i dunno if this is normal... but the L1 bridges on my t/bird 1333MHz are already joined. i can't see a gap anyways and no, i'm not blind - i can see the gaps in the other bridge thingies.
i got it from priceless computing (www.pless.co.uk) but the bridges didn't even look like they'd been broken in the first place, they looked like the other joined ones that are on the other bridges.
Actually it was the newer TBirds that were factory unlocked mostly. Some very early socket A chips were unlocked too. AMD knew that people knew how to unlock them, so they didn't bother any more. Look on the core of your chip. The stepping code is almost certainly AYHJA. These were not locked. My 1.4GHz AYHJA R is not locked. True that Tbirds weren't difficult to unlock, but the point about factory unlocked is that it is much more stable than a pencil unlock. Pencil unlocks can give questionable conduction, and sometimes cause system instabilities, as the bios gets confused about whether the chip is locked or not. That doesn't happen with factory unlocked examples. I have my unlocked Tbird, and also have an unlocked Duron 600.
sorry ... my digicam's a £40 jobby and it can't make out the bridges. i've got an older (about 1 yr older, dead now) tbird that was locked P.S. read my sig - I have an AYJHA chip
Time to play with that multiplier then if it is unlocked! This is still probably the best way to start overclocking as it doesn't play with the other parts of your system too much! And with a nice chip like that, a few extra MHz shouldn't be out of the question!
