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Paint Yourself An Athlon MP

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the conductive-paint-that-is dept.

SNIa asks: "How many people are checking the prices of AMD chips after seeing this?" and points out this article at HardwareZone.com about modifying Athlon XP processors to perform like MPs. No guarantees, except a voided warranty.

9 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. sort of by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Informative

    . However, do note that connecting these pads together does not automatically modify the CPU into an Athlon MP. It stays as an Athlon XP.

    It doesn't change the performance of the chip, only allows you to run two of the newer XPs in a dual motherboard.

    --
    I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  2. Don't try this at home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have worked in AMD's R&D department for the last six years. I was pretty involved in development of the XP and MP series in particular. Let me make clear that modding XP chips to work as MPs is a bad idea and will most likely result in one or two cooked CPUs within a month.

    Yes, we know about the trace. We put it there to differentiate between the XP chips which contained our hacks to make it play nice in multiprocessing systems (aka the Athlon MP), and the chips not containing those hacks (aka the Athlon XP). Think of it like this: converting your car to diesel would give a great increase in fuel mileage, but it cannot be achieved by simply adding a "DIESEL FUEL ONLY" decal by the gas tank.

    I don't want to sound elitist and say "Leave the chip-mods to the pros", but sometimes chip mods have an amateurish feel to them. Please, don't wreck your systems. Leave the traces on the XP chips alone.

    (posting anonymously to protect my job)

    1. Re:Don't try this at home by tempmpi · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, we know about the trace. We put it there to differentiate between the XP chips which contained our hacks to make it play nice in multiprocessing systems (aka the Athlon MP), and the chips not containing those hacks (aka the Athlon XP).

      AMD already said that the only difference between Athlon MP and XP is that the MP cpus passed the multiprocessor test. I think a chip mod like that is more like over clocking: AMD doesn't guarantee that it will work, but there is a good chance that it will work.
      How many Athlon MPs does AMD sell compared to the Athlon XPs ? 0.1% ? Many more cpus should pass the test and they will be sold as XP cpus.

      --
      Jan
  3. Good VIDEO and GUIDE for connecting the bridge... by Andorion · · Score: 5, Informative

    This could come in very useful when you're trying to MP-enable your chip.... or maybe you can unlock the multiplier and MP enable it at the same time? =) BWAHAHA.... Where else, but Tom's? =)

    -Berj

  4. Re:This proves little. by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you read the forum discussion about the article, you'll see them saying they have had it running W2K and SysMark 2001.

  5. How about Pep Boys or Track Auto? :-) by BLKMGK · · Score: 5, Informative

    Look for defroster repair paint. It'll be in a tiny bottle and is copper colored. It's got copper in it and is used to (duh) repair the copper defrogger lines on windows. It will work fine for this but it's pretty thin so be careful it doesn't run. Sometimes masking is a good idea but be careful that the "paint" doesn't wick under the tape. Just maybe use a toothpick to dab on the paint - you don't need much on there as it's a logic connection not something carrying amperage. In the past #2 lead pencils have been used for a removable solution. However this is much trickier IMO and is somthing I'd only try for test purposes.

    P.S. Yeah, there are actually places that sell conductive paint but they're usually not as common as an auto parts place. I'm not sure that RatShack actually carries this stuff but I guess it would be worth a shot...

    --
    Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
  6. Re:Perfornance Reports?? by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have a dual Tyan m/b with two XP chips in it. It runs hot, but it's been calculating SETI@Home more or less 200% of the time since it was installed, about 3 months ago. No problems, and I think it would have found them by now :-)

    Pretty soon it's going to be taken off SETI and put onto the real task, but I thought S@H would be a good reliability burn-in (not to mention adding 6-8 S@H units per day to my total :-)

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  7. What's the cutoff for "newer" chips? 1800+ works.. by Dynedain · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've been running to Athalon XP 1800+ 's in the dual proc board from Asus. My machine boots into WinXP Pro just fine and definately takes advantage of the dual processors (been watching cpu time and usage in the task manager) especially in 3D Studio. I just popped the chips in and the bios saw them as MPs. Does anyone know whats the min speed of the chips (1800, 1900, 2000?) that requires this mod?

    BTW... I haven't had any system instability related to the dual XPs. I had serious crashes caused by the Creative drivers/spyware, and I've had problems with power (the computer drawing more than the UPS can handle and tripping it). The most important thing w/ the dual proc athalon boards is to make sure you have a 450 watt power supply (and suitable UPS) or the system will crash.

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    I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
  8. Re:Doesn't really surprise me by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's an over-simplified view of the situation. Because the Duron's cache is smaller than the Athlon's, there will be more cache misses and there will therefore be more memory bandwidth consumed by it.

    The whole idea of cache is to reduce the memory bandwidth requirements. Because the Duron is more memory bandwidth hungry than the Athlon, they will scale less well when put in dual CPU configurations.