ASUS A7M266-D & Athlon XP-M Project

[StarTraveller]

BTW, I've seen several people running mobile CPU's around the 2.4GHz mark so with two you would be getting close to 5GHz if you want to OC them. Also, at 2.4GHz it should be able to give the P4 a run for its money.

[StarTraveller]

While I still wait for an opportune moment to actually make the hardware upgrades then I found some nice reading:

Info on Athlon XP-M's in various dual processor motherboards:
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52721

Enabling PowerNow! on a A7M266-D:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=292990

The first is a nice reference and the second is definitely a guide that I shall be taking a closer look at. I would love my CPU's to idle at only 800MHz and then watch the speed jump to 1.8GHz whenever the horsepower is required .

bigtoe also gave me a couple of links a while back regarding tweaking the sh!t out the MPX platform, hehe:
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10587
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34861

Enjoy the reading .

[Paladin13]

Hi there!
Just joined the forum since this is a topic that interests me the most!
I have 2 x Athlon XP 2000+ modded to MP2000+ by doing the well known bridge crossing in the first pair of L5 bridges. Apparently, as I read yesterday in tomshardare.de, by crossing the next pair of L5 bridges the processor becomes Athlon XP-M which is fantastic to say the least.

Since My board though only supports Athlon MP processors for Dual operation, I was wondering...In case I cross the next pair of L5 bridges in order to mnake the processor Athlon XP-M, will it lose SMP capabilities? Will I work wih a single CPU?

I have read that if I manage to make the processor Athlon XP-M, during nighttime, when I download stuff, I can reduce the processor speed to 300 MHz to keep only windows, firewall and download software running with NO FANS AT ALL!!!
This is super cool actually since noise has always been a problem.
Anyway..Looking forward to watch the progress of this topic. In case I have something new, I will post it. Thanks!

[StarTraveller]

I should be able to tell you at some point since I plan to try the 2 Athlon XP-M's in a dual configuration without modding them. If they work in a dual configuration (other people's findings support that) then I'm going to try and make use of the PowerNow! features to make it possible to throttle the CPU speed (mostly to save power).

However, I've been swamped with everything else and freaking BIOS update is presently what lies between me and completing the upgrades - actually, it's a matter of finding a floppy disk that works .

[Paladin13]

Ok I have some news...
My two CPUs are Palominos!
Which is bad news really...
Allthough unlocking them to become MP was very easy (4th L5 bridge crossed), so far I am unsuccessful in making the XP-M mod on them. I am not really sure if this mod works on them because their multiplier is locked! I most certainly can unlock it by crossing the L1 bridges, but will it enable powernow! ?
I am a bit lost and confused now....
I tried to see what potential I have in dropping the Bus for underclocking (underclocking and not overclocking is my primary purpose, since I want to make them operate fanless) and I can drop the Bus to 90MHz in my ASUS A7M266-D (v1.08 BIOS) which gives me 1125MHz from each processor. I also used the Board jumpers to drop the voltage from 1,75 to 1,55V. I havent tried dropping it further more.
Anyway my questions if anyone has any idea on them are:

1) Is there any software I can use to increase/decrease Bus speed and Vcore from Windows?

2) Does the XP-M mod work with Palominos? If yes, what do I have to do? Do I have to unlock L1s? So far I have the 3rd and 4th L5 bridges crossed.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[StarTraveller]

I finally managed to locate a floppy without bad sectors, hehe .

I'm now running BIOS rev. 1011 beta 3, which is the newest one available. I've attached it to this post for everyones convenience .

[StarTraveller]

I have been doing some more research on which modifications I need to make in order to use the Athlon XP-M's in the way I desire.

Throughout this thread (and this post in particular) I try to use the notation suggested by Fab51.

My understanding of it all is that while the machine is booting the motherboard will use the standard non-mobile bridges to determine how to treat the processors. This is due to the fact that the motherboard itself is not "mobile aware" (it probably completely ignores the L5[2] bridge).

So in order to get the proper voltage and multiplier I must ensure that those bridges provide me with a 1.350V core voltage and a 13.5X multiplier (as I've decided to run the processors at default speed).

By default my processors L3 (multiplier) and L11 bridges (core voltage) are configured like this (with C meaning closed and : meaning open):

L3[4-0]
C C : : C

L11[4-0]
C : : C :

This configuration translates into a multiplier of only 6X and a core voltage of 1.525V. Not exactly what I want.

The desired configuration is:

L3[4-0]
: C : C :

L11[4-0]
: C : C C

My preferred way of doing a modification shall be by performing a pin hole connection modification, i.e. inserting a small strand of wire into two socket pin holes to force a connection. This method shall only get me almost to the finishing line, though. In order to completely get the desired result I shall have to also cut a bridge.

The good news from my research is that I can both open and close L3 bridges by use of the pin hole connection modification.

The bad news from my research is that I apparently have to do a permanent modification in order to achieve my goals . The L11 bridges can only be closed using the pin hole connection modification and to get 1.350V I shall have to open L11[4].

After cutting the L11[4] bridge the rest can be accomplished using the following pin hole connection modification:



A small footnote for the illustration: For some unknown reason OC Inside has not included voltages below 1.475V so I cheated a little and figured out the pin holes for myself.

I have all the information required now to make any configuration and at some point I may decide to sketch a socket overview detailing all that information (e.g. if enough people start asking about it, hehe).

I am considering not doing the voltage modification (due to the required permanent modification of cutting a really tiny bridge) and just accepting that it runs at 1.525V, but I worry that it may later provide an obstacle in getting PowerNow! working under Windows (because the voltage drop may cause everything to crash). I am still undecided on this...

[Paladin13]

Eventually I think I will buy a couple of Athlon XP-M 2800+ to do the job for me. I definetely need the Powernow! mod to work for me so that I can drop the CPU speed in the evening.

[StarTraveller]

I haven't been able to find a 35W Athlon XP-M rated above 2400+. From that point they're all rated for 45W or more. This was the main reason I chose these processors .

[Paladin13]

Damn!
Not good!

[StarTraveller]

Sometimes things just get stranded on my desk. For instance, this project .

Anyway, I'm bumping this thread to tell that I've now cut the L11[4] bridge on each CPU and expect to install the CPU's and other hardware as soon as I've finished my pancakes with ice cream (yum yum ).

[StarTraveller]

It's running with the Raptors now. I chose not to do RAID0 this time.

I have a 20 GB partition on drive 0 for the OS and applications. The rest of the drive will be used as a temporary workspace.

Drive 1 has 3 GB partition for the pagefile (2 GB) at the beginning of the drive, which has been formatted with 64 KB allocation units for optimal speed. The rest of the drive will be used for storage.

I won't have time to install the CPU's tonight so I'll keep you waiting for juuust a bit longer before I have anything really interesting to tell you, hehe.

I've decided to keep my old server running (the good old CUSL2 with a 1 GHz Pentium III) so I'll probably let that one keep its two 180 GB drives. Instead I'll purchase a new 250 GB Hitachi 7K250 for the new server.

The old server will inherit the 18.4 GB Quantum Atlas 10K-II and the Adaptec AHA-2940U2W, which will be its OS and applications drive. This should give a boost in I/O as the old server is primarily a file server and will then be running data and system processes off of two different storage systems.

But this was just a little side step to keep you posted in general .

[StarTraveller]

I can hardly believe it. 1½ years after abandoning this thread, I can update it with some news.

The Athlon XP-M's are installed and everything went smoothly due to the amount of research I had done two years ago. I took my notes in this thread and applied them step by step. The computer booted perfectly and recognized the CPU's as MP capable Athlon XP-M @ 1800 MHz and fed them the desired 1.35 V.

I'll admit that it took some time to complete, though, because I had to place no less than 8 small strains of copper in each socket. Also, I had trouble finding an appropriate copper wire that I could use for the purpose. Each strain is now placed in tiny carved out "ditch" between the pinholes it connects. This is the same procedure as when I wire-tricked my CUSL2 setup.

The only casualty was my Windows installation, which appear to have been hosed by the upgrade, but I was planning a fresh install anyway. I just need to get enough access to pull the needed stuff off of the drives. I'm going to put the two Raptors in RAID0 this time around to squeeze every bit of performance out of the setup, which is also being upgraded with a Gainward BLISS 7800GS 512MB Golden Sample+ - that's 7900GT based AGP power!

[h20-ski]

Awesome setup. Much like my own, except for the power and the video card, and the processors, ah heck you have one nice setup.

[StarTraveller]

It's actually shaping up nicely for a legacy setup. Unfortunately, I won't have time to do much with the setup until late Saturday... I didn't plan for the upgrades to hose the Windows installation.

... It just reboots spontaneously while loading Windows - even when booting into Safe Mode.