Well, I've got an AMD Athlon XP 2100+, with the polomino core. The cooling system on it is like a thermaltake volcano somthin... Its got a normal copper heatsink and stuff...

I was wondering if anyone with experience overclocking this CPU could tell me how much I'd be able to up things with this configuration. I tried upping the FSB to 166 but things got kinda wierd and I got scared so I set it back lol :). I could experiment upping the multiplier a bit, but if my cpu fries i'm F**cked..lol, so I was wondering if anyone knew of a STABLE level to run it at... If I can overclock at all...

First of all, you're not gonna fry your cpu with good cooling.

If things "got weird" (notice the e before the i) at 166Mhz, you simply went too far.

You'll get the best performance by just upping the fsb something like 5Mhz at a try. Do that until "got weird" starts happening again, then back off some.

If you post your exact motherboard model, we may be of more help but, at this point, it looks like a pretty friendly board.

I'm cutting this short because of a service call but others will come along to help more.

Let us know where you end up...and watch your temps.

Skip

Eheh... yea I cant spell... I'll check but I dont remember any settings between 133 and 166...(its soft clock)

FWI - "Got Weird"( ^^ ) = cmos setup locked up and I couldn't set clock back and scared teh crap outa me, lol.

And my motherboard is the Asus A7N8X-Delux..

yea, I went and checked. The only FSB options available are 100, 133, 166, and 200. Since those are the only FSB that any Athlon XP runs. I could just tweak the multiplier tho... Since you had me mention my motherboard it made me remember that it has a feature calld COP (CPU overheat protection), which automatically cuts the power if it starts to get to high... So i'm a bit braver now... I'll just experiment... Any advice is appreciated tho :)

Your ASUS board should have an advanced or performance setting you can access in bios to change fsb speeds. Time to carefully read your motherboard user manual...I'm too lazy to look it up.

Nice job spelling weird :-)

Skip

(sigh)...yes... i know it has FSB changing options in the cmos... Thats what i've been doing...thats not the issue...Its under Advanced chipset features....

It won't retain the settings you input? You can't go to, for example, 143Mhz from 133Mhz?

Skip

"XP 2100+, with the palomino core"...

... is the least overclockable xp amd ever made. fyi.

Johnoh... Thank you.. thats the kind of information I wanted from the beginning!! Yea I'm planning on getting a new CPU soon... I was thinking the 3000+ since its the first Barton with 400 FSB... Is that a good one?

And for skip: I see you thought I could accually type in a value for the speed... No its just a little menu with preset choices.. there isn't a place anywhere where you can set "custom" speeds....But I doubt I'll overclock it much anyway... sounds like it doesn't overclock much :)

if you haven't found the way to increase the fsb by 1mhz at a time, keep looking its in the bios somewhere. Expert mode or whatever.

jphnoh is correct...it's there somewhere. Your original post saying that "it almost worked" tells me you have a good processor and a good motherboard.

Those old Palomino chips generally sucked but I've always felt a processor could stand more abuse than a motherboard (mine wo't lock the pce/age bus) or a memory chip (still using PC133). And, you do own a good motherboard. Keep looking, you'll find the answer.

There is something in your bios settings that can help you and we're all gonna be pissed if we have to look it up for you.

Skip

Alright I found it... Yea I know it is a good motherboard, top of the line when it came out in fact :). Check out the specs at the asus website and you can tell its nice... Enough bragging tho... Good mobo/bad chip... I tried increasing the FSB 5 mhz and windows bluescreened starting... I'm just gonna forget overclocking it.. I'm getting a new CPU shortly anyway. But could either of you recommend one of the 400 FSB bartons thats a good buy? It would be appreciated.

The least expensive one you can find. Last I heard that was a 3000+. A quick check for central california found a 3200+ retail for 249.95. Should be pretty easy to beat that price online.

A better choice would be a mobile 2500+. Others will be along to tell you where and how much. I gotta go get a drink...

Skip

yea search pricewatch.com... they list alot of good sales even some of neweggs... I'm also thinking of upgrading to the 2500+ 333fsb and overclock to 3000+ 400fsb..

one question though, why is the mobile better than the normal?

Shuttle AN35N-Ultra
AMD 2000+ 1gb 2100ddr
Gainward Gforce 5600 128ddr
120GB of 7200 HD space
UV Clear Acrylic Blue case
POWMAX 400watt PSU
Leadtek Winfast Tv2000xp Deluxe Tv Tuner<b

"one question though, why is the mobile better than the normal?"

the mobile is the mobile because it is cool enough to run in a laptop, which means it runs at low vcore, which means it has more overclocking headroom since heat from high voltage is the main enemy of overclocking.

The mobile is also unlocked and the regular barton is locked.