Well it looks as though some shops are now starting to speak up concerning AMD's legal pressure on them to stop selling modified Athlon processors.  Computernerd has put up a little info since they apparently got leaned on and they provided information concerning a site where you the consumer can at least voice an opinion concerning such subjects.  That site is United Overclockers and there you can find a little more information and a nifty forum that although is new is already teaming with lots of action.

  Ya alright I'm a lazy slug.  The UH X2 construction article still is not done yet but I swear I'm working on it every spare minute I got, unfortunately those spare minutes are far and few between so please just hang in there a few more days.    For those of you who keep emailing me asking where you can get those great Nidec Gamma 28 blowers from, well I posted this once already but here ya go again...   PLYCON Computers has got em and even the larger Gamma 30's though the Gamma 30's wont work with my setup.  I would be interested though in anybody else's design ideas and examples especially if you figure out a way to fit two Gamma 30's on one of those heatsinks.

  Though I reported this several days ago it seems that Asus has now started shipping their Athlon K7M motherboard to vendors dressed in Asus colors.    Just in case you didn't already know the K7M had only been available in plain "white box" packaging.

  For those of you hardcore overclockers who already know about H. Oda he has released his first version of his long awaited Athlon L2 cache adjustment utility.    Head on over to H. Oda's site for info or just click hear to download the utility.  For those of you who have been hiding under a rock the last year H. Oda is a fine Japanese fellow who has created some excellent utilities that can benefit any avid hardware enthusiast.

  It has been a while since I had last heard from my good friend David James but good old DJ has put up a little review action concerning his experiences with his new 3D Blaster Creative Annihilator Pro DDR.  In DJ's words "it is one bad mofo" so head on over to d'Best in the West for his article.

  For a little sponsor pimpin action here my boys over at Proton Computers got some hot deals on PIII 500E and Athlon setups including Athlon "GoldFinger" cards and the hard to find PIII E slotket adapters.  Kids these are the hot setups currently so if you are in the market for the latest high performance systems then head on over there and tell em I sent ya.

  For you deathmatch freaks the kids over at 3D Spotlight put up their Unreal Tournament tweak guide.

  My boy Gary over at Overclockin.com did an article on "How To" sand (lapping) your processor and now he did a little write up on how effective it was.

  I wanted to let those of you who are in the market for an Athlon "GoldFinger" OC card know of another source for you to consider.  It is the Athlon Liberator and you can get a look at it here.  I think I have one of these coming my way along with one or two others so hopefully I can share my opinion on a couple of the devices that are now available.

  Just a quick blurb here that I think needs to be made public...

  AMD "heavies" step on computer shops selling Athlon processors modified to run at higher clock speeds than originally intended by AMD.  I'm not talking about "scam artists" trying to sell "re-marked" processors to unsuspecting consumers but legit shops doing us consumers what I think is a valuable service.  Yesterday AMD legal counsel started contacting shops and basically ordering them to stop selling modified Athlon processors or face serious legal action.  Kyle over at HardOCP released this information yesterday and I have been able to confirm it all through reliable sources.

  One other quick note:  The Athlon 500 that I damaged while removing the heatsink plate is being sent out for an attempt to repair.  I am not selling it or giving it away so please don't send me email asking me if you can have it.  Thanks to all those who offered their repair services.  : )

  Though I am not aware of any reputable source that can confirm this info at this time rumor has it that week 02 (year 2000) Athlon 550s are .18 micron processors.    Up till now I have only heard of the 750 and 800s being .18 processors but like I said at this time it is not absolutely confirmed.

  I finally decided to crack open my second Athlon 500 and after ruining the first one I gotta say I was a little nervous.  I really didn't expect much from this one since it is marked as a week 32.  Sure enough it has a 500 core and 4ns cache chips which means shooting for 700MHz is probably my realistic maximum possibility.

  If you wanted a look at the core and cache chips on the Athlon I ruined then here you go, I sure wish I had another one of these to try...

  For those of you who have been visiting UnlimitedHardware.com regularly for the last few months you have read a mention or two about my UH X2 "slotket" cooler.  I never released many details about it other than it was a modified version of an already available heatsink.  The biggest advantage of the UH X2 is that it allows use of all the DIMM slots on any motherboard while delivering very good cooling performance.  My plans were to develop a "kit" which could be purchased inexpensively so you could do the conversion yourself very easily but unfortunately I could not find anyone to produce the simple shroud for a reasonable cost.  What I have decided to do is write up an article including simple instructions on how you can make the UH X2 yourself with inexpensive materials and regular common hand tools.  Remember that the UH X2's advantage is to free up all the DIMM slots, even though it does cool slightly better (about 1-2c cooler) than the original heatsink I doubt that it is gonna take your processor to the "next level" anymore than the original heatsink can do.  Though the article is still in the works I'm gonna go ahead and give you this quick peek...

  Please don't go emailing me for construction details pertaining to the UH X2.  The article will be out in a few days and the above picture I believe gives just about all the details you need.  The construction article will include a template for the shroud which you can print out.  For now if you want to tackle the project on your own or get a head start on the supplies then head on over to PLYCON Computers for the excellent Gamma 28 blowers.

  I unpacked and started taking a good look at my ALPHA P7125 heatsink.    Just in case you don't already know the P7125 is ALPHA's Athlon cooling solution that also takes into account the unfortunate ATX power connector location on most of the available Athlon boards such as the Asus K7M.  Another unique feature of the P7125 is that it has a copper insert just like the P3125 PIII cooler.  The copper insert has shown to improve the cooling performance of the ALPHA line of heatsinks.    Unfortunately the P7125 will block the first DIMM slot on most if not all Athlon boards.

  Ian from 2CoolTek did up a little performance comparison on the ALPHA PAL6035 PPGA cooler and added it to his Socket Test Page.  The PAL6035 is another example how ALPHA's copper insert idea improves heatsink performance.

  Keeping with today's heatsink theme Agg from Overclockers Australia sent word that he has done up some info on a few new PIII heatsinks.  I found the modified UlraCool UC-S2 especially interesting with the standard 80mm fan and the performance numbers look pretty impressive.

  I have gotten word that we can expect to start seeing the K7M Athlon board packaged in ASUS colors soon rather than the "white boxed" version we have seen up to this point.

  Intel has officially released the Celeron 533.

  Some motherboard manufacturers have already started displaying Intel i840 chipset based boards though I wouldn't expect final product on store shelves till April or May at the earliest.

  3D Spotlight put up some information regarding enabling Side Band Addressing and Nvidia's 3.6x drivers.  If you have an AMD chipset based Athlon board then definitely go check the info out.

  Well this has definitely been a crappy day for me.  First off I get finished working 48 hours straight at the fire department and I'm damn tired.  So tired in fact I probably should have just gone to bed but instead I started digging into a couple of packages I received while I was at work.  The first package contained my samples of ALPHA's PAL6035 and P7125 heatsinks and the second package contained my new Athlon 500 processor.  Being a bit curious to see what core and cache chips were on my new Athlon 500 had I quickly started prying the case and plate off.  Unfortunately being tired and in a hurry I let the screw driver slip while prying off the plate retaining straps and promptly removed a couple of the surface mount components from the PCB.  The image below shows (in yellow circle) where the components (like the one circled in red) used to be before I screwed up.   Ya and just in case you were wondering it is a week 46 with the 650 core and 3.3ns cache chips...  ouch!

  Now to clarify some information I shared with Joe over at Overclockers.com.  Joe recently did a short review on the SwifTech MC1000 slot1 TEC cooler.  The performance of the MC1000 that he tested was below what I thought it was capable of with a little modification so I sent an email over to Joe with my thoughts and ideas.  First off I did a review on the PPGA slotket MC1000 a while back and I found it to be a pleasure to use giving the best cooling performance from any "off the shelf ready to order" PPGA processor cooling solution.  After my initial review I did have the opportunity to try the MC1000 slot1 conversion for my setup on a PIII but cooling performance was found to be poor in my opinion with the setup I had and in the manner I had assembled it.    After realizing that the MC1000's TEC was much larger than the PIII's "slug" (the PIII is much smaller than a PPGA "slug") and after doing a little research I came to the conclusion that a small 1/8" aluminum "cold plate" might be beneficial to help the larger TEC make more efficient contact with the smaller PIII processor "slug".  I was pleasantly surprised to find the modified MC1000 was now cooling my PIII on par with the results I had obtained with the PPGA version.  Joe did the same type of modification and also improved the cooling performance on the processor he was testing with his MC1000.

  I will say that the possibility of incorrect installation by myself may have resulted in the original poor results of the slot1 MC1000 but I did give the unassembled MC1000 to two close (and very capable) friends who also had the exact same results as I.  The fact of the matter is that if a TEC's cold surface is not in contact with either the component being cooled or a "cold plate" then that surface area is not being used to pump heat away from the component.  TECs work by the conduction of thermal energy through direct surface contact not through the principles of thermal radiation or convection.  Any part of the TEC's cold surface which is exposed to the surrounding air is going to be wasted and placing any type of thermal probe to measure performance against the cold side of the TEC itself is very misleading as I have seen some reviewers do on a number of different TEC based cooling setups.

  For those of you interested in providing a little extra cooling for that new GeForce video card taking up your system's AGP slot then head on over to PLYCON Computers for a little cooling demo.  A little extra cooling is definitely required if you plan on pushing the GeForce's OC envelope.

  In case you didn't know already Intel and AMD have both now released 800MHz products.  For you Athlon fans out there who are interested in Athlon 500 OC action you better get em while you can because stocks are running out quickly and production is history.  The demand has already shown up as price increases over the last week or so.

  Well I still have not gotten my samples of the ALPHA PAL6035 or P7125 heatsinks yet but according to UPS they should be in tomorrow.  For those of you wanting a little insight as to the possible performance differences of the PAL6035 compared to the older PFH6035 then head on over to Overclockers.com for some preliminary test results.    As expected the copper insert of the newer PAL6035 does seem to indeed give a slight cooling performance advantage over the PFH6035.

  It looks like GlobalWIN is finally getting on the slot1/slotA "extreme heatsink" bandwagon with what they are calling the VOS32.  Get a few more details over at The Heatsink Guide.

  Tyan, Biostar, FIC, and SOYO have all recently released information concerning their KX133 based slotA boards.  They will all be released around the end of February and the beginning of March.

  Not so long ago there was a lot of talk about the "Orb" Panaflo fan heatsink which was a leftover from Hewlett Packard's RISC processor setups.  The heatsinks made big news with their unique design but unfortunately the damn things are not easy to mount to our conventional processors.  Well HardOCP has done up a nice review of the kit by Montac which makes mounting the "Orb" to a slot1 processor an easy deal.  The review also includes performance data so you yourself can make up your mind whether or not the "Orb" will live up to what some have claimed.

  Not too much going on right now but I did want to let you all know that MotherBoard Monitor version 4.13 is now available here.

  For those of you who noticed my little error with the last news update thanks for letting me know.  For those of you who missed it I accidentally dated it last year, whoops.  Now if I could just get my check book straightened out.

  Well I did finish my first plexi-glass case for the liquid cooled system project but I must say it came out awful in my opinion.  My friends seem to be impressed but it is just not up to the quality of work I expected from myself.    Needless to say version 2 will be started soon since I have learned a few new things about working with plastics on the first one.  Oh well, that was $100 worth of acrylic gone to waste.  : (

  Another new consideration for the plexi-glass cased liquid cooled project is the processor and mobo.  The first version is built around a SOYO 6BA+IV and a Celeron PPGA 366 at 605MHz but I am seriously considering jumping on the Athlon bandwagon.    I have helped build 3 Athlon systems for other folks but I was waiting for more refined motherboards before I tackled one for myself.  Well given the Athlon's recent popularity I decided it was time UnlimitedHardware got some real hands-on Athlon action to present to you all.  Now I just need to decide on what motherboard I do want to try though honestly I am already leaning towards the Asus K7M without the built-on audio.

  I have gotten word today that there is a GoldenFinger device headed my way for review.  These type of devices have been a blessing for those interested in overclocking their Athlon processor since all that soldering is a real pain in the butt.    Trust me I know, I have helped modify two Athlons by resoldering resistors and I don't wish that frustration on anyone.  Anyway the interesting thing about the GoldenFinger device I should be getting is that it will be offered for around $40 which is about half of what others are going for today.  I will release all he appropriate information as it becomes available.

  This is actually a couple of weeks old but since I am just now getting back into the swing of things I thought I would mention it anyway.  Agg over at Overclockers Australia sent me word that he has information concerning a fix for the spontaneous reboot problems associated with the FIC SD-11 Athlon board.

  Speaking of Athlon GoldenFinger overclocking cards, Gary over at Overclockin.com did a review up on Trinity Micro's offer.  As usual Gary did a great job on the review and included lots of good information.  Also up there is a little PPGA heatsink review action by their man Brandon.

  I have yet to receive my samples of ALPHA's newest heatsink offerings the PAL6035 and the P7125 but my good friend Tillman over at The Heatsink Guide has them on hand and you can check a preliminary look-see out over there.  If you are interested in getting one of these new processor coolers for yourself then head on over to PLYCON Computers because they got em in stock and tell em I sent ya.

  Though I have no information other than this picture I just wanted to share with you what has been described to me as an advanced PLL control device with LCD display and remote control.  In case you are not sure what that means it is used to control the mobo FSB MHz in very small increments but this particular setup allows control without opening the system's case...