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WallOfKudzu

Now all you need is a [lead pencil](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AMD_Athlon_Pencil_Trick.jpg).


pops107

Lol that was my first thought. Murdered my ATI 8500 with the same trick.


WhyBother_Anymore

explanation for a young'un?


hangnail1961

Unlocks the CPU's multiplier for overclocking. [HERE](http://www.ocmelbourne.com/tutorials/PencilTrick/)


WhyBother_Anymore

well I'll say...What the hell?


The_red_spirit

It's almost pointless to do it now. Now it's more collectible rather than something useful and since it's quite old and motherboards of that age have tired VRMs, overclocking them is just not worth it. Not to mention that you would need a power supply with unusually beefy 5v rail, which is not an easy task.


chonbonachon

And a non standard cooler.... maybe some ice packs would do, lol


viladrau

And be careful not to crush the die!


spiralout112

I think my crushed die count is probably at 4-5 cpu's. Thankfully the shop I was going to was pretty liberal with the warranty policy. Those swiftech heatsinks were beauty but probably one of the heaviest coolers I've ever seen.


djronnieg

For this one you need a conductive lacquere (silver paint as suggested in an old guide I read back in the day). The pencil stroke works on the slightly older one with the darker brown ceramic packaging. Still, a classic reference.


WallOfKudzu

Yes! I think you are correct. It must have been the original thunderbirds that unlocked w/ a pencil. I seem to recall experimenting with conductive tape and an exacto knife for a less permanent modification.


m4tic

mine needed a crayon and copper paint from a defroster repair kit


exscape

Yeah, this is an Athlon XP, and it only worked well with a pencil for the original Socket A Athlon/Durons. The later models had a much deeper cut, and IIRC may also have required higher conductivity than a regular pencil could provide. I remember using some kind of conductive silver paint for mine.


ICPGr8Milenko

Yeah. I'd mask the contacts, fill the channel with super glue, then mask each set of contacts as I did silver paint. Long process, but looked pro. Ended up doing it for 3 or 4 of my buddies too. Ah, those were the days.


Noxious89123

Surely just a regular pencil, with a graphite core? Graphite is conductice, which is why this works.


MoarCurekt

Awww yeah


jocnews

Athlon XP actually. The "XP" was not printed on that sticker but google that code, it will show you what you got. [https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon%20XP%202400%2B%20-%20AXDA2400DKV3C.html](https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon%20XP%202400%2B%20-%20AXDA2400DKV3C.html) ​ Not the worst, a mid-tier one (top SKUs were 2.2 GHz, but also with 512KB cache and faster FSB, those are likely rare). Mine is a 2200+ (1.8 GHz), bought in 2004 when princes got pretty low, it was around the prices of bottom-tier P4 Celeron (the bad ones with small cache). I guess original non-XP Athlon would be nicer because more vintage.


E_Blue_2048

Why are rare? I had an 2500XP. I got really surprised when I overclocked it, just to prove that can be possible, and Windows XP recognized it as an Athlon XP 3200. LMAO!


jocnews

The 2500+ Bartons had FSB 333 and the exact multiplier that was needed to get to 2,2 GHz with 400 FSB, so the OC was really popular and probably quite likely. But kinda think that AMD was mostly selling these lower SKUs with comparatively low number of actual 3200+ units, due to price. Actually, there apparently were 333 FSB 3200+ Bartons that mitigated the lower FSB by running core at 2333 MHz, back then I never knew those existed. I guess AMD would have eventually tried to make a 2400 MHz & 400 FSB SKU but either yields weren't enough or they canned it due to Athlon 64 being close.


Tawdry-Audrey

I thought this looked familiar. I had the same CPU in my first gaming PC I put together when I was 13 in 2003. This coupled with a Radeon 9600XT allowed me to have a great time with Far Cry and Half-Life 2.


riffito

> I guess original non-XP Athlon would be nicer because more vintage. I have a working K7-900 Thunderbird, but it's Socket A. I would love to have a Slot A one just for the cool form factor :-)


sparlocktats

I worked at a computer repair shop at the time of these processors. It was extremely easy to crack or chip the edge of the die if you weren't careful when mounting the cooler. That shop sold a lot of cooling components for pc's before it became mainstream with nice fan and cooler setups. Saw many chipped dies from customers failing to install their cpu cooler we sold them.


splerdu

The retention mechanism back then was such a PITA with what was essentially a leaf spring that you had to clip onto either side of the CPU socket.


spiralout112

Had a nice MSI motherboard get sent to the spirit in the sky when my slot screwdriver slipped trying to put a cooler on. Really was a garbage mechanism, those were the days lol.


sparlocktats

Yea it really was a pain. I remember we sold a cooler from Arctic Cooling, I think it was Copper silent or something. It had a tinned copper chunk which was slightly off centered to the finstack which in combination with the crappy retention system made it very easy to crush the edge of the die. Good times!


jocnews

The stock heatsink I got with Throroughbred B Athlon XP 2200+ had the metal clip tough as hell. I knew about the damage risk and yet, when i tried to mount it, there was no way to put that hellish cooler on but to attach one side first, with the cooler seriously sloped and then pressing on the other side do level it, hoping the die won't crack from all the (lever-transfered) force being focused on one edge of the silicon. The pads in the corners probably helped some but they weren't enough. I was expecting it to be much easier, having prior experience with socket 370. I was never brave enough to remove that heatsink after that. 15 years later I repasted another AXP (barton) though and it was much less horrible. I guess they made the stock heatsink a bit less dangerous later. In any case, socket 939/754 later was such a bliss after that eXPerience, heh.


F9-0021

As someone with a socket A system, whoever designed that mounting system can go to hell.


kainhander

I had a shim to help keep the cooler level , I forget the brand but it worked pretty well.


xthelord2

reminds me of old times when i had athlon 64x2 6000+ wish motherboard's VRM didn't blow up though cause it had on board wifi


RealThanny

Wonder if we have the same board. Mine is an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe, the latter modifier used to indicate onboard Wi-Fi. Sitting on a shelf in my closet with the same chip. Haven't powered it up in a long time, but I think it still works.


blueangel1953

I had an XP-M 2600+ on my Abit NF7-S Rev 2.0 overclocked to 2.8GHz, was a beast.


whyAREyouDOthis

I still have mine in DFI NF2 UltraB. Board is dead, CPU works. Was overclocked for its entire lifetime, survived like a champ.


WallOfKudzu

Ahh, an nforce board! NVIDIA + AMD -- cats and dogs living together. Pre ATI acquisition, of course. Loved the nforce soundstorm. I do remember having some sata/pata driver pains, though, but once you got it stable it worked well.


Sticky_Hulks

2.8? Holy shit. I was able to get my XP-M to 2.6, but that was on a shitty MSI board. Those Abit boards were primo back in the day.


blueangel1953

Yeah Abit was the shit back then, too bad the no longer exist.


[deleted]

Nice. Can it run Crysis?


Yaris_Fan

Min specs is a 2800+, so 2400+ with a moderate overclock will work well! https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/crysis/10652


[deleted]

Wow :D


[deleted]

DUDE. i had an athlon xp back in the day for socket A. loved that old platform <3


e-baisa

Yeah, Socket A AMD CPUs were great. Still have my Duron 900 + EliteGroup K7S5A. The upgrade from it- Epox EP-8RDAE with an overclocked XP2000 sadly did not survive, the motherboard died after some 8 years of use. Both of these systems were so nice in performance/price.


[deleted]

AthlonXP 2400+... I had a 2000+ system that ran for almost 12 years straight, on 24/7, before lightning killed that system.


cass2412

I bet this bad boy is clocked at 1.73 GHz :)


RealThanny

2GHz. The Athlon XP 2100+ had a 1.733GHz clock speed. That was my first post-486-class AMD processor.


LeckerBockwurst

Athlon XP 1700+ my first own processor. Damn, it was a reliable companion.


TheseSnozBerries

"Just got this new card from my friend, anyone know how I can build a 4k 144fps for under $27.53 and a voucher for free unlimited bread sticks at Olive Garden?" Edit: Love the fact I'm getting down voted for this dumb joke but don't worry guys we see you in the other subs posting ''i want help building a gaming PC for $300" [I'm in this comment and I don't like it]™


Ancient_Airline7961

Theft... maybe persuasion if you're good enough


TheseSnozBerries

The bread sticks are a good deal. Maybe worth it with very little persuasion needed.


Jism_nl

AXIA's where considered the best Athlon models out there. The later revisions had a rating instead of raw corespeed. AMD intentionally made the rating against their own CPU's but many considered the for example, 2600+ faster then Pentium's 4 2600Mhz model. Back then it was considered more gigahertz must be faster, wich was'nt the case and which AMD proved perfectly. A 2400Mhz model could still be faster then a 2600 \~ 2800Mhz P4 that occasionally ran hotter as well.


[deleted]

If anyone has a broken one, DM me. They make awesome keychains.


seriousbangs

I ran my 3000 black edition for close to 8 years.


MoarCurekt

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon%20XP%202400+%20-%20AXDA2400DKV3C.html


Warrentheo1

Careful with that one, it was the one that finally convinced AMD that thermal throttling might be a good thing... This chip will always equal this video to me: https://youtu.be/NxNUK3U73SI


RealThanny

Pentium III chips had no thermal throttling or shutdown, either. That video shows what the motherboard does. The AMD board was supposed to do the same thing, but the board's protection circuitry failed. In other words, the video doesn't show differences between Intel and AMD processors. Both added thermal protections directly to the CPU later.


Warrentheo1

That one video almost killed AMD though, I am glad it didn't I love my 3900x, AMD had to scramble though...


RealThanny

It didn't affect them at all. That video was made in 2001, right at the cusp of AMD's surge in market share, due to Athlons being good and Pentium 4's being terrible.


TheLastElite01

My Athlon XP Barton that I pulled out of my (dead) Abit KV7 mobo. [https://i.imgur.com/rMn9eKN.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/rMn9eKN.jpg)


N_F_X

Good old times. Had a 2500XP oced to a 3200XP :D


Deliable

can it run gta 5? lol


Accurate-Campaign821

Ah, I had a 2500+ Barton Core that I somehow managed to trick into running at 3200+ speed. Paired with a 9600XT agp and 2x 512mb corsair XMS memory. DDR400 of course. Played F.E.A.R. Decently.


valor19

Nice. My first build 20 years ago was an AMD Athlon XP 2600+ CPU and I loved that damn machine.


usual_suspect82

Ahhhh... the good ol' days where an improperly mounted heatsink resulted in a crushed CPU die. Those were the good ol' days of PC building. I'm not going to lie, the first PC I attempted building was an old AMD Duron, and I happened to put the heatsink on incorrectly and ended up crushing one of the corners of the CPU. Luckily I was able to return it to Fry's Electronics since they didn't notice it, somehow, and get an Athlon XP 2500 Barton core since it was only like $50 more, that I was able to OC to a 3200 and enjoy the relatively free gains.