In my testing, I used a PA-2013 motherboard, as it represents most of the Socket 7 boards out there. It’s actually the twin of the VA-503+ motherboard, but in the ATX style. It’s Reversion 1.X, and uses the VIA MVP-3 Rev.CE Chipset. Because it’s a Reversion 1.X board, the jumper settings for 112MHz or even 124MHz are not available in the motherboard manual. I once had a website documenting this feature, but I can no longer find it. If anyone out there has it, please forward it to me. PLEASE MAKE SURE IT’S FOR Reversion 1.X, and not 2.X.
INSTALLATION
Installation went smoothly. I simply pulled the old 350Mhz K6-III chip, changed the multiplier to 4.5X and bumped the voltage down to 2.1V (WARNING: The K6-III+ has a core voltage of 2.0V. I deemed it necessary to use the 2.1V setting because I would be overclocking, and it has been proven that a little more voltage will yield a much greater success at higher clock speeds without instantly damaging the CPU), a voltage I would use throughout testing of this chip.
Upon boot up, initialization of the Video BIOS took a little longer than it does with the K6-III chip. This had me scared at first, thinking that the PA-2013 would not support the K6-III+, even though it was pretty much the same as the K6-III. It finally did get through the Video BIOS, and it even went through POST, but with a dreaded sign of incompatibility. The CPU type and speed was displayed as:
“80406DX-2 66MHz”
The only thing this really means is that the BIOS can use the CPU just like any other basic CPU, but it can’t identify it, and it’s special characteristics such as 3DNow+ and PowerNOW. This really isn’t a problem for testing procedures, because the previous K6-III was simply identified as a K6™ 350Mhz chip, and ran just fine. And, as the tests will prove, the cores are utilized just the same.
Everything booted up into Windows 2000 just fine, and ran just as smoothly and stable as it did before. After a 2 hour burn, I started overclocking…
OVERCLOCKING
I used the basic overclocking procedure when attempting to overclock this beast. I started at 450MHz, and used the best stability-checking program I know to test it for 2 straight hours. If I found it to be stable, I upped the Multiplier by .5, thus raising the core clock by 50MHz. I flew past 500, 550, and even 600MHz without problems. At the 600MHz setting, I could go no further, simply because the motherboard doesn’t have a higher multiplier or FSB. Because I have tested this processor fully stable at 600MHz, I’m sure it will make at least 616 (5.5*112MHz). 672Mhz (6*112Mhz) and 682 (5.5*124MHz) are probably out of range for this chip, even though it is .18m simply because it is based upon a two year old design.
Like what you read?
If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below:
