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Good guide to unlocking XP CPU
- Thread starter floppybootstomp
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I think the best guide I've seen was the video they made at Tom's Hardware for unlocking the XPs, when the Palomino core had just been released. It's on my hard drive somewhere...
Great guide 
I would suggest to people that over clocking isn't the best way to speed up a PC..... often getting some CAS2 memory if you can find it at the max clock the motherboard / cpu supports gives great performance. Also Hard disks are a massive bottle neck. I have used Raid to "stripe" my data across two disks so that it actually gets a transfer rate going that makes DMA66 start to look worried (although I'm on a DMA100 MB..... I'm sure there's no difference
)
There are also 1001 bios tweaks that you can do to help performance.... I'd suggest learning how to reset the cmos and them playing a bit
As far as the CPU goes, I found I could change the FSB speed and hence overclock in bios without actually upping the multiplier, and the athlon didn't moan Along the ame lines, I also find squeezing an extra few MHZ out of the PCI bus never hurts, and make sure your graphics card is on 4x AGP or better if you can support it.......
I would suggest to people that over clocking isn't the best way to speed up a PC..... often getting some CAS2 memory if you can find it at the max clock the motherboard / cpu supports gives great performance. Also Hard disks are a massive bottle neck. I have used Raid to "stripe" my data across two disks so that it actually gets a transfer rate going that makes DMA66 start to look worried (although I'm on a DMA100 MB..... I'm sure there's no difference
)There are also 1001 bios tweaks that you can do to help performance.... I'd suggest learning how to reset the cmos and them playing a bit
As far as the CPU goes, I found I could change the FSB speed and hence overclock in bios without actually upping the multiplier, and the athlon didn't moan
Along the ame lines, I also find squeezing an extra few MHZ out of the PCI bus never hurts, and make sure your graphics card is on 4x AGP or better if you can support it.......
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kristel:
All good points.
I'm currently running RAID 0. BIOS tweaked to max. DMA100. 16K stripes, 16K clusters.
FSB as high as it can can go before ATI Radeon 32MB DDR gives me the thumbs down. AGP x 4.
Nothing like an unlocked CPU to give you an unfair advantage
All good points.
I'm currently running RAID 0. BIOS tweaked to max. DMA100. 16K stripes, 16K clusters.
FSB as high as it can can go before ATI Radeon 32MB DDR gives me the thumbs down. AGP x 4.
Nothing like an unlocked CPU to give you an unfair advantage
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Hehe....
Actually, I really need to upgrade. I'm only on a Athlon 800 / 100MHZ FSB and it's tweaked to high heaven. Got it running faster in all benchmarks than my Boyfriends 1.4 Athlon / 133 (much to his disbelief!)
So... that really means a motherboard / CPU / Memory upgrade. Graphics (ti4400) / sound (Sonicfury XG) are fine, but I need recommendations for a good motherboard / CPU+cooler / Memory combo. Stability is essential... as I do a lot of uni work on my system. Decent speed desairable, and economy never a bad thing as I am still a student
So... that really means a motherboard / CPU / Memory upgrade. Graphics (ti4400) / sound (Sonicfury XG) are fine, but I need recommendations for a good motherboard / CPU+cooler / Memory combo. Stability is essential... as I do a lot of uni work on my system. Decent speed desairable, and economy never a bad thing as I am still a student
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OsKool:
How'd you mess up? Sorry to hear that.
When and if I actually get round to unlocking an XP, I think I'd use a slow setting epoxy resin, rather than superglue.
Advantages are is that you can study the drying pattern of say, Araldite, as it sets, and adjust with a needle if necessary. Gives you more of a chance, I'd think.
Also, superglue can become brittle and may sever and move over a relatively short period of time.
That's just my angle on it though Thoughts?
How'd you mess up? Sorry to hear that.
When and if I actually get round to unlocking an XP, I think I'd use a slow setting epoxy resin, rather than superglue.
Advantages are is that you can study the drying pattern of say, Araldite, as it sets, and adjust with a needle if necessary. Gives you more of a chance, I'd think.
Also, superglue can become brittle and may sever and move over a relatively short period of time.
That's just my angle on it though Thoughts?
You're quite right flopps.
That sounds like a much better method than the one I used to unlock my Athlon - Scratch away with a pencil for a few mins, and stick some celetape over it - apply thermal adhesive, and reattach heatsink.
I don't recomment my method by any means - but it worked for me (probably by luck more than anything else).....
That sounds like a much better method than the one I used to unlock my Athlon - Scratch away with a pencil for a few mins, and stick some celetape over it - apply thermal adhesive, and reattach heatsink.
I don't recomment my method by any means - but it worked for me (probably by luck more than anything else).....
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kristel:
Actually, only CPU's I ever unlocked was a coupla Durons. Looked like an operating theatre. CPU clamped in a workmate, big bright light, and a huge projector lens to magnify things.
Yup, I just used a pencil, finely sharpened, on each of 'em.
Didn't even bother to cover with sellotape. One still working to this day, the other I had to redo after 6 months or so. Since sold.
It really is quite a titchy thing, isn't it?
Now, if only the XP's were as easy. I mean, why do AMD make it so difficult? They know everybody wants to unlock their chips, that's their market.
They not quite as bad as Intel yet though, at least you can still unlock them.
Actually, only CPU's I ever unlocked was a coupla Durons. Looked like an operating theatre. CPU clamped in a workmate, big bright light, and a huge projector lens to magnify things.
Yup, I just used a pencil, finely sharpened, on each of 'em.
Didn't even bother to cover with sellotape. One still working to this day, the other I had to redo after 6 months or so. Since sold.
It really is quite a titchy thing, isn't it?
Now, if only the XP's were as easy. I mean, why do AMD make it so difficult? They know everybody wants to unlock their chips, that's their market.
They not quite as bad as Intel yet though, at least you can still unlock them.
I decided that intel were evil long ago Haven't have an intel chip since the P90! That did go up to a nice 120mhz though
K6 166 was easy to bump up - took it to 180 (thanks to gigabyte for dip switch motherboard!)
K6-2 266 - went easily to 333.
Athlon 800 - goes to 1Gh with no issues. Don't over clock that though as it's my current processor..... and to be honest, I really don't need to overclock anymore. If someone can name a game that an 800Mhz chip and a GF4 Ti4400 can't play smoothly I'll overclock - until then...
Haven't have an intel chip since the P90! That did go up to a nice 120mhz though K6 166 was easy to bump up - took it to 180 (thanks to gigabyte for dip switch motherboard!)
K6-2 266 - went easily to 333.
Athlon 800 - goes to 1Gh with no issues. Don't over clock that though as it's my current processor..... and to be honest, I really don't need to overclock anymore. If someone can name a game that an 800Mhz chip and a GF4 Ti4400 can't play smoothly I'll overclock - until then...
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kristel
Had the pleasure of putting a couple of these boards through their paces. The "Fuzzy Logic" worked very well.
I can highly recommend the MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU Have a peek here Has ALL you need and a few extra items as well as stability.
Had the pleasure of putting a couple of these boards through their paces. The "Fuzzy Logic" worked very well.
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Ian
... and they take ALL major Credit Cards.
Oh, and they are listed in YOUR UK price search. LoL
... and they take ALL major Credit Cards.
Oh, and they are listed in YOUR UK price search. LoL