Abit and Intel

[Viper222]

My question is regarding the PII 300MHz and Abit motherboards. I found out a few months after I bought my 300 that the core voltage was locked (when I tried to overclock). I currently have an Asus P2B. Will the softmenu on the Abit board be able to bypass this voltage lock in the CPU so that I can overclock?

[collinj]

An Abit board can up the voltage on CPU's.

The voltage is not locked per-say, but it has a default level of 2.0v and a mother board has to either have a jumper to change it, or a softmenu setting to change it to make the change easy, or you would have to cover up a pin on the CPU's PCB for the CPU to run at any other voltage than the default 2.0v.

The pin info can be found at Toms Hardware. I dont remember what pin number needs to be covered to change the Voltage on the CPU.

[Rogue Gunman]

Viper222, if you decide to perform the pin masking procedure that collinj just mentioned
then be sure to exercise EXTREME CAUTION in doing so.

Covering the proper contacts can indeed give you a .2 volt increase over the standard 2.0 core voltage. I would warn you though, that it is possible (if certain contacts aren't totally covered) to hit your CPU core with something to the tune of 3.6 volts. Needless to say, this would cause almost instantaneous destruction of your CPU.

[Viper222]

To perform the masking procedure, would I have to dissemble the CPU housing? I read the article on Tom's Hardware Guide, but I'm still not certain on how to go about it. Do you think the best choice would to trade my Auus board for the Abit board? I have my mind set on overclocking all of a sudden, but I don't want to take the chance with masking and fry my CPU. My fan setup is pretty cool though. I have a 9cm Matu****a fan and 7cm fan bolted onto the back of my case, blowing directly on the CPU and 3D accelerator.

[Rogue Gunman]

Viper, for about the same price as a new motherboard you can get a PPGA Celeron 366 tested to run 550mhz and a voltage adjustable slotket adapter. There are currently some active discussions concerning this over in the CPU section. Some of the guys have posted URL's for retailers that sell these pretested CPUs. I'm considering getting one myself.