OC Question

[Smidley]

I will be getting an Athlon XP 2100+ to replace my Athlon XP 1700+ soon. My FSB is 266 mHz and I have 1.5 GB of PC2100 DDR RAM (266 mHz). I've read that when overclocking this CPU, it is best to up the FSB and not the multiplier. If this is true, will it have any adverse reactions on my memory?

I had a serious problem with Centon memory not being very compatible with my Shuttle AK31v3.1 mobo in the past and I just got 1.5 GB of Crucial memory to replace the 768 MB of Centon and it works without a flaw. Having said that, I'm not really in the mood to invest in more memory with a higher FSB.

Couldn't I just up the multiplier to keep the overclocking strictly to the CPU and not the rest of the system?

Gracious thanks to any help.

-Smidley T. Rothchild

[Smidley]

Anyone?

[ryogenetic]

Yes you can do just the multiplier if your bios supports it, the big thing to find out is if your mulplier is locked on the CPU or not, if it is unlock it and then you can proceed.


Ryo

[DallasDon]

Your 1700 and 2100 both run at 266 FSB. The 2100 has a factory set multiplier of 13, compared to the 11 multiplier on the 1700.

The PC2100 will run just fine, in sync with the processor.

If you overclock one, you will be overclocking them both.

[Smidley]

OK...Cool.

I was just worried about messing up my memory...

As far as unlocking and locking goes...I have no idea.

[sweeper2]

Like said above in earlier posts, if you up you FSB you are upping everything in your system also including video card, mem and pci slots. So if your bios supports multiplier adjustments and you have voltage adjustments also, you might consider that over just your FSB. But always move in small increments as not to damage any of your components. I would keep voltage same until it becomes unstable under the multiplier then maybe up the voltage slightly until stable.

Always take care when doing this as you don't want to fry your components. Good overclocking to ya!!!!

as to the 1700 and the 2100? how do they have a 266 FSB and my 2400 only has a 133 FSB? That's odd?

[Sweeper]

100 x 2 (200)
133 x 2 (266)
266 x 2 (333)

[sweeper2]

ok, but actually when you are in the bios, it says 133, not 266, that is what I meant. I thought they were listing them as 266 in the bios and was wondering how they had that high of a FSB.

[John Prophet]

you wont "mess up" your memory...what happens is that when you overclock the fsb you also overclock everything else..so eventually SOMETHING in the system decides it cant go that fast, lol....it could be the memory...could be the vid card..could be the cpu....could just be something getting too hot.

That is where the multiplier comes into play....if you can unlock the multiplier, you can overclock the cpu while managing to not overclock the other stuff as much....so you can sort of work back and forth with the fsb and multiplier to find the fastest speed and best benchmarks etc.

so your xp2100 runs at 133x13 multiplier=1733mhz

so if you up the fsb to 150 you get 150x13=1950mhz...but of course you have also sped up your memory and video card....that is ok as long as it works...but at some point the memory or ram might cause a lockup.

lets say you get to 154 mhz for 154x13=2002mhz....but then you try 155 and it wont boot cuz the video card or ram wont handle it.

if you have a locked multiplier you are now sort of stuck.

but if you unlock the multiplier you can take the cpu farther while easing up on the vid card and ram....like this

say you take the multiplier to 15 and then you take the fsb to 140...you end up with 2100mhz and then vid card and ram is still running within safe limits.


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so in that way you can concentrate on o'clocking the cpu as opposed to running the other stuff on the ragged edge...you can concentrate all you $$$ on cooling the cpu etc

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some advanced boards also have "dividers" that sort of accomplish a similar thing....they divide the fsb to keep the pci bus and agp bus running within safe speeds.

JP