Hey all, I have a Shuttle AK31 motherboard with an AMD Athlon 2100+ XP (1.733 GHz). I recently received a monster heatsink and my CPU actually runs as cool as my motherboard (about 36 degrees idle). I was wondering if there was any safe way to overclock without frying something. I'm no moron, so I checked the specs on my motherboard to make sure it could handle the jump. Here is where I am lost, however. My manual says that the mobo cannot support anything over a doublestacked 133 MHz (266) FSB. But it also says that it cannot support any processor over an AMD 1.5 GHz. So that's where I'm fuzzy. I go into the FSB options in my BIOS and they actually go up to a 200 doublestack (400), but the manual says otherwise. I'm not entirely sure which one is false... Is there any way to check which is correct? Or is there any way to step it up slowly without instantly frying something?

If your bios allows the mobo to reach 400 MHz, then I would say your manual is wrong. When all else fails beat the $%!* out of it!!!

as far as "safe way to overclock ", wouldn't that be an oxi-moron? Even though one can overclock, it never is really safe (I know I'll hear argument on this). I know CPU's can go higher than their ratings, but the overheating wears a little on the CPU's life expectancy (not that anyone keeps computers long enough for a life span anyways). When all else fails beat the $%!* out of it!!!

It is quite likely that the manual is wrong. It is probable that the BIOS has been upgraded to allow the higher FSB and the manual has not been reprinted to show it. I agree with angreyman that "safe overclocking" is an oxymoron. Overclocking does put extra stress on the CPU, stress which the manufactures designed out by restricting the clock speed. Its pretty much the same as tuning a stock motor vehicle engine for more performance. You will get the performance but you will also create more wear and tear and of course, will invalidate any guarantee. Stuart

I agree with Stuart about the manual. As you manual was printed the information was probably right because there was no faster cpu than the 1,5GHz and the actual bios version didn't allow more than 133MHz. With the new cpus also came a higher fsb and shuttle realised their board was able to run a faster cpu and a faster fsb. So they just released a new bios and it worked! I know the part with the cpu from asus and they not even update their product description. There you have to look unter support if you want to know which cpu you can run with which bios version!

Hi. With the system you have why do you want to overclock? Overclocking is possible because like in any other kind of engineering design chip designers work with a safety margin or tolerance. This allows for variations in the individual chips based on a sample taken from a production batch. If your chip performs towards the top end of the tolerance margin then you may overclock without any problems. However if your chip is nearer the rated speed of the chip you could quickly fry it. All of that aside overclocking is something of a cult and the increase in resultant performance doesn't compare with that achieved by keeping the clutter out of your system and by maximising your RAM usage. I have always ben ammused by the idea of spending more on water or other forms of ingeneous cooling than on the chip which is being overdriven presumably to save money. However. to each his own:-) Bit of a wit....half to be precise.

There is NO way to safely over-clock a CPU, it always and (I mean always) ends up bad/expensive replacement costs. Even with water/liquid cooling systems. Better to spent that 1000$ on an AMD 64 FX series. I've been building PC's since 1979, worked with Michael Dell at the inception of his Corporation and can tell you from vast experience that the CPU specs are at the highest speed tolerance possible. Even though your motherboard may allow you to set clock speeds etc, it inevitably ends up with a popped CPU.