Tualeron In A BX Motherboard

For those of you with little patience for reading, the slotket adapter is *the* most important part to this mod. User Spajky and Dave001 have made us a list of compatible slotkets. To get basic functionality with this mod, you will have to do a little work on your processor and slotket. Your motherboard will go unchanged, for now. Check out the Tualeron Success Chart to see how other modders fared and what mods they used.

So, you have one(1) slot 1 motherboard, a Tualatin Celeron and a compatible slotket. If your slotket is not listed as 'compatible', then check this article to get you going. There are 2 methods of completing this mod: the easy way and the hard way. The easy way will VOID your cpu's warranty but will get you running within 10 minutes. The hard way will require a few supplies, some tools and a little know-how.

The Easy Way

This is going to void your cpu's warranty. Break the 3 red pins off of your cpu with a pair of needle nose pliers or other suitable tool. Be careful not to bend the other pins surrounding the 3 red ones.

Another choice you have to make is whether you are going to overclock this cpu or you are happy with the stock speed of the cpu. Some of you have a motherboard that has a max Front Side Bus(FSB) of 100 MHz so the choice is made for you since the Tualatin Celeron operates at 100 FSB.

Non-overclock: Connect pin AK4 to pin AJ5 on the cpu(BLUE). AK4 is looking for 1.25v and if you run your cpu at 1.45v, then AK4 is going to get 1.45v too. AJ5's voltage will vary depending on what you set in the BIOS as it is directly controlled by the voltage regulator on the mobo.

Overclocker: Connect AK4 to AN11 on the cpu(GREEN) since AN11 is a constant 1.5v. This is the lowest voltage we can find on the socket that is close to AK4.

Note: Some people *must* connect AK4 to AK26 on the cpu(YELLOW) to get the cpu to operate as the 2 above methods don't work. But AK26 is 1.8v on a Pentium3 compatible slotket.

You are probably wondering how to make these connections from pin to pin. The easiest way is to use conductive paint on the underside of the cpu which generally comes in two types: copper or silver composition. The copper type is used for repairing the rear window defogger "lines" on your car. You can purchase it from your local automotive supply shop. It is the cheapest, easiest paint to find but is quick drying and not as conductive as the silver type. The silver paint comes in a "pen" or little jar and is clearly superior to the copper type but you will pay more than twice as much for it.

The Hard Way

If I was going to do a quick Tualeron Mod for a buddy for the lowest cost, I would buy an OEM tualeron and use 'The Easy Way.' However, we like using retail/boxed cpus that come with heat sinks & fans since they are usually a better yield cpu and we get a 3 year warranty. Overclockers enjoy the idea they can run their cpus hard until they burn-out while relying on the warranty to get a replacement. We don't condone this idea, but we know it goes on. To maintain the warranty you can't cut off any pins so that means using some form of insulation.

Some users have reported using IDE insulation striped off a single wire. We had some green wire lying around the lab that was a little thinner but harder. The green insulation needs a little push to fit on the end of a sewing pin. So, get 3 pieces of insulation that will just cover the length of the cpu pins. I used a sewing pin to widen the hole in the insulation so that it would slide onto the cpu pins easier. Cover the same 3 red pins in the above diagram. Also, choose which connection is best suited to you: BLUE, GREEN, or YELLOW. Make the connection on the cpu.

The 3 pins we have insulated will not fit into the slocket's ZIF socket as they are too thick. Remove the top sliding cover of the ZIF socket using a thin screwdriver and carefully pry the sides away from the socket underneath. In the picture, the top and bottom of the picture are the latch points. Drill the same holes in the picture. You can verify you have the correct holes by placing the cpu on the ZIF cover. We used a 1mm(1/32nd) drill bit for the green insulation while others used a 2mm(1/16th) for the IDE insulation. An Xacto knife or other blade will widen the holes if you don't have a drill bit handy. Clean the burrs off the 3 holes' underside and replace the cover onto the ZIF socket.

Note: We have read that small pieces of sticky-tape inserted over the contacts of the ZIF socket underneath the cover also work as insulation. This would save us having to drill the cover and insulate the pins on the cpu. We will test this out in the future.

Update: We gave the sticky tape method a try and it is by far the best way to insulate socket pins. Just pop the ZIF cover off and cut small pieces of tape(about 2 mm wide and 4 mm long) then push them down into the socket pin where the cpu pin would make contact. Use a toothpick or thin piece of metal to press the tape onto the contact patch to make it stick. You will probably have excess tape standing up so carefully cut it off with an xacto or razor blade. We used plain old back-to-school sticky tape in the plastic dispenser. No more drilling is needed and you won't get bent pins anymore from the thick insulation.

We've managed to get a good overclocking processor. Our retail 1.2A with stock heatsink can do 1.557 Ghz @ 1.55v using the updated "Hard Way" - BLUE and sticky tape with an ASUS S370-DL ver1.2, an Iwill SlotketII ver1.02, a MSI MS6905 ver1.1a(no chips, article), and a generic slotket(in this article). All of them could run at this speed on our BX6rev2 @ 129 FSB.

Final Words

Carefully insert your cpu into the slotket and close the lever. It may be a little stiff if you have used insulation rather than cutting the pins off or using sticky tape. A word to the wise. Don't open and close the lever too much as the 3 pins with insulation will begin to bend and possibly break off. One unfortunate user has experienced this.

Add the heat sink with thermal paste(the Intel supplied thermal pad is not helpful in overclocking so remove it). Insert the slotket into your motherboard and clear the CMOS. Whenever you remove and reinstall the slotket, clear the CMOS. Now see if there's life!

You should get a functioning cpu in your BX motherboard after this mod. People report varying degrees of stability so your mileage may vary. We will expand on this article as we test and improve our own Tualeron setup.

Thanks go out to everyone in the forums for all their hard work and suggestions!

Troubleshooting

If the cpu won't power-up, you may need to try the classic VID mod, bridge AK4 to AK26, bridge G35 to G37 or possibly all of these.

If you need some help from fellow modders, try any of the forums below.

The LunchBox Forums

Forum Thread at Overclockers.com: "running Tualatin on CuMine MB w/o Powerleap"

Forum Thread at MadOnion.com: "Tualatin on a BX Mobo works. No Adaptor Required"

DISCLAIMER: These mods will void your warranty. Do not attempt any of these if you fear you will not be successful.

We accept no responsibility for your errors, loss of hardware, software, data, or anything else for that matter.