Is this normal?

[tbirdwondering]

I am currently running my TBird 1Ghz @ 1050Mhz just by upping the FSB in the KT7-RAID's "FSB Plus" option.

I havn't unlocked the CPU due to the fact that I just shelled out over £150 for it (that's about $300 but I live in Britain so I'm used to being ripped off) and I don't want to fry it.

Why can I not get it any higher than about 1080Mhz? Any higher than that and windows won't boot.

[Rob Cork]

Could be a number of things - you might try raising your core voltage if you haven't already, or the VIO (to about 3.4/3.5). Most KT133 boards don't get much higher than 110MHz, so although 108 is a bit on the low side, it's not unthinkable that the board won't go any higher than that. It could be any one of your pci components refusing to work at higher PCI speeds, in which case raising the VIO will help. If your RAM is crappy generic like mine, it might not like those higher fsb speeds, so you might need to set the CAS timings back to 3-3-3 if you haven't already. It could also be that your cpu is too hot - try to stay below 50C at least, preferably closer to 40C. I understand your reluctance to fiddle with the L1 bridges, but it's the only way you'll get the big overclocks - it's not particularly risky either, if you use pencil you can just erase it if it doesn't work.

Still, if you want to oc with the fsb, you probably won't get more than 1110 or 1120 max, but at least your system performance will be a damn sight better with that extra fsb :-)