Retro Gaming (2001): Overclocking a Duron

[nlstitch]

Hi al,

I've been feeling nostalgic recently; That's why I'm planning on building something similar to what I had in my "prime gaming era". I was playing everything from Delta Force to Warcraft 3, CS1.6, UT99-GOTY, COD2 and AA2.5 and SWAT4; I stopped gaming around the time COD:Modern Warfare came out but recently started gaming again with BF1 and GR:Wildlands. While gaming on a current (2017) rig is fun too, I would like to get a dedicated pc for playing those older titles. (Complete with casemod, glow in the dark IDE cables and noisy fans)

The best CPU I ever had was a somewhat hated underdog; A Duron 1800. It performed very nicely until I had to go 64 bit.

So... I want to go full 32-bit retro on this one, but I'm adding an extra challenge; I want to get some extra performance from the Duron platform. I've been doing a lot of research; From (S)MP hacks, to L2 Cache hacks and overclocking.

I am able to find a lot of < 1Ghz Duron overclocking resources, but Applebred resources seem to be scarse. Since I'm planning to use a Motherboard that doesn't have overclocking capabilities (Since it has gigabit ethernet on a 64 bit bus I really want); I'm left either do pin modifications and/or L-bridge modifications.

I've been doing a lot of research, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of info on tweaking/hacking the L-bridges or pin-modding applebreds.

- I would like to get the Duron 1800 to around 2.2-2.4Ghz. Is there anyone that achieved this with a Duron 1800 or other applebred?

- Do the Athlon (XP) overclocking pin-mod guides work for the Applebreds or not? ( like this one; http://www.ocinside.de/workshop_en/amd_pinmod/ )

Regards,

nls.

 

[NTMBK]

Doing serious overclocking on a 15 year old motherboard, which wasn't designed with overclocking in mind, seems highly suspect. These components have years and years of wear and tear, capacitors will be starting to fail... I wouldn't recommend it. Why not just buy a higher clocked Athlon XP? You can get those old CPUs at rock bottom prices on eBay.

 

[sandorski]

Doing serious overclocking on a 15 year old motherboard, which wasn't designed with overclocking in mind, seems highly suspect. These components have years and years of wear and tear, capacitors will be starting to fail... I wouldn't recommend it. Why not just buy a higher clocked Athlon XP? You can get those old CPUs at rock bottom prices on eBay.

This.

 

[nlstitch]

One hour later and here we go with typical judgmental trolling;

Why not just buy a higher clocked Athlon XP?

Because I want to use a Duron AND .. The XP will need the MP mod as well.

I wouldn't recommend it.

I don't care.

So please, continue to lecture me on how I'm shoving my beliefs down your throats.
OR
Help me accomplish something I desperately want.

 

[LTC8K6]

One hour later and here we go with typical judgmental trolling;


Because I want to use a Duron AND .. The XP will need the MP mod as well.


I don't care.

So please, continue to lecture me on how I'm shoving my beliefs down your throats.
OR
Help me accomplish something I desperately want.

I don't think you will get much help that way.

 

[nlstitch]

I don't think you will get much help that way.

I'm very sad to say I already figured that out by reading the first and second response I got. Thanks.



Let's try again, I mean, I'm passionate about this and I really want to make this possible. I took a leap of faith coming here, registering and asking you guys. I'm here to ask and share.

I want to go full 32-bit retro on this one, but I'm adding an extra challenge; I want to get some extra performance from the Duron platform. I've been doing a lot of research; From (S)MP hacks, to L2 Cache hacks and overclocking.

I am able to find a lot of < 1Ghz Duron overclocking resources, but Applebred resources seem to be scarse. Since I'm planning to use a Motherboard that doesn't have overclocking capabilities (Since it has gigabit ethernet on a 64 bit bus I really want); I'm left either do pin modifications and/or L-bridge modifications.

- I would like to get the Duron 1800 to around 2.2-2.4Ghz. Is there anyone that achieved this with a Duron 1800 or other applebred?

- Do the Athlon (XP) overclocking pin-mod guides work for the Applebreds or not? ( like this one; http://www.ocinside.de/workshop_en/amd_pinmod/ )

 

[NTMBK]

One hour later and here we go with typical judgmental trolling;


Because I want to use a Duron AND .. The XP will need the MP mod as well.


I don't care.

So please, continue to lecture me on how I'm shoving my beliefs down your throats.
OR
Help me accomplish something I desperately want.

Hey, come on. No trolling was intended, I was just trying to be helpful, and I certainly wasn't trying to lecture you. I want to help you achieve your goal (retro gaming fun), and I thought that using the XP instead of the Duron would make your life easier. That's all.

Good point on the XP still needing a mod to support multiprocessor, though. What's the specific motherboard that you had in mind?

 

[nlstitch]

Hey, come on. No trolling was intended, I was just trying to be helpful, and I certainly wasn't trying to lecture you. I want to help you achieve your goal (retro gaming fun), and I thought that using the XP instead of the Duron would make your life easier. That's all.

Good point on the XP still needing a mod to support multiprocessor, though. What's the specific motherboard that you had in mind?

Thanks. I was thinking of using a Tyan Dual Socket A Server Board. This board has a "fast" 64 bit pci(x) lane and a "slower" 32 bit one. The 64 bit pci bus has the gigabit port connected to it, as well as two pci-x expansion slots. I was planning on using a SATA raid card in one of those 64 bit PCI-X ports to ensure faster data transfer rates.

The drawback of the Tyan board is that it won't be able to set the clock multiplier and/or FSBs in Bios, leaving me to result to hardware tweaking.

As I said, I was reading a lot of stuff online but couldn't determine if the Athlon pin-mod guides will work on an Applebred Duron.

I found only one thread on the interwebs that shows the MP mod will work on an Applebred, but all of the clock multiplier resources show pictures of old duron cpus. (no applebred in sight).

 

[nathanddrews]

Sounds like a fun project! I never had a Duron, but I did have an Intel Tualatin and an AMD T-bird, both of which were hand-me-downs that I overclocked. The best part about what you're attempting is how cheap all those old chips are today. If you screw it up, it won't cost much to replace it.

 

[LightningZ71]

The Tualatin was something special. I had one of those for a very long time. It was overclocked to within an inch of it's life, but it was a quick processor for it's day. It reminded me a lot of my Cyrix Cx5x86. I had that for a long time too, running at 120Mhz/40Mhz FSB. It would run neck and neck with Pentium 90s on most tasks and games.

As for the Duron in question, I suggest that you might be able to start with this page...
http://www.overclockers.com/overclocking-the-very-low-end/

 

[zinfamous]

One hour later and here we go with typical judgmental trolling;


Because I want to use a Duron AND .. The XP will need the MP mod as well.


I don't care.

So please, continue to lecture me on how I'm shoving my beliefs down your throats.
OR
Help me accomplish something I desperately want.

wat? He gave a very honest, neutral, non-judgmental response and you accuse him of being a mean troll?

let me guess--you were recently banned from some other tech site for excessively belligerent posting, but of course it was all the mean moderators inventing reasons to hate you, right?

 

[nathanddrews]

Alright, everyone relax. Please contribute to the thread topic or move along.

 

[nlstitch]

The Tualatin was something special. I had one of those for a very long time.

Nice. , I know exactly how that feels.

Noob Question coming up;
When going through the Datasheet of the Duron 1800 here ; https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/duron/dhd1800dlv1c I can see the CPU had an FSB of 266.

I had an Asus A7N8X-X at the time capable of 400Mhz FSB, but It never came to mind to see if it was running at 400. Will the CPUS FSB actually limit the Chipsets FSB, and thus also limit the Speed of memory? (e.g. PC2100 in this case?)

If so, I won't be looking for an 400FSB motherboard since the 266FSB restriction on the CPU wil limit me already.

 

[Topweasel]

Nice. , I know exactly how that feels.

Noob Question coming up;
When going through the Datasheet of the Duron 1800 here ; https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/duron/dhd1800dlv1c I can see the CPU had an FSB of 266.

I had an Asus A7N8X-X at the time capable of 400Mhz FSB, but It never came to mind to see if it was running at 400. Will the CPUS FSB actually limit the Chipsets FSB, and thus also limit the Speed of memory? (e.g. PC2100 in this case?)

If so, I won't be looking for an 400FSB motherboard since the 266FSB restriction on the CPU wil limit me already.

Iirc No socket A CPU ever supported a 400MHz FSB. The EV6 bus was a DDR bus. So whatever the clockspeed is divide it by 2. So the Duron was a 133Mhz bus, the KT400 chipset and NF2 chipset supported running at 200Mhz, but any use of that was always overclocking. Which worked well with AMD CPU's (really all CPU's at the time) because they were only Multiplier locked. So without even worrying about closing connections on the top of the chip overclocking the FSB was so much easier. Hell this was the magic a Celeron A 300 or 366 had over a 333. A 300 and 366 at a 100MHz FSB was 450 and 550mhz respectively where a 333 with it's multiplier didn't work nearly as well.

 

[SPBHM]

these Durons are Tbred Bs with 1/4 of the l2 enabled, the guides for the pinmod should work the same way, but I think they also have the multiplier locked, most AXPs had it unlocked so the pinmod for the multiplier might not work.
if you bump the fsb to 166 you might need a significant overvolt to work stable, that would be the same clock (2.25GHz) as the fastest Tbred B (2800+), the voltage of the 2800+ Tbred was 1.65v, but you might need more than that, and a good cooler.

if you board supports the 2800+ tbred B it should be fine with this OC

having a motherboard with good bios for OC would be good, I used to OC with the Nforce 2 boards (epox 8rda+, abit nf7s, asus a7n8x) and it was super easy, the "higher end" boards with VIA chipset were also fine, but Nforce was normally faster and easier to OC with PCI lock and so on.

 

[nlstitch]

Okay, going for a 133 board then.

having a motherboard with good bios for OC would be good, I used to OC with the Nforce 2 boards (epox 8rda+, abit nf7s, asus a7n8x) and it was super easy, the "higher end" boards with VIA chipset were also fine, but Nforce was normally faster and easier to OC with PCI lock and so on.

Because i'm going with a server board that doesnt support oc, ill have to resort to L-bridge hacking.
I've done some research and my best guess is to make the motherboard think its a 2600MP.

Question; When I'm hacking the multiplier and voltage through hardware hacking (cutting or connecting bridges) , do I need to lock (cut) or unlock (leave it connected) the L1 ? Lots of site say when unlocking the L1s to be connected, but as I'm setting everything by hardware, do i need to cut the L1 or leave them connected? (The 2600XP has the L1 bridges disconnected)

 

[Abwx]

Iirc No socket A CPU ever supported a 400MHz FSB. .

Barton (130 nm)

• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 kB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 512 kB, fullspeed
• MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
• Socket A (EV6)
• Front-side bus: 166/200 MHz (333/400 MT/s)

• First release: February 10, 2003
• Clockrate: 1833–2333 MHz (2500+ to 3200+)
  • 166 MHz FSB: 1833–2333 MHz (2500+ to 3200+)
  • 200 MHz FSB: 2100, 2200 MHz (3000+, 3200+)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon


Thorton (130 nm)

• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 kB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 256 kB, fullspeed
• MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
• Socket A (EV6)
• Front-side bus: 133/166/200 MHz (266/333/400 MT/s)
• VCore: 1.50–1.65 V
• First release: September 2003
• Clockrate: 1667–2200 MHz (2000+ to 3100+)
  • 133 MHz FSB: 1600–2133 MHz (2000+ to 2600+)
  • 166 MHz FSB: 2083 MHz (2600+)
  • 200 MHz FSB: 2200 MHz (3100+)

• 
  
  
  

 

[Topweasel]

Barton (130 nm)


Thorton (130 nm

You could have just told me that they did instead of pasting half a page of info for two lines of useful info. Or you could have just linked to the page. I didn't remember correctly as iirc means, if I remember correctly.

 

[jlee]

You could have just told me that they did instead of pasting half a page of info for two lines of useful info. Or you could have just linked to the page. I didn't remember correctly as iirc means, if I remember correctly.

Or you could have researched it yourself.

Damn, guys. I'm going back to the garage.

nlstitch, good luck on your project! I had a Duron 750 @ 862 wayyy back in the day. Good times.

 

[Topweasel]

Or you could have researched it yourself.

Damn, guys. I'm going back to the garage.

nlstitch, good luck on your project! I had a Duron 750 @ 862 wayyy back in the day. Good times.

Again it was a quick post. I had probably a half a dozen Althons and Duron's from 99 to 2004. I used 3 different NF2 boards in my later Thoroughbred and Barton days. I didn't remember using a 400FSB on any of them. I didn't sell my post as gospel. I very specifically noted that was as I recalled. I hate the whole "use google" answer to everything he was asking a question and I answered as I remembered, otherwise why not post the same answer to his question for all of it, google is out there why even have a forum? I don't mind ABWX correcting me, I do mind plastering a half a page post with tons of useless information to prove I was wrong like it's some kind of achievement.

 

[thigobr]

I still have an Applebred 1.8 GHz unlocked (produced before week 39) and with full L2 mod (256KB, recognized as XP 2200+). They had vcore at 1.50V so they are usually good overclockers. As they are essentially a T-Bred B the same pin mod settings apply. If you look the tables you will see that you don't even need to cut bridges for some of the settings, e.g. increasing vcore (using the ocinside guide set the base 1.50V config, then you just need to add wires to cover the different connections in comparisson with the base 1.50V setting)

Also, there were plenty of chipsets officially supporting 400MHz FSB (KT600/KT880/nForce 2 400/Ultra 400/IGP 400, SiS 748). Even old T-Bird/Spitifire Athlons/Durons will run with 400MHz FSB as long as the combination FSB x Multiplier doesn't exceed their supported frequency. The limit is imposed just by the motherboard and memory.

 

[TStep]

IIRC one of the 3200+ steppings has a 400fsb. Believe they were not popular due to cost and the fact that nearly every 1700+ overclocked and coupled with a quality nForce2 board (8RDA+, NF7, etc) and mushkin DDR400 would get you to the top of the heap on a shoestring budget.

Used a lot of XP-M in the desktop with great results. Applebred should be a Thoroughbred w/ chopped L2. I remember quite a few pin mod and conductive paint guides out there for restoring lost L2, multiplier, and hard fsb adjustments outside of bios.

One of the best i can recall
http://www.ocinside.de/workshop_en/amd_socket_a_oc/

Fun times then.

 

[Abwx]

Again it was a quick post. I had probably a half a dozen Althons and Duron's from 99 to 2004. I used 3 different NF2 boards in my later Thoroughbred and Barton days. I didn't remember using a 400FSB on any of them. I didn't sell my post as gospel. I very specifically noted that was as I recalled. I hate the whole "use google" answer to everything he was asking a question and I answered as I remembered, otherwise why not post the same answer to his question for all of it, google is out there why even have a forum? I don't mind ABWX correcting me, I do mind plastering a half a page post with tons of useless information to prove I was wrong like it's some kind of achievement.

Didnt thought that my post would create such a polemic, dunno what you had in mind since i didnt even remember that you were the recipe of my answer...

Otherwise, and to get back to topic, not sure that a Duron 1800 could be as easily SMP hacked as previous SKUs since it use some kind of composite matter instead of the more costly ceramic, apparently the traces are still here but they are covered with a film, guess that it should be scratched and then a tiny wire can eventually be soldered to bridge the relevant points..

 

[Topweasel]

Didnt thought that my post would create such a polemic, dunno what you had in mind since i didnt even remember that you were the recipe of my answer...

Otherwise, and to get back to topic, not sure that a Duron 1800 could be as easily SMP hacked as previous SKUs since it use some kind of composite matter instead of the more costly ceramic, apparently the traces are still here but they are covered with a film, guess that it should be scratched and then a tiny wire can eventually be soldered to bridge the relevant points..
[\QUOTE]

Honestly your answer didn't really bother me that much till jlee posted his, you should have checked google before posting statement. That fired me up and made me make a bigger deal out what I originally intended to be a little suggestion which was to either link it or post the relevant part. If that part came off snappy, it wasn't my intention.

 

[jlee]

Honestly your answer didn't really bother me that much till jlee posted his, you should have checked google before posting statement. That fired me up and made me make a bigger deal out what I originally intended to be a little suggestion which was to either link it or post the relevant part. If that part came off snappy, it wasn't my intention.

It bothered you enough to complain about someone being helpful. This is probably the only time I've seen someone on a forum whine about having accurate information provided in context. If it was simply a link, you might complain about having to click on a link to get the information. If it was simply briefly stated as you claim was your desire, you might complain about inadequate information or sources.

Basically, being as fussy as you are about how people present fact on a public forum, it's impossible to win. It's a few lines of text, not a 5000x4000 embedded image that ruins your browsing experience. Get over it.

I'm going back to the friendly places now.