8K3A+ & XP-M 2600 Higher Multipliers

[jmichna]

I have an 8K3A+, rev 1.2 mobo, flashed to latest BIOS and recently acquired a Barton XP-M 2600 (default is 15.0 x 133). Installed into the 8K3A+ at default CPU settings yields a 5.5 or 6.0 multiplier rather than the expected 15.0. Manually setting (in BIOS) to 14.0 or 15.0 yields lower multipliers... e.g. 15.0 yields 5.5

I've manually (within BIOS) set the CPU multiplier at 13.0 (yields 12.5x) and have adjusted bus speed to 166 and beyond (have been at 187).

My question: The CPU appears to be completely multiplier unlocked, however, my trusty 8K3A+ doesn't seem capable of delivering 13.0 and up coupled with this CPU. Is there any wire mod or any other trick that will let me take advantage of this CPU's OC capabilities?

[Zero'd In]

This is the very problem i'm having with my XP 2500+ mobile barton. I want to keep the fsb to 166 and use the multiplier to boost the cpu (i know many people will be shouting NO NO NO, but i need to achieve stability first...200+ fsb can come later). Anyway after some research i came up with this site
http://www.ocinside.de
Go to the Wrokshop then select the Interactive Pin Mod guide, put in your cpu specs and the multiplier you need and it shows you which pins you need to 'wire trick'. I think the 14.5 option would be best for me coz its only 2 pins to bridge....but it says something about 'Reserved'..does anyone know what this means? I think you must set the multipiler in your bios to autodetect for this to work....think i might try this trick tonight.
Incidently which bios are you running?

[Zero'd In]

Sorry just noticed you have latest bios...i also flashed up to this bios recently and have found the computer to be less stable,even with my old cpu. Think i might flash back to an older bios......

Zero

[jmichna]

Zero,
Thanks, great tool. Yeah, that mod to 14.5 seems the easiest (I assume the other wire mods were for the vCore, and we wouldn't need them since we can make those adjustments in BIOS). If I try this, I suppose I'll drop a wire loop into the socket holes rather than try to tie a tiny loop between two pins on the cpu itself. Let me know how you make out, and good luck on the mod.

[Zero'd In]

Yeah like i said i'll try it tonight..i'd already done the wire trick in the socket with my old xp2200 and it worked great. I used a strand of wire off an old floppy disk drive data cable. Let me know how you get on...Good luck!

Zero

[SteveI]

Originally Posted by jmichna

Zero,
Thanks, great tool. Yeah, that mod to 14.5 seems the easiest (I assume the other wire mods were for the vCore, and we wouldn't need them since we can make those adjustments in BIOS). If I try this, I suppose I'll drop a wire loop into the socket holes rather than try to tie a tiny loop between two pins on the cpu itself. Let me know how you make out, and good luck on the mod.

Sorry, but 14.5 looks easiest because it does nothing. The 14.5x multiplier is reserved. Many of the 1/2 multipliers over 13 aren't enabled since AMD assumed these would never be necessary. The 2 wires it instructs you to connect control the FSB, not multiplier. Play around in that site a bit. You should be able to identify which pins control what function.

[jnansley]

Originally Posted by Zero'd In

This is the very problem i'm having with my XP 2500+ mobile barton. I want to keep the fsb to 166 and use the multiplier to boost the cpu (i know many people will be shouting NO NO NO, but i need to achieve stability first...200+ fsb can come later). Anyway after some research i came up with this site
http://www.ocinside.de
Go to the Wrokshop then select the Interactive Pin Mod guide, put in your cpu specs and the multiplier you need and it shows you which pins you need to 'wire trick'. I think the 14.5 option would be best for me coz its only 2 pins to bridge....but it says something about 'Reserved'..does anyone know what this means? I think you must set the multipiler in your bios to autodetect for this to work....think i might try this trick tonight.
Incidently which bios are you running?

Ack! Please search the forum as there have been many discussions about this in the last few days. You do not need to lock in a fixed multiplier, you merely need to turn on the 5th multiplier bit, which will let you access the 13x+ multipliers. I myself wrote a post a while back that shows what the BIOS multipliers actually map to.

Look at this picture. The RED line unlocks the <13x multipliers. You do not need this. However, the mirror image of the red line, AJ27 to AH26, is what you want to connect. This unlocks the >12.5x multipliers (and your *minimum* multiplier will be 13x.

AH26 is VCORE. If you make any mistakes, you're going to need a new CPU. Cheers!

[jmichna]

jnansley,
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Followed your wire mod AJ27 to AH26 and am happily running at 14.0 x 172 = 2408mHz @ 1.60 vCORE. Haven't played with any other multipliers yet, rather happy sitting where I'm at right now... will let the HS paste settle in a bit. Not too shabby... an easy 1867mHz-->2408mHz OC too... better than my Barton 3000 @ 2340mHz... any higher got too hot due to vCore required.
WooHoo!

[jnansley]

I try

[Zero'd In]

Ok thanks for the info jnansley, but i'm a little confused as to which hole is designated Ah26....is it the hole 3rd down from the top of the pic or the 2nd?
I don't want to get this wrong and blow the chip....

thanks

zero

[Zero'd In]

Ok no need to reply..just found a socket block diagram with designations.

Thanks

Zero

[Zero'd In]

Ok just to report back that i now have 14x175 @2434mhz at 41 degrees.....rock stable! This chip and mod has given my board a new lease of life, the old 8k3a just refuses to roll over and die. I think i might try for a little more fsb (voltage is currently at 1.65)...but i'll let her burn in for a week or so first. Incidently i noticed 2 of my caps have started to bulge (one has leaked a little brown stuff)...these are the big ones that run along the side of the socket. I reconnected my 120mm fan which blows over the northbridge,cpu,mem are to see if this helps with cooling...current system temp is 32 degrees.

Once again many thanks to those who helped (and for their patience)

a very happy

Zero

[Lazgoat]

Originally Posted by Zero'd In

Ok just to report back that i now have 14x175 @2434mhz at 41 degrees.....rock stable! This chip and mod has given my board a new lease of life, the old 8k3a just refuses to roll over and die. I think i might try for a little more fsb (voltage is currently at 1.65)...but i'll let her burn in for a week or so first. Incidently i noticed 2 of my caps have started to bulge (one has leaked a little brown stuff)...these are the big ones that run along the side of the socket. I reconnected my 120mm fan which blows over the northbridge,cpu,mem are to see if this helps with cooling...current system temp is 32 degrees.

Once again many thanks to those who helped (and for their patience)

a very happy

Zero

I know what you mean about the 8K3A+'s refusing to roll over and die!
Post a link to the Block diagram and which wire trick you did. I'll probably do mine this week!
Not good news about the Caps!
Contact your local Epox tech and see if they can replace them for you. I read a thread here where some one did that even though the board was way out of warranty date, Epox rock!

Laz.

[jmichna]

Originally Posted by Zero'd In

Ok just to report back that i now have 14x175 @2434mhz at 41 degrees.....rock stable! This chip and mod has given my board a new lease of life, the old 8k3a just refuses to roll over and die. I think i might try for a little more fsb (voltage is currently at 1.65)...but i'll let her burn in for a week or so first. Incidently i noticed 2 of my caps have started to bulge (one has leaked a little brown stuff)...these are the big ones that run along the side of the socket. I reconnected my 120mm fan which blows over the northbridge,cpu,mem are to see if this helps with cooling...current system temp is 32 degrees.

Once again many thanks to those who helped (and for their patience)

a very happy

Zero

Zero,
If your CPU is like mine, I'll bet you can back down to 1.575vCore at that setting and still be rock solid. Good job on the AJ27 to AH26 mod!
jmichna

PS: right now I'm running at 14.0x179=2506mHz@1.625vCore.

[Zero'd In]

Lazgoat, i have modded the picture jnansley posted to show which holes to bridge. The red line indicates unlocking of 12.5 and under, the purple line will unlock multipliers above 12.5 (although i haven't tried any others yet). The green line is for vcore adjustment which we don't need to worry about on this cpu/mobo combo. You could be well right about dropping my cpu voltage..i just guessed that 1.65 should be enuff. I'll try stepping down to see what happens. Prime 95 craps out if i push the fsb past 175 tho...maybe need to relax mem timings or give more voltage to mem (cas 2.5 PC2700 corsair extreme). I currently have voltage .10 over stock.....or maybe the radeon doesn't like high agp speeds??

Cheers
Zero

[jmichna]

Zero'd In,
Nice amended diagram. FWIW, I use Corsair XMS 3200DDR and Geil 3200DDR in all three of our PCs and I give all the ram +0.20 up to about 175mHz and then +0.30 for bus speeds >175mHz to improve stability. I've been doing this for a couple years now, and have seen no negative effects on the ram. I've even had the Geil up to 200fsb at +0.30 in my daughter's PC (8K5A2+ KT333 mobo) for benchmarking purposes.

I've run my Radeon 9800XT at bus speeds up to 187mHz with no video problems either. I didn't go higher because I didn't want to fubar my HD's data (running RAID-0).

My suggestion would be to try up'ing vDimm +0.30 (you can always drop back to +0.20 after testing it out) before relaxing the mem timings, just to see what happens.

Right now I'm running a stable 14.0x180=2520@1.650vCore, +0.30vDimm.

[Lazgoat]

Originally Posted by Zero'd In

Lazgoat, i have modded the picture jnansley posted to show which holes to bridge. The red line indicates unlocking of 12.5 and under, the purple line will unlock multipliers above 12.5 (although i haven't tried any others yet). The green line is for vcore adjustment which we don't need to worry about on this cpu/mobo combo. You could be well right about dropping my cpu voltage..i just guessed that 1.65 should be enuff. I'll try stepping down to see what happens. Prime 95 craps out if i push the fsb past 175 tho...maybe need to relax mem timings or give more voltage to mem (cas 2.5 PC2700 corsair extreme). I currently have voltage .10 over stock.....or maybe the radeon doesn't like high agp speeds??

Cheers
Zero

Hey Zero'd In, thanks for the new image! So all I have to do to get the higher multipliers is use the purple line and I'll get multi's over 12.5? Nice!

Laz.

[Zero'd In]

Well give it a go and see Laz, but it appearently only lets you use x14 (for me anyway). I have my cpu ratio set to 'auto' and it selects x14, if i try to manually select it gives me an error message at boot up and sets my fsb to 133mhz. On my system 14x172 (2405mhz) is way more stable than 12.5x anything above 175 (2187mhz). 14x166 will start you off at 2324 which isn't half bad. Maybe if i mess with my memory timimgs i could do a bit better.. i still can't believe how cool this thing is running...(39cpu/32system unloaded) compared to my old XP2200+ 'Cooker'.
Get that case cover off and go for it Laz!

Good Luck (see you on the other side)

Zero

[jmichna]

Originally Posted by Zero'd In

Well give it a go and see Laz, but it appearently only lets you use x14 (for me anyway). I have my cpu ratio set to 'auto' and it selects x14, if i try to manually select it gives me an error message at boot up and sets my fsb to 133mhz. ...

Same experience here with my 8K3A+... "auto" yields 14.0. Manually setting 14 or 15, and the few lower settings I've tried (6.0, 6.5, 7.0) all resulted in no boot and a reset to "auto" and 133mHz, as reported by Zero'd In.

[Lazgoat]

Originally Posted by Zero'd In

Well give it a go and see Laz, but it appearently only lets you use x14 (for me anyway). I have my cpu ratio set to 'auto' and it selects x14, if i try to manually select it gives me an error message at boot up and sets my fsb to 133mhz. On my system 14x172 (2405mhz) is way more stable than 12.5x anything above 175 (2187mhz). 14x166 will start you off at 2324 which isn't half bad. Maybe if i mess with my memory timimgs i could do a bit better.. i still can't believe how cool this thing is running...(39cpu/32system unloaded) compared to my old XP2200+ 'Cooker'.
Get that case cover off and go for it Laz!

Good Luck (see you on the other side)

Zero

I completely missed the most important part of this thread, its meant for XP-M Boartos! I have an XP1700+
Is the wire trick the same? If not please post the trick for me!

Laz.