Well-known enthusiast and photographer of processor chips Fritzchens Fritz (Fritzchens Fritz) found a way to increase the amount of second-level cache in AMD K6-2+ processors. As it turned out, the chips of these 180-nm processors initially have 256 KB of L2 cache, of which only 128 KB are active. But a simple modification allows you to get the full cache at your disposal.
Illustrations: Fritzchens Fritz
The experimenter found out that a certain capacitor hidden under the AMD K6-2+ processor cover is responsible for activating the full volume of the L2 cache. Moving the capacitor to an adjacent pad increases the amount of cache memory from 128 to 256 KB, which effectively turns the AMD K6-2+ into an AMD K6-III+ processor.
The AMD K6-2+ and AMD K6-III+ processors were released in the early 2000s and were positioned as competitors to the Pentium III. They had clock speeds in the region of 450-600 MHz and were intended for installation in motherboards with a Super Socket 7 processor socket. . At the same time, the AMD K6-III+ differed from the K6-2+ only in the doubled L2 cache – 256 KB versus 128 KB.
Not all K6-2+ are subject to conversion to K6-III+. Some K6-2+ processors may have defective crystals, and following unlocking the L2 cache, they become unstable. However, there are no detailed statistics on this matter – there are quite a few processors of that period left on the go.
Unfortunately, the way to modify the K6-2+ at the time of its relevance was never discovered – it was found only 22 years following it went on sale. If it had been found at that time, perhaps it would have helped make the K6-2+ even more popular. The fact that AMD processors can be “improved” by such simple modifications was discovered by users a little later, when AMD Athlons of the Thunderbird family appeared on the market – in them, the position of the jumpers located on the processor case was responsible for the nominal clock frequency.
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