Yaaaa yaaaa longshot etc…

So, I’m still messing with computers. I got my Xeon X5650 to 4.4GHz 😀

Lately I’m becoming curious about the next batch of decomissioned server CPUs to hit the ‘bay. A pair of 8-Core 20MB CPUs is going for €100!!!

These would obviously be awesome in every way…except they’re locked down hard at 2.66-3GHZ.

However, I think there is hope, I think. It seems to me that there’s a “conversation” bewteen the Motherboard, the CPU and perhaps the OS that “agrees” the capability of the CPU. Might there be some way to intercept and modify this?

Full details are on here.

I am looking for cooperation to help out. Hardware skillz needed!

Deeply nerdy bump.

Can’t help you there, but I’ve got a box of Xeons somewhere. I’ll check what they are later.

One hell of a rabbit hole!

My guess would be here to understand.
http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page

Ohhh. I’m very curious Cougar 🙂

Thanks, TheBrick

Had a quick look, can’t find them. They’re here somewhere though, in one of the many Crates O Shite to be eBayed when I can be arsed.

They’ll be quite old though; I think offhand they came out of DL460c G1 Blades if you care to Google.

A load of CPUs are badged at their highest reliable rate. Which means that you can often eke a little more out. In the old days when I used to do this stuff, it was just a case of telling the bios it was 1 step up, then another step until the whole thing refused to boot. That was your limit. That said, they never worked reliably when run higher than rated which, after all was why they were rated this way.

No idea if that’s still the case. Haven’t built a PC in nearly 8 years.

@coogs They look like 56xx or 55xx Xeons.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1461359/official-xeon-x5660-x58-review-discussion-and-xeon-l5639-benchmarks-inside/

Lovely chips, 4/6 Cores, 12MB and 4-4.4GHz at 1.3ish volts 😀 My other CPU thread was about these

Post what you have, when you find it.

@atlaz This is how you do it with the X58 Chipset, newer ones are different again.

A load of CPUs are badged at their highest reliable rate.

I’m pretty sure that was true in the days of the 486, I’d be absolutely shocked if it was remotely true these days.

Lovely chips

What’s it worth? </Antiques Roadshow>

Doing this with multipliers or base clock?
Are the days of FSB and DRAM ratios long gone?

£50-80 for a hex core on the bay.

Scuzz, the only thing that you can usually adjust is the BCLK, but it breaks at 114 or less. 🙁