I recently purchased an Athlon XP 1700+ with a Shuttle Ak31 mobo. I am looking to overclock the system but I am not too experienced with overclocking and I have heard that the XP is difficult to unlock. Can you please tell me how I can overclock my system. Will I be able to do it with 2 case fans and a 12 dollar cooling system? And not unlock the cpu?

Um no not with a 12 dololar cooling system. All you can overclock is the FSB with out unlocking which can be very dangerous.

I just finished overclocking my XP1700. Here's how I did it... First I checked you MB and you can do it by the bios settings. Please change 1 setting at a time!. Enter bios and set your multiplier to 11.5 I upped my CPU voltage .025 I don't know if your MB will go up that small a increment. Then make sure the FSB is at 266, bus speed option should say 133. 133 x 11.5 = 15295mhz. When you reboot you should notice (if your system can handle it) it will say XP1800 or XP1900. I have my set my bios settings at Turbo, with my bus speed option at 140 for a total of 280 FSB (not recommended, but so far stable). I upped my voltage .025v and my multiplier to 11. Results are 140 x 11 = 1540. When I boot up it says I have a XP1800. I ran SANDRA 2002 wich I down loaded from cnet.com It confirms that I am running at 280 FSB and 1540mhz I then ran fireburner 5x to test stability it ran without a hitch. I have been running this way for 2 weeks without a problem and my temp reading went from 41 deg. c. to 43 deg. c. If your system doesn't boot you can reset you bios back to original settings.