This is the first AMD ive had and the first Asus motherboard ive owned. I want to overclock but im lost.

Here is what im working with.

Asus A7N8X-Deluxe mobo
Athlon XP 2000 Thoroughbred proc.
512MB Kingston HyperX PC2700 memory (matched pair 256mb X 2)

Okay having that I would like to know how to get a decent overclock to around 2.0ghz or higher. Im using a Volcano 7 for cooling.

well depending on the revision and the age of your 2000, there are some variables you are goin to have. first if your memory will do it, and if your processor is unlocked, i would go for the 200FSB x 10 multi. that will give you 2ghz and also some decent memory bandwidth. give the processor 1.7 volts and give the ram somewhere between 2.6 & 2.8 volts. that should do it. or if that dosent work, and you can change multi's. go 133 x 15. that will also give you 2000 mHz.....just some options there.....

I think the mobo revision is 2.0.0. How do I know if the Athlon is unlocked?

when you try to change the multi and it wont change....i think the 2000 is stock @ 12.5

I tried both of those and it wouldnt boot. Changed the fsb to 166 and now it says I have an athlon 2600 and boots fine.

well then you are above 2.0, i think it is 2.08.....i'm not sure....hahah but at least it is OC'd

Actually the 2600 is rated at a little under 2000 FSB. I think its at like 1960 somethin. What are your temps at this speed? Also you could always crank a little more voltage into the vcore to reach the 2000 mark, but really whatch your temps.

You dont wanna just start putting Volts to the Vcore just to do it! Frist try to raise the fsb up to 200 an see if it will boot at 1.7 volts. Witch it prolly wont so try to bump it up to about 1.725 or in your case whatever comes right after 1.7 in your bios an try again! you should not have to mess with the ram cuz at 200fsb on your cpu your bios should give you the Divider to run your ram at 166 just leave it there if you have dividers. But one major thing is you gota watch your temps at all times! an i mean ALL TIMES! I would not run it over 44idle an about 54load! thats is ok for that chip. but the cooler it is the beter its going to run.. Try that out an get back on an tell us how it go's before you try raising you Vcore any higher. The Vcore is not something to play with if you dont really know what your doing.


you really should not tell a noob to go turn his Vcore up. that could lead to dead cpu's an all kinds bad of stuff.

Noob + Vcore = death!!

Read the whole thread first matt. He tried it at 1.7v and 200fsb with a no go.

MattsPC = i really hope you werent talking to me.... i said 1.7, if he goes higher then it is his fault. with the HSF he has i wouldnt go anyhigher than that anyway!! the volcano 7 isn't known for it's great cooling potential. i will run stock before i run that. anyway. the A7N8X to me isn't the best OC board out there anyway. sell it and get the NF7 - S......had a few of those, great OC'r, or go out and get a better HSF if your budget allows it. for the money a thermalright SLK900A is a great peice!

Quote: Originally Posted by MaTtsPc Noob + Vcore = death!!

yes yes and lets not forget incidences involving air cooling and v-modding - can get verrrry painfull sometimes. the 2000 aint the best beasty out there thats for sure - the duron 1800 seems to have far more punch for OC than the lower grade athlons.

Quote: Originally Posted by nev_payne yes yes and lets not forget incidences involving air cooling and v-modding - can get verrrry painfull sometimes. the 2000 aint the best beasty out there thats for sure - the duron 1800 seems to have far more punch for OC than the lower grade athlons.

hell all my sheit is v-modded and aircooled!!!! hahahaahh that is the only way! i had water for a few minutes (read: coupla days) but went back to air. hell my videocard has Vgpu & Vmem mods on stock cooling! and my Mobo has VDimm mods.... all aircooled! Just got to know what you are doing man, and if you fry something, then you know to back it down half a turn!

Quote: Originally Posted by Zenzzo Overclock the tits off of her, wait till she smokes, then back her down a notch.

Or at least i think thats how he put it.....

I am assuming the 2000 is not unlocked. No matter what I set the multiplier to it would not work on anything except 12.5. I also tried setting the FSB to 200 and it wouldnt work. I would get that "system would not boot due to cpu overclocking message". So after a little tweaking i used the aggressive memory settings and set the FSB to 166. The bios shows it now as an XP 2600. I left everyting other setting alone. Temps seem to be fine...running around 33 at idle and 38 under load.

I think I will just leave it like that for now.

Thats definately not bad temps at all, and not a bad OC for an athlon 2000. Good job, but youll soon learn that you wont be happy with its current status and will want more. Its kinda like crack except you get to keep your brain cells.

Ok those temps are from pc probe and im not sure exactly how accurate they are. Would motherboard monitor give me a more exact reading or do i need a thermal probe? Ive always been a P4 person but the price on that mobo and proc. was so cheap I couldnt pass it up.

Hey if you want to get that mulitiplier unlocked you might want to have a look here, sound like it works pretty well.

You could slap the Uber Bios on there as well.
It gives you quite a few more options and settings.
I've been using the last 2-3 revisions with good results.

Sparky i wasnt directing that towards you in anyway im just saying that its not nice to do that. An sparky is right you will soon find out that you want to push more an more. then you will out buying all kinds of stuff just to see if you can get a couple of Mhz. an you'll be be putting little heatsinks everywere on your board to try to help it get there. But hey at least you made it to 166 keep it up man.



I did this just to help them little guys out! I dont think it did very much but it looks cool
also what else good is a P2 Heatsink for you know.

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I'm using the same board and it should unlock the CPU. I also had to increase the VCore to 1.85 to get any stable OC.. As for the "system would not boot due to cpu overclocking" message in the BIOS there should be a setting under Advanced Chipset Features called CPU Interface, make sure that it's set to Aggressive or you can't OC. Also don't expect to have access to all the multipliers, you'll most likely only get the ones over 12.5 or under 12.5 not both. I would also suggest getting a better heatsink like a Swiftech MCX462-V. It has my Barton 2800 at 2353mhz with a load temp. of 42 C using a 120mm fan moving 86 cfm. It would also be a good idea to get some good active north bridge cooling, otherwise after a about a year at the higher voltage the north bridge will get damaged even though it sits at pretty low temps. Best of luck!