CPU Unlocking
To allow your cpu to use multipliers that it was not intended to, you must "unlock" it by connecting a series of points on the chip itself. This is very useful if you are having a hard time running a high fsb because of the processor's highly overclocked speed.
For example let's use an Athlon Thunderbird 1200mhz cpu that runs at a fsb of 100mhz:
If the board (and ram) can handle 200mhz fsb, the odds are that the 1200mhz Thunderbird cannot. The cpu is set to run at 12x100, but would be running at a blistering (and in this case impossible) 2400mhz using the stock multiplier of 12. If we unlock the cpu, we can change the multiplier to 6 and set the fsb to 200mhz. This makes 6x200=1200mhz. We haven't even tried to overclock yet and already we get the huge performance gain of a 200mhz bus.
Sorry if my example didn't make much sense, but the odds are you already know why you shoul 515e47f d unlock your cpu. On to the actual unlocking! To unlock an AMD chip you need to connect the "L1" bridges located towards the top left corner of the chip. The actual method of doing this depends on the type of chip.
Unlocking the Thunderbird/Duron
Place your cpu in a well lit area (on an anti static bag just in case) and clean off the L1 bridges (located at the top left of the chip) with rubbing alcohol. Take a pencil and draw fairly thick lines between the L1 bridges in the picture below to the left. I would suggest using a .5mm lead pencil so you don't have any problems making straight and thin lines, and make sure that you draw them numerous times (thus making numerous layers of graphite) so that a good connection is made. Connect each bridge separately, and ensure that none of them touch. The lines should at least be dark enough to barely see the points below them. If you messed up, completely erase the marks with a normal eraser and start over.
Fire up the system and try to change the multiplier. If it boots with a different speed, then congratulations! You're done! If not, start all over again. Alternatively, you could use any number of conductive paints or other conductive products to connect the points, but lead is cheap and easy to obtain. If you do use a more permanent method to connect the points, I recommend that you mask off each set individually using tape and connect them one by one. If for some reason you are worried about the lead wearing off, you can place a small piece of tape overtop of them to keep them free of any hazardous materials, just make sure that the tape did not smear the graphite.
Unlocking the Athlon XP (Palamino Core)
The Palamino is much more difficult to unlock then the Thunderbird and Duron are. AMD saw that people were easily overclocking their chips and decided to try and prevent it, using burned in pits between the points to stop people from simply penciling them in. See for yourself in the image below!
The actual unlocking works just like on the older chips (go ahead and read the above section on them first), except that we have five bridges to connect instead of four. (When making the images I included the extra bridges in the row below to make clear that they should not be modified.) The first step is to fill in the pits so a good solid line can be made. Mask off the points using pieces of tape just like in the illustration below, so that only the pits are exposed. (Real tape will cover a much larger area, and thus be safer then the small strips in the image below.)
Now take any non conductive substance that will dry solid (I recommend brush on super glue or white-out) and fill in the pits. Once the substance is completely dry, remove the tape. You should have something like this:
Just like in the Thunderbird and Duron instructions above, connect the bridges. Your finished product should look like the image below:
Unlocking the Athlon XP (Thoroughbred A, Thoroughbred B,, and Barton core)
If you are an owner of any recent motherboard (All Epox Nforce2 boards included) you do not need to unlock your Thoroughbred or Barton processor. This is done automatically through a software trick built into board. If you look carefully, you can see that the L1 traces on these chips are already connected! (via the green traces seen below).
Information on unlocking these chips specifically for non-unlocking boards can be found here along with a ton of technical info on AMD chip bridges.
An alternative unlocking method #1
There is a significantly easier method to unlock all of the above chips, by modifying the motherboard they are going to be used in. I personally like the above methods because they are permanent on the chip itself. The big advantage here is that no one will be the wiser about your overclocking if you need to send your cpu back under warranty.
Find a wire you don't need. An old phone cord or chunk of coaxial cable will work well. Rip open the cord and pull out one single strand of wire. It needs to be as thin as possible preferably made of copper wire. Cut it down to about the length between 3 pins in the cpu socket. Bend it in a "U" shape and insert it in the socket as shown below.
Once you have the wire in position, simply install the processor over top of this and you're done! Make sure that the cpu locks in properly, this can be an issue if you use too thick of a wire. You should immediately test your multipliers to see if they are unlocked, and if not, recheck your work. Putting the wire into the wrong holes can kill your processor and possibly your motherboard.
An alternative unlocking method #2
This method is just an alternate way to do the above one. At bare minimum you will need very basic soldering skills to do this. Simply turn over the motherboard and locate the where the pins in the picture above come through on the back side. Make a small bridge between the two with solder, or alternatively, try and find something conductive to connect the two points other then solder (although I can't think of anything else that can make a reliable connection).
|
