Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Athlon XP is multiplier locked and not unlockable?

Last response: in CPUs
Share

It would seem the Athlon XP processors are multiplier locked. In addition, the old pencil trick no longer works. To quote someone from the <A HREF="http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=28&th..." target="_new">AnandTech forum</A>:

"Well, I tied the pencil trick -- it was a no go... On the chip itself -- it seems like where bridges have been severed there is a little microscopic valley all the way down the line. In other words, whereas the old Athlons just has a laser cut that severed the connections, it seems more like something has actually etched away the connections. I hope that makes sense. What I thought were raised bridges is in fact just the opposite. Everywhere the bridges are cut, their is a tiny, even and symetrical gouge or valley betwen the copper dots."

It looks like everyone is once again stuck with overclocking using only the external clock (FSB.)


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

More about : athlon multiplier locked unlockable

Register or log in to remove

Maybe, maybe not. We'll have to wait until there release to find out for sure.

Nice <b><font color=green>Lizards</b></font color=green> <b>crunch</b> Trolls cookies....... :smile: Yummy!! :smile:

Follow the link I provided. Someone has already managed to purchase one.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

I've been there and read that. He could have a chip released to vendors and it may be different than the release version.

Nice <b><font color=green>Lizards</b></font color=green> <b>crunch</b> Trolls cookies....... :smile: Yummy!! :smile:
Related ressources
Ask the community

Those who are determined will find a simple way to bridge the contacts, provided that the multiplier is not locked internally. If so, then overclocking will follow in Intels footsteps - FSB only.

<font color=blue>This is a Forum, not a playground. Treat it with Respect.</font color=blue>

Usually engineering samples are the ones that are <b>not</b> locked, not the other way around. Now then, let us move with this train of thought regarding overclocking Athlons using the external clock (FSB.) What kind of memory is available that goes beyond PC2100 while maintaining CAS2?

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

Crucial went to a 160MHz FSB at 2-2-2 in a review I saw a while ago. I think that qualifies.

And come on, you really have no evidence. One person who apparently has never unlocked an Athlon before, and you're taking his word for it?

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

I am not taking his word that noone could possibly unlock the processor. I am taking his word that AMD went to some greater lengths to make it much more difficult to unlock it, if not impossible.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

No need to lie, Ray. You clearly said it couldn't happen.

Quote:
Athlon XP is multiplier locked and not unlockable

Quote:
It would seem the Athlon XP processors are multiplier locked. In addition, the old pencil trick no longer works.

Quote:
It looks like everyone is once again stuck with overclocking using only the external clock (FSB.)


Nope, you seem to be clearly saying that it can't be unlocked.
Although it is at least more difficult to unlock, you can't yet say it's impossible.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

The old pencil trick clearly does <b>not</b> work. There is nothing wrong with stating so. If it can be unlocked, a new method will need to be used. Additionally, I never said it was a fact written in stone. This is why I said it 'looks' like everyone is stuck rather than saying straight out that they 'are' stuck.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

We still don't know that the pencil trick doesn't work. It looks like it doesn't, but one inexperienced person shouldn't set it in stone.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

Well then we will give to agree to disagree until they are released to the general public and others get their hands on some of them.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

Absolutely. Even though you're probably right, I just don't like saying things as fact without much evidence.

BTW, someone else in that thread has one, we'll see what he can do with it.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

Uh oh... Someone else from the same thread:

"The method they've used to cut the bridges is unique. It actually leaves you no area to make a connection between the two sides of the bridge. No matter how much lead I used I couldn't get it done"

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

What about those "connection markers" or "connection pens" I heard about somewhere? I do not know exactly what they were, but it was an electircally conductive material in a pen or marker, similiar to White Out pens.

Noone has tried a conductive pen yet. Unfortunately that would certainly be a more permanent solution than a pencil. There would be little chance of being able to return a dead processor once applying something like this.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

This doesn't bode well :( 

Conductive pens? That might work, but I doubt it.

Maybe AMD specifically targeted pencilling the bridges for some reason? That seems odd (and there's no reason why they shouldn't have just left them connected), but that's the only thing I can think of.

If connecting the L1 bridges has no use (CPU still locked), then why would they even have them up there? That makes no sense to me. Only time will tell, I guess.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>
CPUs Expert

It makes perfect sense that AMD MIGHT want to lock their bridges now. Why? To support their NEW lie. OK, they are releasing th XP chip with a new number that does NOT represent the true speed, such as 1800 for the 1533. Are they labling the processor internally as an XP1800, or are motherboard manufacturers supposed to set up a BIOS table that see's 1533 and looks up the name "XP 1800" in the table? If the name XP1800 is assigned by BIOS, then what gets displayed if the processor is running at a different speed, say, 1600? If BIOS does not have the numbers in the table such as "1600MHz=XP1900", then what's left to display? The true speed? AMD already told Motherboard manufacturers that they could NOT list the true speed!

Back to you Tom...

Heh... What a bind.

Perhaps this is the reason for the "+" in the name. An "Athlon XP 1800+" normally runs at 1.533GHz. If someone managed to run it at 1.6GHz you could label it an "Athlon XP 1800+0.467GHz". *laughing*

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

To quote a wise man.

"this was posted on an internet message board, and we all know how reliable their information is"

Of course I paraphrased.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

A single post by a single person is one thing. But many posts, screenshots, 3DMark results, etc. by two to three people are a bit easier to trust.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

I found a website that claims the P4 will soon have it's own PR ratings. When I find it again I will post a link.
It went something like the following.

P4 1.8 GHz will become P4 1.2 TBR
P4 1.9 GHz will become P4 1.33 TBR
P4 2.0 GHz will become PR 1.4 TBR

I'm not sure what TBR means.

Quote:
Additionally, I never said it was a fact written in stone. This is why I said it 'looks' like everyone is stuck rather than saying straight out that they 'are' stuck.

Hmmmm, What is the subject of this thread, "Athlon XP <b>is multiplier locked</b> and <b>not unlockable</b>"? Are these not your words? No ambiguity in that claim but you <b>are inconsistent</b>.

Would you like a Quarter Pounder?
No, thank you. Just give me the BIG heatsink. It's an Athlon.

I will stop now.
PR ratings are stupid and I can't believe AMD is dumb enough to use them. Their marketing team must really be dense if they think it will work. Athlon XP 1533 P2.0 would make more sense if they want to get the point across. It's not that hard for the average idiot to realize that all Mhz is not created equal. ie. Supercharged V6 will beat a standard V8 in a car race, etc.

With this marketing style they will always be #2 to Intel but I can live with that. As long as they keep turnings out cost effective products that perform on par with (or outperform) Intel's best I will keep buying them. Hell, I could upgrade 2 or 3 times more often and still have money left over. Somebody has to buy those $537 chips too. Ray and Melt I'm sure have families to feed.

WOW, that has to be the fastest turnaround in history.
I hour ago the XP was "multiplier locked" no way around it.
Now someone has found that a conductive pen does the trick.
You AMD guys will have to get up a little earlier in the morning to fool the average OC'er.

Thusfar noone has successfully used a conductive pen, so that is only a theory. As of now noone has successfully unlocked a locked Athlon XP processor.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

No, that was only his theory. Thusfar noone has successfully unlocked a locked Athlon XP processor.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

Rayy, can I ask you a question, howcome when I make a post with the word "most likely" as a precursor, you accuse me of spreading FUD. When your post is exactly the same except instead of most likely you have a ?.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

yet... give us a chance ;) 
buggered if the overclocking community is gonna have 0 multiplier changable processors to choose from...
*thinks*
if thats really the case then the demand for old 1.4's may increase... hmmmmmmm


Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

Read window defogger kit. Nice, but definately not as easy as the pencil trick. A great deal more permanent of a solution as well, but it works.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

Well Corsair has PC2400 (150mhz) @ Cas 2 available for purchace...
and ive seen a few internet sites for companies that claim to be releasing PC2700 DDR soonish, but i aint seen anything concrete yet.

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

Nice - I'm sorry about people giving you a hard time - it looks dumb shooting the messanger, but there you go.

I can only hope that this may be a more concerted effort by AMD to do what they did with the t-bird. Again, as speculation, possibly originally they had wanted samples locked, and so cut the bridges. Was this to protect the market, or to limit people estimating the scalability of the core? Anyway, eventually so many people worked it out that I guess AMD started shipping a significant percentage/most cores unlocked in the end. Either that or the extent of the core scalability had been pretty much reached and there was no point hiding it any longer.

Possibly they are doing and will do the same later (it would be nice to the overclockers) or alternatively the 'golden sockets' will get a lot more popular - although I'm not sure they didn't require an unlocked chip to work also...

-* This Space For Rent *-
email for application details

Again supposition, but here is a close up of the XP bridges. I am suspecting that AMD do the same to the XP as they do to the Athlon, no process difference, however it has a more significant effect and cuts partially into the 'organic' packaging of the XP, where it would only cut the bridge of the ceramic t-bird. This is why people are finding now that the pencil trick does not work and more drastic measures are required?

<A HREF="http://forum.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb..." target="_new">http://forum.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb...;/A>

-* This Space For Rent *-
email for application details

I agree, I dont think that AMD would purposely alienate its core market, home builders and overclockers.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

Stop making blind (Well, blind in one eye) accusations and such when the chip hasn't even been RELEASED YET. All this guy did was try to connect the L1 bridges, hell, we don't even know if he did it right or what. And big deal if pencil's dont work anymore. Someone will figure out something else and we'll use that.

<font color=red>umtqyvutkhgjvqffpcvpgrgtfocpgnnchvtcwqjvgepgjyoqthgtqhgtgjvtgdogogt....74pqkvcngxgt</font color=red>

looks like we have two contenders so far - dremmel/sand the packaging down and manually connect the bridges or possibly use defogger repair pens. I'm sure there will be a hack, it just may not be quite as convienient as the t-bird. Possibly this is just a function of the new packaging itself, rather than policy - maybe in the future we'll see factory unlocked XPs (possibly these are all from the same locked batch) etc.

Like you say, nothing to get too worked up about yet, and that sometimes includes jumping on the messanger, even if he did include his own conclusions!

-* This Space For Rent *-
email for application details

there is still the GOLDEN BRIDGES adapter thingie for those faint of hard with a defogger kit

i think its the new packaging as well.. not something AMD planned..... AMD has never made it hard to overclock there chips... why start now....

yeah - mentioned that 5 or 6 posts up, however I would suspect they do not currently fully work with palomino chips (which have the same pin layout, but previously unused pins enabled). Hopefully I'm wrong on that though. It ould need to support 1.4V setting for a start.....

-* This Space For Rent *-
email for application details

Quote:
When your post is exactly the same except instead of most likely you have a ?.


His original post didn't have the '?'. Apparently he added it after I went bitching and moaning about how he used one post on a message board by someone who has never successfully unlocked even a Tbird as fact.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

Yeah fatburger, I thought I remembered it ?less but I did not know for sure so I gave him the benifit of the doubt. For some reason he has been acting weird lately, rayy did meltdown hack your user account???

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

I did want to more accurately represent the facts. This is why I added the "?" after the first couple of posts. My intent is not to deceive, but to spread news.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other CPUs categories
!