Unlocking and overclocking Athlon XP 3200

[Glass]

I recently installed a liquid cooling solution and would like to jack my Barton 3200 up a few hundred MHz as it's running on average 30c at the default 2200 clock. Plenty of breathing room.

Now I have an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Rev 2.0 with nVidia nForce2 chipset and the BIOS displays a whole bunch of multiplier frequencies which I can select, but none of them work except the default, 11, so I'm stuck at the 2200. If I choose any others the PC either refuses to boot or boots at 1000 MHz which obviously sucks.

Why won't it boot correctly with different multiplier settings?

 

[Mainframeguy]

chances are you might need to overvolt also - be careful though because then you need to pay careful attention to more than your CPU temperature - the voltage regulating circuitry on your mobo starts to get hotter in the surrounding areas too, so I would try to keep good airflow in your case generally (something that can be overlooked with liguid cooling solutions!)

 

[Glass]

The default vcore is 1.65. I've tried pushing it up to 1.75 with no luck. It can go up to 1.85. I guess I'll try it real quick.

 

[Mainframeguy]

good luck! (Hope you don't need it!)

 

[champ2005]

arent all Athlon XPs multiplier locked (apart from the XP-M models)? unless you unlock it somehow (dunno if its possible with bartons) you can only overclock the FSB (make sure you have some sort of AGP/PCI clock lock if you want to go ridiculous high )

 

[Glass]

Most nForce2 motherboards (like mine) can unlock Bartons through the BIOS. If it was locked, I wouldn't see all those other multipliers in the BIOS, they simply wouldn't be there. This is only what I have heard however. Seeing as how I can't get any other multipliers to work, I am a little suspicious. Can someone confirm?

I do know there is a way of unlocking most if not all Athlons even if you're not lucky enough to have a board capable of BIOS unlocking; http://www.highspeedpc.com/Merchant...Product_Code=XPkit&Category_Code=Overclocking

 

[LeeJend]

The early XP's and Bartons could be multiplier unlocked. The latter units can't. It all depends on what mask revision you have. Mine doesn't respond to any attempts at multiplier unlocking (socket jumper, etc.).

 

[American Zombie]

Most nForce2 motherboards (like mine) can unlock Bartons through the BIOS. If it was locked, I wouldn't see all those other multipliers in the BIOS, they simply wouldn't be there. This is only what I have heard however.

You have heard wrong.
Whether the CPU is locked or unlocked you will still see the multipliers and other overclocking options and not just on nforce boards but about all recent boards.

 

[Glass]

Yea I was afraid of that. Is anyone familiar with this Unlocking kit; http://www.highspeedpc.com/Merchant...Product_Code=XPkit&Category_Code=Overclocking

It's pretty cheap, so I'm thinking about getting it.

 

[LordOfLA]

if you got your barton after december 2003 its multiplier locked in a different way to the rest so you'll have to take a scalpel to your cpu and a graphite pencil.

search google for topics relating to unlocking barton 2600's and you'll find what you need.

HTH

 

[Glass]

I got mine quite a while before December 2003, probably around early to mid 2002 or whenever it was that it cost about $500 I think it was.

WCPUID reports it as "AMD Athlon XP (Model A)." Is this relevant or will I have to look at the CPU to be sure exactly which revision it is?

 

[LordOfLA]

you'll want to get the info from the label stuck on the cpu and punch it into google.

 

[LeeJend]

Like I said before AMD likes to lock the multipliers after the first production run. Gets everyone sucked in thinking they can overclock and then screws them. Most XPs can not be multiplier overclocked, a few can.

Some motherboards/bioses make it easier than others.

Try it. If it doesn't work it can't be done. that simple. Then use FSB over clocking like you have to with Intel.

 

[indyjones]

I was lucky with my 2500+ its totally unlocked but i have built a few mates pcs and they have all been locked, a word of warning i tried to unlock and overclock my old xp 2100+ (plat core) it did not work and was never right again

 

[LordOfLA]

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2004/guides/unlockbartonwk43/unlockbartonwk43-3.htm

That will tell you how to unlock barton cpus if you are brave

 

[Mainframeguy]

be brave Glass and post back here - just for fun huh? (UNLESS it is your only rig!) ... tell you what if it al goes badly wrong I will compensate you with an AMD XP1900+ that I could use offloading.... and just ask the user known as Andy (AKA Hybrid) he will tell you if I promise - I deliver!

 

[steveblade_uk]

Ive got a late barton 3200+ cpu and have been playing around with fsb and core speed etc, Ive had the multiplier at 12x giving 2.4ghz at 1.65v core, and had my corsair ram up to 450mghz, it ran stable but ive had little or no luck pushing the fsb over 400mghz in fact had trouble getting up to 400. My mobo is gigabyte ga7nnxp. ps water cooling is definately worth the hassle

 

[prowlerdude]

Ive got a late barton 3200+ cpu and have been playing around with fsb and core speed etc, Ive had the multiplier at 12x giving 2.4ghz at 1.65v core, and had my corsair ram up to 450mghz, it ran stable but ive had little or no luck pushing the fsb over 400mghz in fact had trouble getting up to 400. My mobo is gigabyte ga7nnxp. ps water cooling is definately worth the hassle

Got the same problem,
got a AMD Athlon(TM) XP 3200+
and a Asus A7V600-X motherboard.

But I cant set my FSB higher then 333, if i set it at auto it drops
to 200Mhz.. And since the computer is ok with the 333Mhz setting
i asumed it was ok.. but still the tests says its running at 200 Mhz..

Any ideas how i could fix this ?

 

[dreamliner77]

It should be set at 200 for 400Mhz, it's ddr. 166 = 333

 

[ShepsCrook]

Ok, Your Barton is probably multiplier locked. Your best bet for overclocking would be an Athlon XP-M 2400 or 2600. Both of which are outstanding chips. But since you already have an Athlon XP desktop processor, just stick with that. If you are hell bound on overclocking your processor and seeing just how far it can go, you will need to do a little bit of work cuting the bridges as seen in the link provided above. After that you should have an easy time overclocking, just up the multiplier to push the processor further. Should you hit a boundry where your computer can't boot into windows and run something like a Pi test, then you should give it a little more voltage and try booting to windows again and running that test. There are long processes to finding your exact highest speed, but I usually just push my processors a little bit.