Slashdot Mirror
Paint Yourself An Athlon MP
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.
. 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.
that they would have this capability, although disabled. I mean they just cripple the chip so that they can get more cash out of the MP versions, smart move unless you wan't another fiasco like the celeron/pentium II.
:)
The bottom line is that only a few hobbiests and nerds are going to go to this length to get it working, certainly not many businesses are going to accept this. So AMD makes it difficult enough so that you can't do it at the flick of a switch, but you can with a little guts (and silver paint). Seems like a win/win situation to me.
Also don't forget it may be easier just to use a couple of Durons to accomplish this task, dirt cheap too
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
While serving the purpose of locking the cpu for ordinary people, these small bridges on top of the cpus have attracted all the HW geeks which have unlocked, overclocked, underclocked (to get a quiter system)these cpus.
One of the biggest strength in the Athlon line (in my opinion) is that AMD have been able to sell locked cpus to 90% of the population but have made it possible for the last 10% to overclock these cpus. They have won both the normal consumers and the techfreaks in that respect.
.... ofcourse it also helps that their cpus are affordable and that there are plenty of them!
Thomas S. Iversen
On the second page:
:)
Approved by Jimmy Tang on Friday, 15th of March,2002 [...]
Below is where you'll find the bride.
Being Friday, maybe the thought of getting layed enhanced his sense of humor...
For a while I thought it was like the Pentium III...
This is taking overclocking to the next level. The kind of people who do this sort of thing have always had the "warranty voided" hanging over their heads.....
... I think tech writers use this spiel instead of the less friendly "we are not going to be held responsible if you fsck up"
What I would be keen on is for someone who has done this to tell us how stable their machine is.
I am yet to read a article on overclocking etc that does not say that some users have experienced problems...
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
The article never got out of POST... It's a nice though that just because you fooled the motherboard into thinking the CPU's have MP support they really do. This article proves nothing to me. Not until I see some *nix (or NT I guess) boot up and utilize both CPU's I'll just assume it's wishful thinking. Like setting your 500MHz celeron to 3 GHz and watching it post for about 3 seconds right before the chip burns :p
Can anyone link to a better site? one that does actual so it working?
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)
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
You want me to put make-up on my CPU? What's next? a pink leotard and a tutu?
sigfault. comment dumped.
Every now and then a used Cray turns up on Ebay, so it might be worth a look. It'd save on heating bills, and make a good conversation piece, too!
Somehow I don't think so. It might not work right, it might crash, but burn? Umm, how exactly is that going to happen? As for protecting your job - perhaps posting in something other than your actual name? You didn't actually use your name for your account did you?
;)
Seriously, I'm not trying to flame but claims that it will burn in a month or so sound awfully thin. Your going to have to either explain it a little better or point to some evidence of this occuring somewhere. Guess we'll know "in a month or so" one way or the other huh? BTW - all those neato' hacks made it into the Duron but not the XP?!
One thing the article did NOT give and that I hope the next one will is BENCHMARKS. On the off chance that this guy isn't trolling benchmarks ought to tell us if both CPUs are actually being used by the OS and if those "hacks" are actually for real. Compare it to SMP Durons for instance - is it much faster? I'd also be interested in hearing more about what SMP MBs work best - I nearly bought the Tyan this weekend
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
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
IC speed is generally a part selection - all the parts are made the same, then tested and sorted by how fast they'll go. The slowest gate on the chip determines the speed limit. That's why testing matters; you may have 20 million gates that work at a high speed, and one that doesn't.
AMD's own CPU price list is interesting. The fastest MP is the 2000+, while the fastest XP is the 2100. Does this indicate a speed penalty for enabling multiprocessor mode? It may.
The faster processors cost far more than the slower ones, and it's unlikely that they really have a severe yield problem that requires this. It's unusual today for a fab to produce large numbers of substandard parts. Today, yields below 80% indicate serious problems in the fab. Some fabs report 99.5% yields. A decade ago, variability in the fab was much higher; a whole range of speeds came out, along with a sizable percentage of rejects. Today, the processes are much more uniform.
(Think about what this means. Sizable wafers are being produced with almost all the atoms where the design says they're supposed to be. That's an achievement. And then these bozos slap conductive paint on the pins and think they've done something cool.)
okay, let's here it from the females... ladies? Anyone there? Helloooooo.... [echo echo echo]
If I recall, microprocessors for a given line are all produced using the same process. Because the process is not exact, each microprocessor has slight variations from the one next to it. These variations have an impact on performance.
These variations are typically the reason for different clock speeds. The more variations there are and the farther they are from the spec, the less likely the component will work as designed. However, by slowing down the clock, you can get the component to work reliably. Also, microprocessors have redundant components in their design so that if one is not fabricated properly, the microcode will use one of the redundant blocks.
Simply put, AMD doesn't say they will build 700 XP 1400s and 300 MP 1400s. Rather they schedule a production run on a given line for 1000 chips knowing that about 30% of the chips will be suitable for multiprocessor use. If there is only demand for 100 MPs, then they will simply label 200 of the chips that passed the MP test as XP in order to satisfy the demand. The chips that came out perfectly are the high clock speed/large feature count chips. If features fail or the chip cannot work at a given clock speed, the requirements are dropped to a lower level and the processor is labelled as such. Also not that as time goes on and the process is refined, more "perfect chips" are made and so more chips of a higher clock speed can be made. This is why processors start life with a slow clock and slowly get better as the manufacturing process is tweaked.
So, when you put a XP into a MP system, you are taking some chances.
1) Your chip is simply a relabelled MP that works fine in both roles and was relabelled to meet XP demand.
2) Your chip is a failed MP that was labelled as XP because not all the MP parts work right.
Either way, you have little to loose by trying it as an MP. I would use a reversible techique, such as soldering copper foil to the pads, so that the mod can be undone if the processor is a #2.
The reason that AMD does not publicly say this is that it is very difficult to explain this to the average, or even technically inclined Joe and they get little benefit from doing so. It would be a disaster if AMD said to TechieJoe that MP and XP were the same thing and said to AOLJoe that MP and XP are different. Just stick to the story that the processors are different, because they usually are.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
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.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....