They were for unlocking the multipliers on early Athlons. They would fit between the CPU and the socket and had DIP switches on them to override the factory locked multiplier settings.
I've been looking for a while and haven't managed to find one either.... if you dig one up let us know 😀
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
I'd be interested to know as well. I've been watching eBay for over a year and haven't seen a single one come up, and I can't find anywhere else online that still has 'em either.
make me another thats interested in one. 🙁
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
can't you use one of those conductive marker pens?
wrote:can't you use one of those conductive marker pens?
For some of the Socket A's I think you can but there was also another type of goldfinger device for Slot A Athlons that fit over an edge connector on the top of the Athlon circuit board to unlock those. I'm not really sure what the edge connector was supposed to be for, probably for running diagnostics at the factory, but the multiplier was accessible through it.
Here's a pic of a Slot A goldfinger
And like I said earlier, there was one that fit between the socket and the CPU for socket A but those probably fell out of use once it was found you could short the resistors on top with conductive paint. I can't find a clear pic of one of those to show how they operated, though.
You could do it with a lead pencil on the Thunderbirds. Late model Thunderbirds were unlocked from the factory.
Palomino and later added a laser-cut trench between each of the bridges so you had to fill that before connecting them again.
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
Ya but we're talking the Slot chips with offchip cache.
Argon K7 (0.25 µm) K75 (0.18 µm), Pluto, Orion (1 GHz)
[Thanks Sandpile.org]
wrote:wrote:can't you use one of those conductive marker pens?
For some of the Socket A's I think you can
I was talking about the Socket A's in response to the above 😉
There were also Thunderbird Slot A's but I don't know if you could close the bridges to unlock them in the same way as the socket A Thunderbirds.
As a side note, it's also possible to change the multiplier and cache speed ratio on a Slot A cart without a goldfinger device... it's just that it involves soldering some tiny SMD resistors, so it's a huge PITA to do, especially if you're trying several different combinations of settings.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/speed,651.html
This is likely what the OP was referring to.
"Retro Rocket"
Athlon XP-M 2200+ // Epox 8KTA3
Radeon 9800xt // Voodoo2 SLI
Diamond MX300 // SB AWE64 Gold
wrote:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/speed,651.html
This is likely what the OP was referring to.
Good point. Yeah that's not what a Goldfingers device is. That's a socket interposer.
I found this picture and it looks like it has the DIP switches on the underside so you would set the switches for the multiplier you wanted before you plugged it in.
