Overclocking the
Socket A Athlon/Duron
Courtesy of
Tweakster.co.uk
excerpt from the
Duron Overclocking Guide
Author : Graham Crane of http://www.tweakster.co.uk/
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Introduction
AMD's new Duron and Athlon processors are an overclockers delight;
cheap, fast and fairly easy to squeeze more power out of it.
The Locked
Duron/Athlon
When you buy a new
Duron, the sad fact is, is that it will be multiplier locked. For
years now, Intel CPU's have been multiplier locked. This was
introduced in the Pentium 2 range in an attempt to stop
overclockers getting something for nothing out of Intel's
processor range.
The Pencil Unlock
Many of you may
have heard about the 'pencil trick', but you might not be sure
about exactly how to do it, and what it does.
If you look closely at your Duron, you will see a set of 'bridges'
- metal connections - labeled L1. And when you look even closer,
you should also notice that the two sides of these L1 bridges are
not connected together. These bridges are circles in the red,
below.
When these CPU's are manufactured, a tiny laser cuts through these
bridges, and BINGO, the CPU is multiplier locked. The simple way
around this is to reconnect the bridges. And what could be a more
widely available tool than a pencil?
I used the thinnest
pencil I could lay my hands on - a 0.3mm HB Staedler Marsmicro
pencil, bought from a local art/graphics shop. When you look at
the L1 bridges, they should look like this:
Can you see where
they are cut? Simply go over the bridges, connecting the top and
bottom of the bridges as you go along. You might want to use a
magnifying glass to get a better view. Be careful not to connect
two bridges together, as this will 'short' the circuit. Don't
worry too much if you do connect them be a mistake - just rub them
out with an eraser!
Multiplier adjustments can be made in BIOS if your motherboard
supports this feature.
