Throttle Blaster rev 0.3: Controllable by serial port 

Awesome project! I built one using the schematic and ordered a bunch of PCBs to build more. Works great and thank you for making it available.

Your a treasure to the community. Thank you for your work sir.

Thank you for sharing this again, great work! Have to say, felt a bit nervous seeing the soldering happening above that motherboard j/k

Fantastic! I've got a P3 @1000MHz on a bx440 motherboard with two sound cards, capable of running almost all DOS games. With Throttle Blaster and setmul, I believe there are very few games that won't run now.

Thank you so much for working on this project.

Nice work, only will need one fast p2/3 with isa that can cover so much now.

A very cool project, but there are so many software options for slowing your computer down. But having a twisty knob to control the speed while the game is running is cool.

awesome project!

I ordered 3 PCBs from Oshpark (After Dark option: mine will be black), from Mouser I got the Pico (cheaper than here) and electrical components (locally I don't have a single place I can order all together), headers, encoder and display I got locally. It will take 3-4 weeks for things to get here. I will post back when I get everything working.

Awesome. I'm glad for the addition of serial control and the fact that you don't need to use it. Can't wait to run one and try it. It will be interesting to see how different games play with different FSB and CPU speeds with different Throttle Blaster settings. I imagine 1000MHz / 4 is not quite the same as 500MHz / 2..? All the best to you!

After watching the first two parts, I found myself wondering about putting it on an ISA card, but the serial port control is probably the better option.

Amazing project

Cool stuff again just ordered my pcb's thanks for giving this to the community. I was just looking through a 2008 PDF for the P4 and there is a reference to an errata that if the STPCLK pin is de-asserted at a 12.5% duty cycle then it is a frequency below 2GHz and the processor may hang. Probably worth mentioning that this device might cause hanging issues on some systems?

No flux soldering? Rare and nice to see!

Hi. I got Oshpark's boards this week, had the chance to build one set last night. I went only with the Rotary Encoder build, thus I populated only R1/R2, D1, Q1, SW2 (Rotary Encoder), and the headers. No solder bridges, all good. Pico Zero correctly oriented. Display installed (mine has ground and VCC swapped, I checked that before). I plugged on my PC (Win10) and uploaded the .uf2 firmware. It rebooted, on display shows 200 (it has 4 digits). When I turn the know, it doesn't go beyond 200, it goes down to 4 (133, 66, 33, etc). When I press the knob, it switches to fine adjustment, I goes from 4 to 200 also, but very slowly (I have turn a couple of steps before it moves, takes forever to go from 200 to 4). I checked all components before assembly (diode, resistors, transistor, Pico) bought from Mouser, a reliable source), orientation is correct, no shorts or bad soldering found (63/37 solder, good quality, some flux used as needed, board cleaned afterwards). I assume it has nothing to do with the components I didn't put in (the optional for the other modes I won't be using). One thing, Pico Zero doesn't blink green as in you video. I tried a second one fresh from package, same behaviour: it takes the firmware, reboots but no flashing. I can send pictures or more details if that would help. During the weekend I will try on a board (slot 1 or socket 462) and also try to measure it on a oscilloscope. The only thing I did differently from you was to opt for Afterdark color option on the board fab. Posting here in hope of getting some light into this odd behaviour. If there is a discussion forum, discord, etc available I can post there. Kind regards EDIT: Never mind. I based the comment above on the video. I went back to the GitHub instructions and learned about the rotary encoder secondary functions (long press) and managed to move frequency up, just like you had on the video. I thought 1200 was supposed to come straight after installing the .uf2 file, this is what got me confused. Default is 200, which makes sense (conservative for slower CPUs). The only thing that remains... the encoder is sometimes slow... I could move frequency up to 3555 on the long press settings, had to reset it to go back to 200 (it was not moving down). Leaving the comment as it is, it might help someone else.

Outstanding! I will try building mine. I will stick to the rotary encoder, really liked your suggestion to use the 5.25 bay cover. Which pcb company do you normally order from? Thanks for bringing alive such lovely retro ideas and sharing with us. PS: the Duke music makes me always remember you channel 😊

thanks for update. I wish you can sell circuit board or kit. :) I am studying how to order circuit board through like PCBway company. and order other components. to me personal challenge is ... how to find STPCLK pin in CPU. :)

how many cpus have the stop pin? i am really into all your projects. Just built the voltage blaster and several mt32pi wavetable.

Might be worth using a standard keyed 4 pin power connector to save a bad day.

Great Stuff ‼️👍🔥🌶️

Hey , thanks for creating this very nice project , its super handy , the only issue I've had so far is that the display is a bit off as to the actual cpu speed , I'm running a pentium 233 mmx but the display says 200 when I've turned the knob all the way to off , any idea on what's causing it?

Which gen of hardware is compatible? Would this work on a P2, P3, or P4? If so, where is the cut off? Is it a GHz limit, or is it just once the tech gets too new/smart?

pipico stronk scrap power

thanks, can you use AI Voice please.