Beyond a reasonable doubt

But wait a minute. Intel has "locks" on their CPU's, and the motherboard can detect and hold the CPU if it's set to the incorrect speed, right? This is what is known as a "Speed Hold Error" in your motherboard's BIOS. Speed Hold Error can also be use to find out if you've been sold an overclocked CPU.

When the Speed Hold Error is turn on, the motherboard checks the factory speed of the CPU, and if you have it set to any other speed, the loading of Windows will stop and you will get a message saying "CPU is unworkable or has been changed" or something along that line. At least that is what Abit motherboards say anyway. Speed Hold Error must be turned off when you're overclocking.

To prove to my friend that his 800EB was really a 600E I removed his CPU off the Abit BX133-RAID and installed it into an Abit SE6 motherboard. The reason for this is I could not find the Speed Hold Error in the BX-133 BIOS. I'm sure it's there but I didn't look hard enough.

When installed in the Abit SE6 motherboard with Speed Hold Error on and Front Side Bus set to 133Mhz and the multiplier set to 6X, the CPU loaded up and the Abit motherboard stated that this CPU was indeed an Intel Pentium III 800EB. It even added the EB at the end. Further proof to my friend that this was indeed a real 800Mhz CPU.

Then I changed the Front Side Bus to 100Mhz and left the Speed Hold Error on. To my friend's shock, the system reported that the CPU was an Intel Pentium III 600E! The Speed Hold Error did not halt the system and Windows loaded up without any problems or error messages.

To prove that the Speed Hold Error was working, I change the multiplier to 5X and Front Side Bus to 66Mhz. Sure enough, on the reboot, the system was halted and the message "CPU is unworkable or has been changed" showed up. 

This test will also work if you have a 600E. Set your Front Side Bus to 133Mhz, leave the multiplier at 6X and turn on the Speed Hold Error. You will see that the Speed Hold will not halt the system and your screen will display Intel Pentium III 800EB. 

To say my friend is less than happy is an understatement. He now feels he's been ripped off by Intel because he could have saved some money and bought a 600E instead. But he didn't do that because he wanted a "non overclocked" system. However, you can't really blame Intel for trying to get the most money they can from their CPU's. 

This brings up an interesting question. When you buy an 800EB, are you really buying an 800Mhz chip or an overclocked 600E? The answer is you're buying an 800Mhz chip of course because Intel doesn't sell overclocked chips. So then the question is when you buy a 600E and clock it to 800Mhz are you really overclocking? Or are you just running the chip at what it should have run at in the first place? Think about that next time someone tells you Overclocking is unsafe and will only destroy your CPU.

What did my friend do? He kept the 800EB and gave me the Abit BX133-RAID for my SE6 motherboard. Since the Abit SE6 has an Intel 815i chipset with native support of 133Mhz Front Side Bus, he can honestly say his system is not "overclocked". :)