Hi all, This is O/T so sorry.I have overclocked for the first time and I don't know much about overclocking. I had a 1.47 Ghz AMD Athlon 1700Xp and I have set the external bus to 140Mhz so the processor is now running at 1.54Ghz. I tried to change the multiplier from 11.0 to 12.5 but I could not. Is this what is ment when people say that AMD processors are 'locked'?Also will this do any damage to my system? Apart form running faster, what are the effects of overclocking by this amount?

This is exactly what they mean when they say it is locked. A locked processor will not let you change the multiplier to anything other than what is set into it. To unlock it, you must fill in the L1 bridges and then connect them. Kind of tricky to do. Anyways, when you overclock, you usually want to raise the FSB and lower the multiplier. This keeps the CPU running at the same speed, but the increase in FSB gives you the faster performance.Overclocking really won't do much damage as long as you don't go overboard with your cooling. Use a program like Motherboard Monitor to watch your temperature. If it starts getting too high, you need to lower the overclock.Matt

You also are changing the bus of your AGP 66mhz and PCI 33 mhz and ram?? mhz. Unless you have a section in the CMOS to counter this, you may get freezing because of this. So...anything out of the ordinary, even though the temp is ok..back off.

Ok thanks, thats reassuring. I do have one more question. The processor speed is the speed of the FSB multiplied by the clock multiplier of the processor, so an FSB of 133MHz and a multiplier of 11.0 gives a CPU speed of 1.47 GHz. What is the multiplier? Why do you have to close the L1 Data cache and the L1 code cache to unlock the multiplier?Thanks

How do you overlock?

devaio,I have only just gotten interested in computing and only been involved in it for a year, I am uncomfortable with overclocking and was only experimenting. I would not recomend it unless you really know what your doing. I do not pretend to know that much because as you can see, I am still learning...Basicly I had to open my PC's case, change the jumper settings to 'jumper free' mode. A jumper is not somthing that you wear, it is a small piece of metal in a plastic case. It is used as a sort of 'switch' On my motherboard, if the jumper was set to a specific setting the computer cannot be overclocked. So the first thing I had to do was to make sure that the jumper was set to allow me to overclock.The next thing that I did was to go into BIOS. I then could raise the CPU's multiplier or the frequency of the system bus. The system bus frequency is the speed at which data is sent though the motherboard. As I cannot change the multiplier because the processor was locked I had to change the system bus. I raised my system bus from 133Mhz to 140Mhz. As the CPU speed is determined by the multiplier number multiplied by the system bus speed, origionally I had 133Mhz*11 which gave 1.47GHz, now I have 140MHz * 11 which gives me 1.54Ghz. Of course this gives me higher CPU tempratures.Anyway I still am not too sure of everything myself soooo...........Now what I am trying to find out is what a multiplier is. All I know it as is a number in the processor that determines the processor speed.What is a multilpier?

Here's a good site. Read , read , read. The mltiplier is set on the motherboard. Mobos also will have a limit of how large a multiplier it will have built in it's bios/CMOS. CPUs that are locked / auto tell the mobo what it should and will be. This is why you can't mix and match mobos, due to FSB and multipyers needed to make the CPU work. If it is an AMD that has the L1 bridge cut....I would not want to do this proceedure my self. Check out this site.http://www.overclockers.com/

Recently I overclocked my AMD 1800XP+ from 1533 Mhz to 1643 Mhz by changing my FSB from 133 Mhz to 143 Mhz.The most incredible part was when I was able to overclock my already factory overclocked Gainward Golden Sample GeForce Ti200 to 235Mhz/500Mhz! No artifacts, no lock ups. Even with the new FSB settings. On the flip side I only gained an extra 2 FPS in FS2002. Just like someone mentioned above. Make sure you know what you're doing. Know your hardware and search the internet for info on forums. Above all stay cool!!!Happy Overclocking,Andy CecchettiKCMH