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June 3, 2003
Grounding a Cubid 26xx case

May 23, 2003
DivX 3 on XCards

March 12, 2003
EPIA Overclocking

March 4, 2003
EPIA Digital 5.1 Audio

EPIA 800 IR on COM

EPIA Video/Audio to SCART

January 26, 2003
Chyang Fun E-Note Review

January 6, 2003
EPIA M BIOS

January 4, 2003
Lian Li PC-402A Review

December 18, 2002
Morex Cubid 2699 due in 2003

November 13, 2002
FIR/CIR info

November 4, 2002
Netbox Cubit Review

October 26, 2002
Mini-ITX BIOS updated

October 17, 2002
Netbox launch the "CUBIT"

October 12, 2002
Jetway B860T Review

October 9, 2002
RealMagic XCard Review

October 8, 2002
EPIA-M Specifications

October 6, 2002
New cases from Casetek

Mini-ITX BIOS update

October 3, 2002
Morex Cubid 2688R Review

September 24, 2002
More EPIA-M pix

September 18, 2002
EPIA-M spy pic

September 17, 2002
EPIA-M - more details

August 30, 2002
EPIA M to debut in October

August 28, 2002
Lucky Star's LIVE 2000F

FAQ update

August 27, 2002
Mini-ITX BIOS updated

August 22, 2002
Chyang Fun!

August 21, 2002
Bona announces LIGHT barebones system

August 17, 2002
Morex Cubid 2677R Review

August 15, 2002
Mini-ITX BIOS updated

Why the CNPS6100-AlCu won't fit an EPIA 800

Suppliers and Cases lists updated

August 9, 2002
G-Alantic 610i Review

August 8, 2002
Morex add 2688 case to range

July 25, 2002
PowerLCD goes Final

July 21, 2002
Connecting 2 additional USB ports to VIA EPIA MBs

July 12, 2002
Mini-ITX BIOS updated

July 9, 2002
Mini-ITX suppliers list updated

July 3, 2002
Lucky Star enter Mini-ITX market

June 28, 2002
SilentPCReview Survey

Mini-ITX suppliers list moved

June 24, 2002
Traverse MicroServa 500

June 22, 2002
ZM-NB32J & EPIA-800 mod - Zalman speaks

June 19, 2002
G-Alantic gears up for mass production

June 14, 2002
Mini-ITX manual, diagrams and a new mainboard specification white paper

June 10, 2002
Mini-ITX cases thin on the ground, future looks promising

Cubit 2677

QBox/Checkercube


Overclocking an EPIA (or EPIA M)
Posted on March 12, 2003

Introduction

This is an EPIA M9000 running at 933Mhz:

This is the same machine two seconds later running at 1066Mhz:

How to do it

Here's the recipe for overclocking an EPIA.

1. Download version 3.0c of WCPUID by H.Oda here --> WCPUID 3.0c

2. Install and Run it. Make sure nothing else is running for now.

3. Go to the "Tweak" menu and select "VIA CyrixIII/C3 Multiplier".

4. Increase the multiplier by 0.5 to start with.

5. Marvel at your new found speed.

6. Repeat stage 4, until a blue screen occurs. (This won't take long)

What's actually happening

The speed of your EPIA is governed by the FSB (Front Side Bus) speed, multiplied by a "Multiplier". So FSB x Multiplier = CPU Speed. This is why the next Pentium probably won't be running at 3.141592Ghz... The FSB of current EPIAs is 133Mhz, so our EPIA M is running a multiplier of 7. Some motherboards allow 'overclocking' this multiplier (and often the FSB) by changing jumpers on the board, or more recently by changing settings in their BIOS. The FSB speed can be altered on EPIAs, but it is already at the maximum. The Multiplier isn't configurable in the EPIA BIOS, but it can be temporarily altered in software.

Caveats

Although it probably won't, this *might* damage your computer. Don't try this whilst your PC is doing anything important. When your EPIA runs faster, it will also run hotter. It may freeze, and will restart if you set the multiplier too high. But don't worry - your EPIA will reset itself to the 'correct' speed at startup. In practice, we managed to stably run an EPIA 5000 at 600Mhz, an EPIA 800 at 933Mhz, and an EPIA M9000 at 1000Mhz - and this was without any attempt at cooling the CPU. Who needs an M10000 anyway? If you can run 3DMark on your EPIA, it'll probably stand the pace.

Many thanks to Bart Banaan for the tip!



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