Greebe, little Atlhon question for ya

[Vlip]

I have an Athlon 500 with an 650 core running at 750Mhz.
I use a Freespeed Pro to o'clock it and an artic circle to cool it.
I've read you have yours running at 850Mhz, I'd like to know what are the settings you are using: core voltage, multiplicator, mthb speed, L2 cache divider,...

I have nothing against earning a few more megahertz more if my Athy can take it
So if you could give me some advices...

Technically my Athy is now running with these settings:
7.5*102Mhz with L2 cache at 1/2 and core at 1.8V

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"Il est toujours intéressant de parler avec quelqu'un d'intelligent"
Dostoïevski

AMD Athlon 500(@750), Asus K7M, 196Mb PC100 SDRAM, Matrox G400MAX, Sb Live and a lot more toys and gadgets.

[Greebe]

First off ditch that GORB for the setting I'm about to say will render that HS worthless. Heat is your worst enemy with this processor. A copper cpu spacer with artic silver mounted to a GolbalWin VOS32, Alpha, one of the new solid copper HS's (I haven't decided which I specifically like as the best here yet). Once the processor is cooled extremely well I move on to these settings in two steps.

1.) 1.9Vcccore
Just set it here. I have found through testing most every production weeks quality
that 1.9Vcccore is the sweet spot.

From here, find what is the max mHz your processor will do without altering the L2's latency. This must be determined first so as not to waste time. Compare your finding with the L2 chart below.

2.) L2 cache latency

Typically I have found that if the L2 chips are;
3.6ns => 650-700 1:2
3.3ns => 700-750 1:2
3.1ns => 750-800 1:2
2.9ns => 800-850 1:2

If I can make it to those speeds with the core set to 1.9 then and only then alter the L2's latency. Happily most do, so next is to change the L2's to 1:3 and continue upping the multiplier.

Altho disabling the L2's completely would ensure you are testing only the processor, but this is impratical in the real world. Also the real world difference between 1:3 and 2:5 are so incredibly low it's not funny. The first generation Athlon's did not allow L2 setting of 2:5 so for those can't should not fret over it at all.

So from what you have given me so far I'd suspect you could hit at leat ~750mHz. If your L2's are of the 3.1ns type look to 800+ if your very lucky. I was with mine running 850 and with active (peltier) cooling can hit 9 no problem.

[Greebe]

Forgot to mention, all of the K7M's were unable to do any more than 110mHz FSB. So test that out throughly first. With the increased mem bandwidth it couldn't hurt.

I didn't like this MB at all do to the compactness. It's a major PITA when OCing/cooling/mounting a real HS! So you'll have to consider what HS that'll work best for your application and how far you are willing to take this. I'm close to finishing my dual pelt water cooled rig and post my results then.

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Designer of the first commercial Athlon mod.

beta system
3000 mips, 1.172 gflops @ 900 mHz 1:3 latency w/ active cooling
CPUmark99 75
FPU Winmark 4890

G400Max
3Dmark 99 Max (8x6 16, 16, triple) PD5.41, Athlon@850mHz
8000
15234

now running a G450

[Vlip]

I do not quite get what you are trying to say about the cooling system (what is a GORB?). For now on my system seems quite cool with my article circle.

I've already tested 800@1.9V and it does not even boot. So I do believe my L2 should be 3.3ns.
How do you change the L2 cache speed?

And I know the weakness of my mobo
I'm trying to up the FSB as high as possible, but my K7M seems to be really weak at that!

[Greebe]

The Artic Circle is none the different than the Golden Orb (GORB) as far as real cooling effeciency goes.

Now if you had purchased one of mine you wouldn't be asking HOW to change the L2 latency!

Take a peek here. http://www.minato.net/~gomakyu/hardware/athlon4.shtml

[Vlip]

Ok, I absolutely do not feel like modifying my lovely Athlon. I do not have the knowledge (even if I'm studying to fill that gap) nor have the will to risk his life for a hundred mhz.

Maybe in a few years, when I'll actually know how those babys works, I'll try to modify it.

Thanks for the input.

[Greebe]

If you know anyone that can solder well they can do this. You should even be able to find a service shot do it for cheap.

[Vlip]

I'll wait one or two years to have the access to the EPFL's computer hardware laboratory and to his hardware

I'd like to do it myself