Locked XP 2700 + Love it or Leave it?

[Mikee]

With my A7N8X and this OEM 2700, like QuadDamage, I see it is locked at 13x, and can't post if I go above or below that....so my question is whether it's worth it to use the conductive pen "U" connection outside the 5th L-3 or not (assuming that is the only connection needed).

It seems that many have been using multipliers of 12 or 12.5, so I'm just wondering how big a deal it is to leave it at 13 and raise the FSB to 180-190 instead. Partly I'm asking cause this CPU is buried under a nicely attached water cooler block, so it's not as easy to get at.

Thanks for any words of wisdom.

[mdzcpa]

That's really just a personal choice

If this help make the decision easier, I found that both A7N8X mobos i had topped out in the 188-192 range FSB wise. I could definitely run benchmarks at higher speeds (up to 200), but I would get little errors and crashes when gaming fore long hours at those speeds. Both boards were modded slightly for active cooling on the nb and I was using XMS 3500 C2 memory.

In the end, I used the 13 mutlipler anyway myself.

So if you're not that big on bansi benches and are looking for a tweaked but stable day to day settings, you probably wouldn't be missing much.

But, if you plan on benching and looking for the most out of the system, you need to unlock that chip. In addition, you may never know what your system can do if you don't.

[RickCain]

Hey Mikee! It's RickCain from the old OP4 days.

I would unlock the 2700+ with the wire trick (yes you must remove the cpu though) and try getting higher FPS with a lower mulitplier. You can also read this thread http://www.asusboards.com/forums/sho...threadid=31987 for information on how to unlock the CPU with no problems or this thread to possible get higher FSB performance http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&threadid=6934 to get more out of the processor.

Most people have no problem getting 10/11 x 200 with the Asus board. I had that board but after RMA'ing three due to BIOS failures I switched to the Abit NF7-S board. The Abit board should be shipping with the four holes around the CPU this month from what Abit is saying.

Nice seeing you!

[Mikee]

Hi Rick! Nice to see you...yeah this all started when I moved on to playing BF1942 and it wouldn't play for §§§§ on my 1.4 athlon and A7M266 (not even KT-A !!)....hey if I do the wire trick, does that unlock all the multipliers above and below 13? I read somewhere that the "U" bridging of L-3 5th enables lower multipliers, but not higher.

I also read that Quad Damage toastes his ASUS mobo doing something with this...but I started with BIOS C then tried G before I relized it was locked, then went back to "C" and it is working well in long term stress testing with the new Sandro 2003 utility, and with game playing in my Koolance box with water cooling of CPU, northbridge, Radeon 9700 Pro, two WD 1200/1800-JB HD's. Also have 2 sticks of 256 and 1 stick of 512 Corsair XMS 3500, SB Audigy Plat., a third Maxtor 160 GB drive, Plextor 40X burner, Sony DRU-500a burner, PC Geiger, Digidoc-5, Vantec Stealth 520 PS.

My Koolance, digidoc, and Probe cpu temps stay at 25-26 no matter what I'm clocking. Bios is 36-39 every time I look. I'm using settings with BIOS 1101-C of:

• CPU Ext Freqy=185
• Multiple default (auto)=13x
• CPU Interface=Aggressive
• Mem Frequ=Sync
• SDRAM Active Precharge delay=6
• RAS to CAS Delay=3
• RAS to Precharge=3
• CAS=2T
• CPU Volt core=1.75
• Gr. Aper. Size=128
• DDR Ref. Volt=2.7
• AGP VDDQ Volt=1.5
• 8X support=enabled

[weblife]

What if you want a Higher multiplier on the A7N8X?

Then what mod do you need to do?

[Mikee]

I think I saw the Lord, and he was carrying an Athlon XP2700 with L12 cut 3rd bridge.

I decided to take the plunge...this just wasn't any fun staying with a locked 13 2700. Cut the L12 3rd bridge, and used the wire in the socket trick...and was stable for an hour at 211x10 with A7N8X. I posted it all here, but have to upload the images after I get some sleep.

[RickCain]

LOL.. You got the overclocking bug! I'll send you some picks of my new Dteck TC-4 Rev2 waterblock that will make you drool!