Overclocking TB 900 or not !!

[Tal]

Hi Guys and Girls

I am new so 'HELLO' :D

Can somone help me my new system is as follows

A-bit KT7-A Raid MB
AMD ATHALON THUNDERBIRD SOCKET A 900
supplied heatsink and fan
128mb pc100 sdram
case with 300w psu and additional 60dia fan
sound blaster 5.1
Voodoo 3 3000 AGP @178Mhz
ibm 46 GB udma 100 HD
Ricoh CDRW12X/DVD combi
Ect

I have unlocked the chip (using the pencil method)

but can only get it to run at max 950Mhz stable
(9.5 x 100)

Anything above even 9.5X101 locks up or fails to boot windoze ME

In the bios I have changed the Multiplier and the FSB even messed about with the voltage from 1.6 to 1.8

I am just a idiot and missed somthing or is 950 MHz really all she's got ?? ( I have seen 750 TBs running at 1100 for gods sake)

is it the memory I am getting 256MB of pc133 cas2 so will this make a difference

sorry for all the questions being new and all that !!

Tal

[DamnFast]

Overclocking success or failure really depends very much on each and every individual CPU and how "overclockable" your CPU is. Luck plays a big part here. When did you get your 900MHz cpu? Did you get it when 900MHz was the fastest then? Or did you get it recently. Is your CPU "green" core or "blue" core?
"Blue" core, which has copper interconnects will tend to overclock much better than the "green" ones with aluminium interconnects.
If you got the CPU recently, you should be able to hit 1GHz easily and maybe some more. Try lowering your multiplier and higher the FSB for overclocking and see what happens. Say like 7 x 133 or 8 x 133 and so on. Higher FSB will give you better performance since it's stressing all the other components in your system. If you are overclocking using multipliers only, then you are stressing your CPU only. Try many variations and see what you can get out from that T-Bird. I bet you can go beyond 1GHz easily. Bare in mind that this may not be true in your case. Just be patient and try bit by bit.
Memory could be another reason. Generic PC100 RAMs may not be suitable overcloking. One of my friend's comp has a generic 128MB PC100 ram module that wont even do at 110FSB. Well, since it's doing it's job at 100MHz so..no one to blame. Anyways....
And also, go and get a better HSF if you are planning to overclock. Don't even think about overclocking without a decent HSF or you'll just ruin your CPU.