Extreme Voltage Mod For KT7/KT7A

Date Written: April 10, 2001
Writen By: Jason Rabel

Choosing A Resistor:

Anyhow, back to the resistors. The resistor going to the voltage regulator (the wire on the chip) can be varied if you want to still safeguard your system from running over a max voltage. The lower the resistance, the higher the max voltage should be able to go. For this connection I found that it maxed out with a 1/4 watt, 5% tolerance, 3.3k-Ohm resistor for going up to 2.7v. The color bands are Orange, Orange, Red, Gold.

*UPDATE* - Some people have been telling me that their system won't boot with a 3.3k-Ohm resistor in the chip loop. I'm guessing because this is right at the border line and since everyone's system is a little different, try a higher resistor 4.7k or 5.1k and see if that works. You might not be able to get as high of a max voltage, but it should get you close.

Now comes the fun part, the wire going to that other solder pad (which you had 2 choices to solder) actually affects the voltage. I started around 20k-Ohm's and worked my way down till I found was the maximum I could go (or dared to go at least). To get the max voltage, I used a 1/4 watt, 5% tolerance, 5.6k-Ohm resistor. The color bands for it are Green, Blue, Red, Gold. Here's a breakdown of some voltage settings and resistors that you can use in place of this one. Other resistors used were 6.8k-Ohm (Blue, Gray, Red, Gold), and 10K-Ohm (Brown, Black, Orange, Gold).

Remember that your numbers might vary slightly from mine depending on the length / type of wire you use and all that, it's all about resistance. The best thing about this is that if you want to undo to voltage mod, you can simply remove the resistors from the connectors (if you did it like I did). Also you should probably use some heat-shrink tubing to cover all bare wires (like around the resistors). Like I said before, this mod isn't for the newbie, I'm assuming you already know what you are doing and have some sense of how everything works. I'm just providing a guide on the places to solder and some resistors to use, and what you can accomplish.

Conclusions:

If this isn't extreme enough for you, then I don't know what is... I guess I would have to come up with some way to harness a bolt of lighting to overclock a CPU or something.

Yes, this is totally insane to want to run your CPU at 2.7v, but you don't have to run it that high, that is just about the maximum that you can get. If you don't plan on passing 2.1v or so, then you don't even need to solder the second wire to the voltage regulator. I don't know the exact resistor you will need, I would start with a 20k-Ohm or so and work your way down from there.

You might be wondering why there are no benchmarks or anything, well the answer to that is: have patience. This is the first in a series of articles which is leading up to a rig that uses some serious water-cooling and peltier action. I'm trying to break it down into several sections so people can follow step by step.

If you attempt this mod, take your time, be careful, and best of luck!

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