Someone on CPU-World is supposed to be getting some made, but we have been waiting almost 3 years. If you can get them made quicker, there is some demand for them 😀

That link has schematics and other info

Wait.. why is there a power connector?

I never had a goldfinger device. I always just did the solder mods required to change the voltage, multiplier, and cache divisor.

It's pretty quick to figure out what a specific CPU will handle and still be stable and the soldering is pretty easy to do as well. Never killed a Slot-A Athlon from doing a solder mod.
https://www.ocinside.de/workshop_en/athlonresistors/

Very nice ! I didn't know you could do that 😁

I might do that instead.
The only problem now is to find a way to open it without breaking it ^^ (For overclocking purposes and also simply changing the thermal paste between the heatspreader and the actual CPU, because it doesn't look great).

Robert B described dissassembling a couple of Athlons @ "System Specs'

Hello, World! :D - Robert B's PC builds - oogle away freely :)
scroll down to The K7 slot A - build

Goldfinger is ideal for experiments and/or if you have multiple CPUs. Personally, I would love to have one, because it opens many option to tinker with on the fly.

If you find any let us know, I'd love to push my athlon 700

Very interested in overclocking my Athlon slot-A processors as well. Glad this is still being talked about recently.

I plan on making a replica of the Northwind GFD v1.0, since it is the easiest (all THT), I have clear pictures of all the traces (mostly), clear pictures of all components, and I have the dip switch config table.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001206111700/ht … dcomputers.com/

Help I need..
1. Someone please try to trace all the traces in Photoshop or MSpaint to see if you match up with what I already have (not posting it yet, since I don't want to influence someone's thoughts of where a trace goes), specifically around the AMD slot connector pins. There's some snakey traces through there that are a little hard to see.. or if someone has a higher resolution picture, that would really help.
2. If you feel like it, try to identify the diodes and resistors. I'll see if I come to the same conclusions.
3. AMD connector pinout is needed for how it matches up with the processor fingers, and that would also help with #1.

I have an Innovatek Goldfinger card. I think it's an even simpler design and it works just fine.
It looks pretty much like the one in the second picture here: https://forum.winworldpc.com/discussion/8324/ … o-heat-spreader
I know roughly where it is so I can have a look for it next time I'm at my storage and take some pictures if that helps.
I have the configuration table somewhere too. It can force all voltages and multipliers that are supposed to be avaliable on Slot A mobos.

The simpler the better. Any high resolution pictures are helpful. I haven't completely settled on the Northwind, but I just found it to look easy to duplicate since there are pretty good pictures of all the traces with simple through-hole components.

I'm not 100% sure but if I remember correctly the Innovatek design only uses a row of switches (8 switches with 3 positions each) and the pcb connector. No other components.

I'm not sure wether it is capable of configuring the cache ratio though. The table you posted indicates that design can do that. I'll try to find that out too.

With the cache speed, I believe that required a separate board or at least solder points that need to be soldered on the CPU PCB. I'm not sure it would gain you a whole lot of extra benchmark points, but I haven't seen any comparison charts. It seems some manufacturers skipped the cache control.

wiretap wrote on 2021-02-03, 00:27:

With the cache speed, I believe that required a separate board or at least solder points that need to be soldered on the CPU PCB.

Oh, right, when looking at the PCB I can see the corresponding switches seem to be connected only to empty pads/holes.
I found a tool to mod BIOS for ASUS K7M K7V motherboards to set a fixed cache divider. Sadly I don't have that board to test it.

I looked up the documentation I have on my Goldfinger card and it even allows up to 2.05V core.
Now I just need to find my card in storage. 😅

I have a OEM version of the k7m so I could try this someday 😀

Deksor wrote on 2021-02-03, 13:23:

I have a OEM version of the k7m so I could try this someday 😀

Sorry, I mistyped. The tool is for the K7V. I have a K7M myself. It's even the board I got the Goldfinger with.
Fixed the mistake in the previous post.

Oh ok then.

By the way since I'm the OP of this old thread, if you want me to change the first post (for example if the project's finished to give a link to the schematics/gerber files) tell me !

I found a good candidate here.. the Northwind GFD Rev. 2 -- it does not need an external power connector. Also, I emailed Northwind to see if they have actual schematics, design files, and additional high res pictures. I doubt they will answer back, haha. Looks like maybe a 10v / 0.1uF ceramic capacitor on there.

Front:

Back:

Back enhanced with clearer traces:

Jumper legend:

Rough start on the PCB layout. Still need to add a few solder holes for the cache control. I'll work out the traces last to mirror the original. 😁