At 08:22 12/15/98 +0300, Sami Al-Mohssen wrote:
>I really am intrested in buying a celeron300A...i've herd that the
>chip runs cooler than the PII which made me think about over cloacking
>...first i willl buy ANY BX motherboard...
>do i have to buy a special kind of heat sink?

Hi Sami

There is one thing that might stop you from overclocking the 300a if
you buy "just any" BX motherboard.

Some people find that the chip will not run stably when overclocked
if it is set at the default voltage. But most BX motherboards do
not allow you to adjust the voltage. (Raising it a few tenths of a volt
makes it *very* likely that you will be able to run the 300a at 450 MHz.
Of course you want to use the lowest voltage that works reliably...
whether that's 2.00 volts or 2.30 volts.)

As far as I know, the only BX motherboard that allows you to easily
adjust the Vcore voltage is the Abit BH6. And this board has the
added advantage that you can make these adjustments from BIOS setup,
without having to power down, open the case, and change a jumper setting.
The BH6 also has 6 PCI slots (most boards have 5), is reliable, and costs
around $100 US. (Plus or minus $15.)

If you get a motherboard that does not allow you to adjust the voltage
manually, you would have to mask a pin on the Celeron with tape or nail
polish to make each change. You can find instructions and diagrams for
this procedure at <http://www.3dhardware.net/features/slot1voltage/> or
<http://www2.tomshardware.com/Celeronto100.html>. Since you might have
to experiment with voltage settings, and this procedure is inconvenient
to do even once, getting an Abit BH6 is recommended.

A generic one fan (get the ball bearing kind instead of a sleave kind)
heatsink (~$15) should work if you use a voltage of 2.00 volts. I see
that many people use something called "KC-266". I don't know where
to get this.

For higher voltages, several people recommend a Global FAB-24 dual fan
($19). I heard that the Glacial 4500c triple fan cooler ($35) was not
worth the price. The heat sink and fan that comes with the Celeron boxed
set is supposed to be excellent.

If you are interested in adding or removing the fan/sink from a Celeron,
you might find the following document helpful:
<http://developer.intel.com/design/celeron/datashts/243658.htm>.

Regards,
Bill

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