that was with either JUMPERS or DIPSWITCHES, but my current MOBO and processor have no dips or jumps, so how do I do it???