OC The OldSchool

[DJBeanPole17]

I have an old, outdated, three year old computer I built. Yes, it still works. I know its way behind for an overhaul but I don't have the green to hook it up yet. I was wanting to OC my 850MHz Slot A Athlon I have. How would I go about doing this and how far/how much juice do you think I could bring out of the old bastard?

SETUP:
Athlon 850MHz Slot A "Classic"
ASUS K7V BIOS v1007
GeForce2GTS64MB
3DCOOL Tornado 1000 [Don't worry about airflow/temps. The CPU now has 2 fans on it, the case has 5, and the video card has 1. )
For any other specs on my system just look at my sh*tty website.
Thanks!\

PS - Feel free to throw out experimentation information - lets see just how far this thing can go!

[thebove]

unless your motherboard has adjustments for the fsb in the bios, you'll either need to crack open the plastic case of the processor and connect a golden fingers device (often called a GFD, search online for athlon + GFD and you'll find plenty info), or you'll need to get softfsb (not sure where to download ). i've had very little luck with softfsb on my old slot a athlon 800, although softfsb is partially depentant on the mobo. GFD devices, if you can even find one for sale anywhere these days, are often $30 or more, and you probably won't be able to get more than 100-150Mhz out of that processor, and even that is kinda optimistic. personally i'd say that if your board doesn't have fsb adjustments in the bios just forget about overclocking.

[DJBeanPole17]

Haha! I checked and yes I can change things around thru BIOS. Now... just what do I need to change???

[thebove]

the multiplier on that processor is 8.5, so upping your fsb X mhz to whatever you set it at will increase your clock speed by X*8.5. as you increase your fsb you may also need to increase core voltage )if your bios allows you to do so) to get your overclock stable...and if you can monitor temps through the bios, keep an eye on them as you increase voltage.

what kind of ram do you have in that system? if you've got some good quality pc133 in there you should be able to find the ceiling of the processor easily, but if you've got some cheap pc100 you may hit a wall with your memory before you hit the limit of your cpu.

[rogue1979]

http://www.ocinside.de/index_e.html will help you out.

[DJBeanPole17]

Alright. I managed to set the FSB up 10% to 110MHZ which gave me a CPU speed of 935MHz. Which isn't too bad I guess. I set the VCore to 1.75. This morning I tried setting the FSB at 117MHz which would bring me around a GHz in speed but the system hung and gave me a black screen for about 10 boots until it picked up on the "external CPU speed settings" and switched everything to normal. There are speeds in between 110 and 117, but I like it how it is It's holding steady at 31C at full load.

[HighRoller]

With the K7V, you'll probaably have better results using jumper mode instead of jumperfree mode. Look for the jumper just below the BIOS chip.

Also, you can up the VCore on that board either thru the bios, on using the jumpers on the board itself.

My systems:

900MHz Slot A Tbird @1050 (10x105)
Asus K7V-T mobo

750MHz Slot A Tbird @892 (8.5x105)
Asus K7M mobo

Both systems use a GFD to change the multiplier.

[HighRoller]

I should also mention that the messageboard over at k7v.com (yes, it's still running!) might provide you with some more information.

-HR