Just thought I'd report on my latest O/C experience. I was gonna order a XP-M for my Asus board, but ran across a deal at Outpost.com for a retail 2500+ Sempron w/ECS KT600A motherboard for $70 - NO rebates involved either! I was hoping for a Thorton core Sempron, but it turned out to be a Tbred. I was anxious to see what it would do, so I took out my 1800+ Tbred & popped in the Sempron. It fired up with out a problem. I immediately went for broke...2100mhz (10.5 x 200mhz) & took a stab at the vcore at 1.75v. It begin to boot but froze when loading Windows. I really didn't wanna crank the vcore much higher, but I tried for 1.775v, it got a little farther, but locked up again. I lower the FSB to 185mhz & the voltage to 1.75v & it got into Windows without any probs. I played around a bit, but wanted to try a little higher. I raised the FSB to 195mhz, got into Windows, & tried running TOAST. It locked up in less than 5 secs but before it locked up, Asus Probe popped up with some whacked out voltages. I had a new Mad Dog 350 watt PSU that I was gonna use for something else, but decided to give it a go. After changing the PSU & rebooting, I ran Toast for 30 min - CPU maxed at 49C. I ran Prime95 for about 30 min too & had no probs. Decided to go for 200mhz again, but it locked within a minute of starting TOAST. For the heck of it, I tried changing the multi to see if the nForce2 would unlock it, but the system refused to boot at 10x. I cleared CMOS, ran thru the settings, & have settled in at 10.5 x 195mhz @ 1.75v. All seems well & good. Current idle temp from Asus Probe is 31C! Asus A7N8X-X 2500+ Sempron @ 2.05Ghz 10.5 x 195mhz @ 1.75v 512mb PC3200 Ti4200/8X 128mb WDC 60GB

Hi ..jam What cooler you got with that sempron...? AMD's can take more voltage than 1.775v..(with a nice cooler.!!) Plus i would'nt be to afraid of putting a little more voltage through your memory (if you have the option ). Im sure you know that this would help in getting a higher FSB out of that system..... Nice overclock though..... ................. Abit NF7s V2.0 Mobo Radeon 9800xt 256mb, xp2500 mobile @2610ghz, Antec true 550w psu, 2X512 xms corsair Pc3500 in dual channel, Twin 10k Raptors raided waterchill cooled..

Jam, Send it back and get a mobile. It runs so cool. Newegg. 2600 with the I stepping. Gone up to $96. I bought at 95. Got mobo yesterday and it's just walking at 2ghz. Temp=34C. YO

I may still go for an XP-M for my Asus board. They all overclock about the same so I'd probably go for a 2200+ & save a few bucks. I'm running the Sempron with the stock HSF & thermal pad. I figured $70 for a CPU/HSF/board combo, I couldn't go wrong - I can probably sell the board for $40 or so, or I may just keep it for a future project. The board has SATA/RAID, but doesn't appear very overclockable. The manual doesn't mention multiplier or vcore adjustment, so it's probably autodetect only. The FSB is adjusted thru jumpers & the BIOS. I picked up a SOYO KT600 Dragon about a month ago (free after rebates), & I got 768mb of PC2700 for cheap on Black Friday. I may throw it all together with the Sempron & sell my backup machine (KT133A board w/1.33 Tbird) Asus A7N8X-X 2500+ Sempron @ 2.05Ghz 10.5 x 195mhz @ 1.75v 512mb PC3200 Ti4200/8X 128mb WDC 60GB

10.5 x 200mhz @ 1.80v, 32C @ idle Asus A7N8X-X 2500+ Sempron @ 2100mhz 10.5 x 200mhz @ 1.80v 512mb PC3200 Ti4200/8X 128mb WDC 60GB