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this new chip, has it been unlocked or something?

L

lansalot

Senior member
Hi

Just got a P4 Northwood 3ghz off auction, sold as working. I notice however that two pins are locked together (amateurishly). With the chip the 'right way up', it's the bottom right hand corner. From there, it's on the outside at the fourth row up, and it's 1 inner neighbour.

Hmmm. Clear as mud.

Been googling to no avail, is my assumption on unlocking correct? And if so (and assuming it actually still works :/), what can I perhaps expect from it? More volts? Unlocked FSB etc?

Thanks for any advice 🙂

Chip is an SL6WK.
 
P4's can't be unlocked at all, even with pin mods. If the person attempted to do that, they probably don't know much about what they're doing, and you'll probably want to double check that everything is in order soon so you have time to make a complaint if necessary.
 
Thanks guys, will post a pic tomorrow. In the meantime, re: this pintrick/voltage mod? Do you have a URL i can check up on that?

Thanks
 
Is it one of these? If so, then read through this post and your answer will more than likely be found. Although the post is about mobile celerons, this should apply to all northwood based processors.
 
Originally posted by: lansalot
Thanks guys, will post a pic tomorrow. In the meantime, re: this pintrick/voltage mod? Do you have a URL i can check up on that?

Thanks
Click to expand...

All it does is bridge certain pins to make the cpu detect as having higher or lower default voltage. This is common with people who buy cheap motherboards with limited overclocking options. (most often 533fsb cpus overclocked to 800fsb as they are the only fsb options on low end boards).
 
Thanks for that pic TStep, unfortunately things still aren't so clear. I've highlighted the two that are joined in a red/white box, as seen here:

http://img148.echo.cx/img148/9876/478cpu2pn.jpg

Edit: doh, the inner section of this chip looks nothing like that one. Please refer to it only for the location of the pins that are joined, forget the rest 🙂

Edit again: I guess what this is coming down to is - are there any viewpoints on what that mod has done, will it likely have screwed the chip up if so? I have a new motherboard, memory etc arriving for this chip, and if I know the chip is likely to be dead, I'll just return the lot... the only reason I got this is because the CPU was cheap, so it won't hurt me to return it. I'm going to try my local PC store on Monday to see if they have a test-bed I can stick it in first, but all opinions on this very welcome 🙂
 
I would get rid of it, especially if you plan to run stock speeds. There is always a chance that this IS NOT the mod as well, and the guy just sent you a cpu with bent pins.
 
I would definately ask for a refund and get rid of that chip, it could be remarked and needs the extra voltage to run at the suggested speed (this was a common illegal activity with athlon xps) or suggest that the chip has been run over spec in the past, possibly making it less reliable.
 
Hmm..

Don't I feel like quite the idiot. I thought I would take a much closer look at the 'fabrication' work on that chip and so dug out the magnifying glass - only to discover it was, umm... thermal paste. Oops. Cleaned it up and the chip now looks as virgin as the day it left the factory.

Seeing as this was sold as working, I think I'll take a gamble on it after all. This time tomorrow I will either be very happy, or very pissed off. Either way, I'll report back for group amusement.

Thanks to all who 'chipped in' (hahahaetc). 🙂
 
OK....

Chip arrived, along with Gigabyte 8VM800M-RZ motherboard, 512mb PC3200 and 400w PSU. No extra PCI cards, using on board video. System boots up fine.

IDE1 - 8gb IDE drive. IDE4 - NEC cdrom.

Go to install XP, BSOD after first reboot. Try again, XP installs and then hangs after applying some patches. Big time.

Time to start checking things: voltages appear ok in bios, memory is at correct speed, not overclocked etc.

Install again, BSOD again. Damnit.

Run memtest86, loads of errors on test#8. Ah ha! No spare memory, so try to underclock memory to 100mhz instead of 400. Memtest again, all OK. Memory to 166mhz - memtest ok. Memory to 333mhz - memtest ok. Memory back to 400mhz - memtest ok (it wasn't a moment ago remember).

Weird. Install XP to completion, apply all patches and drivers, all bang up to date. Great. Go to bed leaving prime95 torture test running. Up 8.5 hours later, all fine no errors. Switch IDE disks (I have two 8gb) and go to install XP again. BSOD. Hmm. Install Adaptec card and known good SCSI drive. Install XP again - BSOD.

Get other stick of memory, 256mb PC3200 - install again, BSOD after some usage.

So, basically the machine is pretty damn unstable. I'm tempted to blame the CPU but wonder why memtest and linux stresstest and prime95 (when the machine was up) were running OK? And how come it ran all through torture on XP all last night without a wimper, yet a totally clean install produces errors within half an hour? That's with different disks and different memory - the only thing I haven't changed yet is the motherboard or CPU.

Anyone know of a tool to test the internals of a P4 for correct and consistent operation? At the moment I'm hanging fire on sending the lot back till my mates chip arrives, but in the meantime I'm very open to suggestions 🙂
 
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