Quick Athlon XP questions, see inside.

[BatmanNate]

I am interested to know if the new T-bred core Athlons are still unlockable using the rear window defogger pen, or if there is a prefered method now. (I've been out of the game for a while) Also, does anyone know if these will run in the Tyan 2640? (Tiger MP, 760mp chipset)

 

[BatmanNate]

Tyan's website only lists support to to 1900+ for this board, but 2600+ for the Thunder K7 which is the same board/chipset but with onboard SCSI/LAN etc.

 

[techfuzz]

I don't know about the board only supporting 1900+, but a BIOS update most likely would fix that since the chipset should support those faster chips.

If you HAVE to unlock your XP then use the wire method. It involves taking a piece of very thin copper wire and sticking it into 2 pin holes in your CPU's socket. This is the preferred method as it does not physically alter the chip in any way. If you are buying a new nForce2 board, more than likely you won't need to unlock your chip as the BIOS will do it for you.

techfuzz

 

[BatmanNate]

I'm going to be running the Tyan still since nForce doesn't support duallies. As for the BIOS update, I would assume Tyan would have taken that into account, however there are reports that this will work, however the actually clock speed is displayed instead of the PR number. A few other questions that I had:

Will this affect the 5v stability of the system much, or should the die shrink of the newer chips offest that?

When I unlock the chip (I assume unlock as in allow it to run in SMP mode) will I also be able to unlock the multiplier?

If you use copper wires to connect the bridges, isn't there a risk of them not being secure and shifting around and shorting something once the chips and HSF's are mounted?