Hello. I wasn't in to extreme overclocking back when my ASUS P/I P55T2P4 and ASUS P5A were my current systems. But I can not part with these beauties, the 2nd and 3rd systems I ever built by myself. Now, I have the chance to get my hands on some AMD K6-2+ (500 and 550 MHz) or AMD K6-3+ 450 MHz (x 2). I've heard of mostly success stories with the both the P55T2P4 and the P5A, but have heard from some people very strong statements that the P/I P55T2P4 will NOT work at ALL. I have board revision 3.10, and the successes were with 3.x board, so I am hopeful it will work. My first concern is to make sure I get adequate heat sinks and fans, especially if I am to overclock 450 -> 600 MHz on the P5A. All I have now is very low-end generic stuff (at least it's ball bearing, not sleeve bearing), designed primarily for the P55 (MMX) class of chips. It's hard to find any decent heatsink or fan reviews for this class system, as mainstream overclocking which required extra cooling was just getting started back then. Therefore, I wonder if Socket 370 or Socket A heat sinks apply? How do I determine if they will fit? What to do about brackets, alignment of clips and tabs, etc? What about the fan? What about comparative temperatures and heat dissipation of the K6-2+/3+ @ 500/600 MHz versus the Socket 370/A chips that the heatsink was designed for, tested on, and had reviews written about. What about extra parts, like shims? How do I tell if I need them, what thicknesses are they available, materials (copper I'd guess), and sizes. Finally, I need some hard names and model numbers of the best, and then subtract any that won't fit physically into these mainboards. My second concern is my memory, if will hold out if I start overclocking the bus. The P/I P55T2P4 can go up to 83 MHz, which if you inverse, gives you 12 ns. This is in a mainboard which uses 50-60 ns memory. I have some EDO ECC ram, the fastest I could find, or so it was labelled on eBay at the time, about a year ago. For the P5A, I have some PC 100 RAM, and in the past I overclocked the bus to 105 MHz just fine. But if I start trying 112 or 120, I would start to worry about the RAM. Would upgrading to PC 133 be justified, in case I run into an undefined problem and can't boot? Is there a specific symptom to look for when the RAM is too slow? Of final concern are the peripheral devices: PCI: hard drive, video (AGP & PCI), network and to a lesser degree: ISA: soundcard, modem Hey, I might not use the modem for the internet anymore, but maybe some day I am destitute, or have a business, and want to accept faxes of legal documents without a fax machine (all with software in Linux). And, I may not ever use my Sound Blaster AWE 32 anymore, but I might get an urge to kill some orcs on classic Warcraft or Warcraft II, which you may know, support the AWE 32 as the most advanced card of the day. Can I expect the ISA cards to even function? Should I unplug them all at first, and put in one at a time? Should I leave them out all together, or eisk burning them out? Can my IDE bridge handle the speeds without data corruption? Can the P5A AGP (ATI Rage 128 RF/SG 32M) handle a 120 MHz bus or whatever? Can the PCI (RealTek 8139A) transfer data without corruptions? Can the P/I P55T2P4 PCI (Cirrus Logic GD 5446 or Number 9 Motion 771, and RealTek 8139A) handle 83 MHz? If I need to upgrade video or network cards, what would work best to meet the minimum requirement of stability and usability? For example, I'm not talking about some esoteric dual-card video solution. Just a single card should suffice, as the systems are likely to be run as Linux servers, to be accessed primarily via PuTTY SSH, and occasionally by monitor via KVM). Thanks for reading, and hopefully my questions can generate some helpful responses.

"OS: Linux, WinXP Pro, Win2k Pro, Win98SE, DOS 6.22, Wf CPU/Ram: AMD K6-2+ and AMD K6-3+, 128/256 MB RAM" I think you got too many things going as well as too much information, read through the thread and I just had to ask you what your purpose of overclocking those PC's are, I don't think it is performance I guess. ____________________________ The greatest risk is not taking one

If you do not know, do not react, only respond if you have a clue. All the operating systems are NOT all running simultaneously in real time. They may be on different drives, and run at different times, however. Currently I am using Linux and WinXP, but listed ALL OSes I have used, which some older software may need for compatibility. I should NOT have to explain this to anyone who is competent. Do not judge my abilities based on your lack thereof. If you can't handle reading a simple post, or even answering one of the many questions, then simply do not answer. This forum is advertised as "CPU/Overclocking", is it not? If you're not going to answer an overclocking question, why are youin here? There's a LOT of questions related to the issue of overclocking and with these processors, but the several I reviewed had no answers adressing my questions. And absolutelynone addressing all of them in one go. That is why I posted! Someone may have a question and stumble across this thread and find all the questions and (hopefully) answers. You refer to a "thread" I should read, but you list none specific. I assume you meant the entire forum. I already made use of the Search feature, and was inundated with inconsequential links. The performance boost may not seem like much performance to YOU if all you do is play video games which utilize primarily floating point oprtations. But if you're compiling programs or doing calculations and running software that does mostly integer operations, or that also take a few hours, the performance boost is a significant one. Besides, just because I want to overclock them is reason in and of itself. I do not have to justify to you or anyone. It is a hobby. It is a learning experience. I didn't do it before. I don't take other people's words when there's no competent, scientific testing and data to back it up. I will do it myself and judge for myself. In the end, if you can't read more than a few minutes, and can't think or type more than a few minutes without getting frustrated, then do not post a reactionary statement.

I have an old Compaq 5070 (1998) that runs at 600 mhz quite easily with a k6-2+ 550. The k6-2+ 450 will get to around 550 tops, the K6-3+ 450 will get 600+. Standard Socket 7 fan was used on all. Quite stable on 98SE. Had to use software to engage the L2 cache and overclock. I used CTU to do that. http://www.k6plus.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=1 Here are my old pcpitstop results: http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=FTHWKWBZA8MSX09X

IMO, running a K6-2+ or K6-3 on a 83mhz FSB motherboard is a waste of a good processor. And don't expect much success beyond say, 112-115mhz on a super 7 board due to the overclocking of the PCI/AGP. At 112mhz, the PCI would be 37.33mhz (112/3). 38mhz is the approx safe max before you'll run into possible probs with PCI cards, and/or risk data corruption with your HDD(s). Although 124mhz FSB was an option on many super 7 boards, I don't think I've ever heard or read of anyone having success with it...at least not with HDDs & peripherals connected. As for memory...most PC100 will handle 112mhz & should be good up to about 125mhz. The thing to watch for with PC133 RAM is density. High density RAM wasn't available when socket7/super7 was king, therefore there was no need to support it. Much of the PC133 RAM these days is high density & won't be recognized by the old boards...either that, or it will be recognized at 1/2 it's capacity. Also watch for RAM capacity (total & "per slot"). http://www17.tomshardware.com/motherboard/19970101-1/index.html I've worked with a lot of K6-2s with limited overclocking success, but the K6-3 (from what I read) was supposed to be able to hit 600+. I assume you know that these CPUs interpret the 2.0x multiplier setting as 6.0x? Here's an old article from Tom's Hardware that my be of some use...if you search the articles there, you'll find plenty of info on socket 7 CPU's, boards, chipsets, etc: http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/19980731/index.html

Hello, and thanks to the helpful responses. Some URLs I have seen, and read several times, but will undoubtedly re-read several more times. It's good to know I am looking at the right pages. Some URLs are new to me, or show parts of a site I missed before. Again, invaluable. I had no idea about "unlocking the cache". Seems most tools are Windows based, and must be run after each boot, which means that Windows must be the OS. There is a kernel module,but it's for Linux 2.2, while the current is Linux 2.6, and will someday be Linux 3.0, Linux 4.0, etc.. No idea if a 2.2 module will even work, or if it is even needed with the newer kernels. What is a waste on a Socket 7 as opposed to Super 7? I can not say until I go through the process myself. Is a K6-2 500 MHz (not +) a waste on a Socket 7 @ 83 MHz? Is there something that isn't such a waste? Like a K6-2 333 or 350? Or is there some CPU that was designed for Socket 7 at 66, 75 and 83 MHz which came out after a Pentium MMX 233 MHz that outperforms a Pentium MMX 233 on Socket 7 at 83 MHz? Or should I just OC a P55 233 to 266 or try for 300? Or the (AMD?) 6x86MX 333 MHz mentioned in one of the Tom's articles? But worse floating points (should I want them) than P5 MMX... Can anyone identify the fan used in the "Socket 7: Fit for years to come!" article at Tom's? http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20001106/amd-03.html

WOW! nice comeback but being a compiler does not make your netiquette abuse ok, btw there is a programming forum in computing.net go brag there. I am not going to go further for obvious reasons. ____________________________ The greatest risk is not taking one