Pretested CPUs - A Stroll Down Memory Lane

[DrMrLordX]

This thread has made me consider this again. I may have a way to make this work now... hmm...

Hey, if anybody could do it . . .

lol@idiots.

Just cause your particular setup got you XXXXMHz doesn't mean it will do anything on my setup.

I think most of the posters here are saying that it would too risky to be worth it, which is why the pre-testers from days of yore are more-or-less out of business. Your point is not lost on those posting in this thread.

I still have a STEP Thermodynamics P233mmx that STILL WORKS!

How far did that thing overclock? I always wanted to overclock my k6-233 but never did . . . something to do with how the FSB/multi jumpers worked on my motherboard. I could run it at 225 mhz @ 75 FSB which provided some improvements here and there (exploiting the mobo settings intended for Cyrix chips), sort of, but it wasn't a true overclock.

@DrMrLordX

In my opinion the only safe way of selling a modern overclocked chip is to sell as a bundle with the motherboard and RAM. The stipulation being, if you assemble the system and boot you will get the overclock you paid for but if you change the BIOS settings in any way then the overclock is no longer guaranteed. I know at least one large enthusiast vendor does this in the UK. I think it is mighty brave of them and I would definitely not buy one of their stock systems for fear of getting a nail of a CPU included

Not a bad idea. You would be able to avoid some of the VTT disasters you can encounter with LGA1156 (socket burn) and with Gulftown. But yeah, don't buy non-certified chips from guys like that for DIY overclocks.

 

[Gillbot]

How far did that thing overclock? I always wanted to overclock my k6-233 but never did . . . something to do with how the FSB/multi jumpers worked on my motherboard. I could run it at 225 mhz @ 75 FSB which provided some improvements here and there (exploiting the mobo settings intended for Cyrix chips), sort of, but it wasn't a true overclock.

WOW, trying to jar my memory eh?

It would do more than 300 IIRC but I ran it at 2.5x100 most of the time.

 

[Rubycon]

How far did that thing overclock? I always wanted to overclock my k6-233 but never did . . . something to do with how the FSB/multi jumpers worked on my motherboard. I could run it at 225 mhz @ 75 FSB which provided some improvements here and there (exploiting the mobo settings intended for Cyrix chips), sort of, but it wasn't a true overclock.

Haha the 75 and 83MHz settings. Going over 40 on the PCI really messed with HDDs particularly Maxtors. (then again what didn't mess with Maxtors?!)

Cyrix was basically overclocked from the factory. Those chips had really poor margins to begin with. They could cause a BSOD at STOCK if your cooler was dusty.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Haha the 75 and 83MHz settings. Going over 40 on the PCI really messed with HDDs particularly Maxtors. (then again what didn't mess with Maxtors?!)

Cyrix was basically overclocked from the factory. Those chips had really poor margins to begin with. They could cause a BSOD at STOCK if your cooler was dusty.

Happily the OCed PCI bus never hosed up my system. That machine had an aha-2940UW, a Toshiba 12x CD-ROM drive and . . . some WD 4-gig HDD. Seeing 0% CPU utilization during heavy drive usage was pretty leet, and the CD-ROM spun up faster than anything I've used since (something to do with it being CLV instead of CAV?). That system was silly. I had 128 megs of PC-66 SDRAM in there, and at the time, the "PC" standard hadn't been set, so it was sold on its alleged latency (10ns) and on the fact that it was "zero wait state". Never could tell if the 430TX chipset was caching it properly or not (some said it had a 64mb limit, but Intel swore up and down that it didn't).

And yeah, Cyrix CPUs were . . . interesting. I remember some 5x86s burning out at stock.

 

[Rubycon]

You wanted the HX chipset to cache up to 512MB. Did yours have a COAST socket (Cache On A Stick)?

I had a UltraPlex 32X UltraSCSI version on a 2940UW card. Best audio ripping bar none! I was using IBM ultrastars on the UW bus (68 pins). 4.3GB SCSI 7200 RPM disks were expensive then! I got the 9.1GB cheetah that sounded like marbles in a blender on frappe!

Oh also close to the time were fake L2 DIP chips! I had an Octek i486 board with an AMD DX4-120 that was performing poorly (memory wise) and found out the L2 DIPs were nothing more than pieces of plastic with legs! :sneaky:

 

[vanilla guerilla]

I still have a STEP Thermodynamics P233mmx that STILL WORKS!

does it still have the original step thermo cooler epoxied to it? i am pretty sure i have a step thermo cooler or some step labelled fans around somewhere. i am going to take a look and post a pic. step also got into power supplies near the end there. they were the only guys that i can remember selling guaranteed overclocked ram. great customer service. i think they were in chicago.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Haha the 75 and 83MHz settings. Going over 40 on the PCI really messed with HDDs particularly Maxtors. (then again what didn't mess with Maxtors?!)

Cyrix was basically overclocked from the factory. Those chips had really poor margins to begin with. They could cause a BSOD at STOCK if your cooler was dusty.

I had a 430TX mobo, with a K6(-2?) 400, and I tried it on the 75Mhz FSB setting, which of course overclocked the IDE to 37.5Mhz instead of 33, and I had a WD 8.4GB HD, and it would start throwing errors. But only in a certain region of the drive! Not all the time, which made it all the more wierd. Clocking it back down to normal resulted in normal results, so the drive wasn't bad itself.

 

[Rubycon]

I had a 430TX mobo, with a K6(-2?) 400, and I tried it on the 75Mhz FSB setting, which of course overclocked the IDE to 37.5Mhz instead of 33, and I had a WD 8.4GB HD, and it would start throwing errors. But only in a certain region of the drive! Not all the time, which made it all the more wierd. Clocking it back down to normal resulted in normal results, so the drive wasn't bad itself.

Good ole Caviar for you.
I like the WDC Expert line. They were actually GXP 7200 series from IBM rebadged. I still have a 7200 RPM 14.4 GB WDC - their first 7200 RPM model. (but made by IBM). WDC did not make their own 7200 RPM drive until the BB series appeared in late 2000 IIRC.

 

[Zap]

You'd pretty much have to include all sorts of caveats with your pre-testing, such as specifying certified motherboard(s),

T'was much easier with the Celeron 366. I think breaking off a certain pin would cause it to just run at 550MHz. Mod one that did 550MHz at default voltage and it would work on any motherboard that supported 100MHz FSB.

I still have a STEP Thermodynamics P233mmx that STILL WORKS!

Does it still overclock?

(then again what didn't mess with Maxtors?!)

Their "paperweight" mode.

Cyrix was basically overclocked from the factory.

I remember Cyrix upgrading their "PR" rating, so the same exact CPU suddenly was sold as a higher speed.

I had a UltraPlex 32X UltraSCSI version on a 2940UW card.

I think BITD I ran a Plextor 40X 50-pin SCSI with a Plextor CDRW (something like 8x20 or so) on my Asus P5A board with an overclocked AMD K6 and Matrox G200. I think that's what I started playing Quake 3 using...

Oh also close to the time were fake L2 DIP chips! I had an Octek i486 board with an AMD DX4-120 that was performing poorly (memory wise) and found out the L2 DIPs were nothing more than pieces of plastic with legs! :sneaky:

Heh, our distributor offered those kind of boards to us, but we declined.

 

[Rubycon]

B21 mod got you running on 100MHz with a BX440 board. Loved those.

Maxtor drives about as trustworthy as they rolled when dropped. Their SCSI parts are excellent but you must remember those are actually Quantum parts as they purchased them. Seems like Seagate got the infection after they purchased Maxtor! hehe

I had a Cyrix PR166+ that ran at 133. It was OK with the exception of the really weak FPU. The K5 also had a weak FPU. AMD got it right with the K6 which was the best thing to drop into socket 7 if you weren't flying with the pros using Socket 8!

G200 and Quake? Ah the combination that spawned the so-called "Atari Mode" - turn everything down to lowest quality to get the best framerate so you could win. Now people complain if a single tesselated blade of grass has three polygons out of place. Utterly ridiculous! And while you're trying to balance your polar equation doing just that Mr. Activistion mode frags you three times in succession with a rail gun while doing a rocket jump and he's not even a low ping bastard!

T'was much easier with the Celeron 366. I think breaking off a certain pin would cause it to just run at 550MHz. Mod one that did 550MHz at default voltage and it would work on any motherboard that supported 100MHz FSB.



Does it still overclock?



Their "paperweight" mode.



I remember Cyrix upgrading their "PR" rating, so the same exact CPU suddenly was sold as a higher speed.



I think BITD I ran a Plextor 40X 50-pin SCSI with a Plextor CDRW (something like 8x20 or so) on my Asus P5A board with an overclocked AMD K6 and Matrox G200. I think that's what I started playing Quake 3 using...



Heh, our distributor offered those kind of boards to us, but we declined.

 

[ElFenix]

wasn't the real trick running a pair of 300As on a BP6?

 

[erikistired]

Cyrix was basically overclocked from the factory. Those chips had really poor margins to begin with. They could cause a BSOD at STOCK if your cooler was dusty.

they threw a great party tho. gave away lots of swag, free booze and food. good times. miss the old days.

 

[Zap]

G200 and Quake? Ah the combination that spawned the so-called "Atari Mode" - turn everything down to lowest quality to get the best framerate so you could win. Now people complain if a single tesselated blade of grass has three polygons out of place. Utterly ridiculous! And while you're trying to balance your polar equation doing just that Mr. Activistion mode frags you three times in succession with a rail gun while doing a rocket jump and he's not even a low ping bastard!

Yes, I believe that I was the one who spawned the whole "Atari mode" style of gaming in Quake III, only I used either rocket launchers or "the fist." I originally played Quake III Test with a default install. Once I learned how to do timedemos, I found out I was running 14FPS. I found some G200 overclocking utility (not just clock speeds, but numerous internal and memory timings were available) and combined with tweaking the card plus turning graphics down as low as they would go without going below 640x480, I was churning around 48FPS.

Soon thereafter I built a dedicated gaming rig that totally spanked the K6/G200 (which I kept using for a while). The dedicated rig used a Pentium III 550 (Coppermine) overclocked to 825MHz on an Asus P3B-F with some SDRAM running 150MHz and a PCI Voodoo3 2000 overclocked to around 180MHz. I couldn't get AGP cards running stable at 100MHz AGP bus speed. Oh yeah, I also ran Quake 3 (test, and then demo) from a RAM drive. Yes, I was still sporting "Atari mode." :awe: I would spend hours/day terrorizing people with my fist on the Clan of the Bloody Fist server.

 

[Rubycon]

Ah yes the P3BF. Definitely a good board and a nice (jumperless) step up from the P2BF.

The lack of texture size > 256x256 really bothered me with the Voodoo3 series. 32MB TNT2 Ultra took care of that although its 32bit performance was still too weak. At least its 16bit was leaps and bounds above ATi's Rage Fury Pro! Ugh!

 

[DrMrLordX]

You wanted the HX chipset to cache up to 512MB. Did yours have a COAST socket (Cache On A Stick)?

To be honest, I don't remember if I had a COAST socket or not. I think the L2 was just soldered onto the board.

Lots of people told me my L2 was effectively disabled due to the cachable memory problem, but I never had any problems as long as I was running integer-heavy stuff. x87 fpu stuff, however . . .

What's funny is that the board's BIOS had an option to disable the L2, but I was afraid to test the system with it disabled to see if it would make any difference. I never wanted it to be true.

I had a UltraPlex 32X UltraSCSI version on a 2940UW card. Best audio ripping bar none!

I used to rip mp3s like nobody's business. It probably would have gone better with a 32X drive.

4.3GB SCSI 7200 RPM disks were expensive then!

yeah, tell me about it. I don't remember my drive's specs but it was pretty stupid-expensive . . . something like $900 for the drive I think?. I swore that I would never spend that much money on my storage subsystem ever again. Well, not unless I got rich, which hasn't happened yet.

I got the 9.1GB cheetah that sounded like marbles in a blender on frappe!

Ouch. The WD drive just sounded a bit like static over a walkie-talkie. At the time it didn't seem terribly loud, but I have never had a drive produce that much noise since. That poor drive died a slow heat death. It may be lying around here somewhere . . .

T'was much easier with the Celeron 366. I think breaking off a certain pin would cause it to just run at 550MHz. Mod one that did 550MHz at default voltage and it would work on any motherboard that supported 100MHz FSB.

Nice trick. Too bad things aren't so simple anymore. Granted, you had to know the right pin but still . . .

 

[onza]

Pretty sure I still have a 440bx chipset mobo in a pc still. That motherboard was rock stable.

 

[Gillbot]

does it still have the original step thermo cooler epoxied to it? i am pretty sure i have a step thermo cooler or some step labelled fans around somewhere. i am going to take a look and post a pic. step also got into power supplies near the end there. they were the only guys that i can remember selling guaranteed overclocked ram. great customer service. i think they were in chicago.

Yep. TEC still on it and chugging away. That system has a set of Step-Thermodynamics ram modules in it too. 2x128MB sticks that were $125 each IIRC.

They were out of Cleveland.

STEP ThermoDynamics, Inc.
33533 Aurora Road
P.O. Box 391500
Cleveland, OH 44139

http://web.archive.org/web/20010602142323/www.step-thermodynamics.com/Questions&Answers.htm

Does it still overclock?

at last post, it was still set to 2.5x100.

 

[Zap]

Nice trick. Too bad things aren't so simple anymore. Granted, you had to know the right pin but still . . .

I've done similar mods with socket 775 CPUs using tape and conductive ink. Knowing the right pin is as easy as heading to intel.com and perusing their white papers. :awe:

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Haha the 75 and 83MHz settings. Going over 40 on the PCI really messed with HDDs particularly Maxtors. (then again what didn't mess with Maxtors?!)

We call them Seagates now, granny j/k

 

[VirtualLarry]

Good ole Caviar for you.
I like the WDC Expert line. They were actually GXP 7200 series from IBM rebadged. I still have a 7200 RPM 14.4 GB WDC - their first 7200 RPM model. (but made by IBM). WDC did not make their own 7200 RPM drive until the BB series appeared in late 2000 IIRC.

I had a 7200 RPM drive from IBM back then. ATA-100, it was a new thing. WD Caviar was probably only 5400RPM, and ATA-66.

 

[alkemyst]

monarch computers.

 

[DrMrLordX]

monarch computers.

Gah I remember when they had a good rep. They had some great barebones and cpu+mobo combos back in the day. Too bad about them.

 

[H20cooled]

Ah, I remember STEP ThermoDynamics very well. You probably could not cool a NB/SB with one of the cooler on those chips.

I do miss my Dual Celly setups. I set one up as a workstation computer in the onair booth at the radio station I was the chief engineer for. Just when MP3 were starting to become the popular medium for music files.

 

[venkman]

omg that overclock would make Giants and Tribes 2 FLY!!!!

 

[Rubycon]

omg that overclock would make Giants and Tribes 2 FLY!!!!

Giants. I remember that game was the reason I threw rocks at my 9700 pro. Those drivers were horrible. Luckily I held on to my Ti4600 for a bit longer...

Anyone remember 3Dfxcool.com or 2cooltek.com?

Oh and tjt.com had killer HDD prices!