Thunderbird 1200 w/ 133/266MHz bus - Legitimate or not?

[kungfujoe]

I've been in the market for an Athlon T-Bird 1200 w/ 133/266MHz FSB for a few weeks. First, I ordered from www.altima2000.com, who took my money and then gave me hell. They claimed it was in stock, and then sat on my order for two weeks, claiming it was just about to ship both times they actually answered their phones. They ignored my emails and voice mails, and then eventually claimed that they returned them all, and couldn't be blamed if I didn't receive ANY of them.

I finally got ahold of them to cancel my order (and am still awaiting the return of my money!), and decided to place my order elsewhere (since I was getting fed up with their lies and the price had dropped $50 in those two weeks elsewhere).

Here's my question:

Everyone seems to be having trouble getting these things in stock, except for the company I placed my second order from (www.newegg.com), which sells the 1200/266 for the same price that they sell their 1200/200. They had it in stock, and shipped it the day after I placed my order. When I receive the chip, is there anything I can look at to make sure that this is a legit 266MHz FSB chip, and not a 200MHz FSB chip that was somehow altered to make it run at 266, when it's not actually rated to do so? (i.e. how can I tell if they took a 1200/200 chip and unlocked the multiplier to sell it as a 1200/266?)

(Needless to say, I'd advise avoiding Altima Solutions like the plague. Since they still haven't returned the money I sent them via PayPal, I don't know for sure that they're not trying to rip me off. But aside from that, they repeatedly lied to me and didn't ship my "in stock" order for two weeks).

Thanks in advance,

 

[DARRIN]

I guess just make sure none of the bridges have been tampered with. I don't have any experience with the 266 fsb chips but I think if you put it in and check your bios it should default to 133 fsb.

 

[VidmanII]

Jeesh Darrin, What are you using for cooling on the 1.2 of yours ??? That's a pretty nice # . I'm afraid my 1.2b is an underachiever. I like it tho and in my mind 1.3 ain't that slow.

 

[kylebisme]

i belive it whould say A1200XXXXc on the core, not A1200XXXXb like the 200mhz part.

 

[Jumpem]

Yeah, make sure the string ont he core ends with a "C".

 

[CTho9305]

Do you have any specific reason for concern? The "b" and "c" chips are 100% identical except for the multiplier, so you can get a 200 fsb chip and lower the multiplier. The CPU itself doesn't really care what the FSB is - all it does is multiply it to some internal frequency which is less than or equal to its highest stable speed (hopefully).

If you are still concerned, you can look at the L1 bridges and make sure they haven't been all closed. If they have, the chip could still be a 200 if the L3/4/5/6/7 (some, maybe all) have been modified. However, if all the bridges are correctly modified there is no difference between "b" and "c" chips.