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To make all this happen, the motherboard BIOS must activate a few registers to provide the required functionality. If this is not the case, the system simply crashes at the very attempt.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Chipset
Register
Bit/Function
NVIDIA nForce2*
F6, Bit 4E7, Bit 4
Halt DisconnectFID_Change Detect
VIA KT133A
55
Bit 2=1
VIA KT266, KT266A, KT333
95
Bit 2=1
VIA KT333CF, KT400, KT400A, KT600
D5
Bit 2=1
*only works on a few boards
Unfortunately, it is only possible to change the multiplier on a few motherboards. One of the fastest, the Asus A7N8X-E, crashed every time we tried.
Multiplier In The BIOS: Boot With What?
As the end-user is mostly also prevented from changing the CPU voltage on the fly (without a reboot), a well-functioning combination of multiplier and CPU voltage must already be selected in the BIOS. What makes this difficult is that most motherboards offer the multipliers x5.0 or x6.0 as their smallest value - none of the mobo-makers offers anything below that.
Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
