Could use a little overclocking advice....

[DigitalSpectre]

Greetings.

I have a FIC AZ11 motherboard, brand new, and I was thinking about putting a 900 Duron in it. I can run this board at 100 or 133 FSB.

My question for everyone is, I'd like to overclock this system slightly to 1 gig, but what is the most cost-effective way to do this? I hear that you do not have to go to heroics to oc this system, but I have no prior experience overclocking.

Thanks very much,
DS

[UnseenMenace]

While I have no experience with the Duron 900 I can tell you my experiences with the Duron 800.. These principles will still relate to the 900 though

The Duron CPU is multiplier locked through the L1 bridges (level1) and you need to modify these to maximize the overclocking ability of the CPU( Click Here For Details Of How to unlock The L1 Bridges ) (http://www.overclockers.com/tips475/)
By default the Duron runs on a 100 mhz FSB (front side bus) so increasing the FSB speed to 133 mhz increases the speed of the complete system. Obviously to make this increase you require components that will allow you to do such as higher speed ram. Some people including myself run a FSB faster than 133 mhz which is possible but also depends upon the quality of components.. Increasing speeds creates a great deal of heat and you need to take this heat away from your system with a good HSF (heat sink fan) the Duron 900 should easily reach 1 ghz as Durons lower than this usually make this speed without any problems.. When setting up you CPU try to get a fast FSB if possible (7.5x133 is faster than 10x100 even though both give you 1 ghz as the 133 mhz FSB runs your system components faster).. however this should not be accepted over pure speed.. Its up to you to find the sweet spot of your computer..
Read the beginners guides on the front of this site and your motherboard manual.. and when asking for more information try to tell us as much as you can about your system and tempratures.
Good luck..
----------------------------------------------------
Duron 800 @ 1050 with Global Win FOP-32 (140 x 7.5)
Abit KT7A-Raid Mobo
512 mb (Crucial Stuff CAS 2)
Hard Drive Cooler
Elsa Eraser X2 Gforce with Blue Orb (modified to display as a Quadro and overclocked http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/quadro/ )
Sound Blaster Live Value
Full Tower with 5 (120 mm) case fans with seperate PSU

[Vovan]

DO NOT BUY DURONS LOWER THAN 800.
YOU WILL BURN THEM AT 1Ghz!
AS I DID.
Connect L1 briges VERY CAREFULLY.
DO NOT CROSS 'EM IN ANY WAY. NOT SURE ->ERASE AND REMARK!

P.S.
(sorry for crying but I still remember the expirience)

[UnseenMenace]

Vovan (May 31, 2001 02:11 p.m.):
DO NOT BUY DURONS LOWER THAN 800.
YOU WILL BURN THEM AT 1Ghz!
AS I DID.


I would most certainly disagree with your statements about not buying Durons lower than 800 mhz, expecially when considering that the Duron 700 often creates superior overclocks to the Duron 800 in terms of actual speed improvements, it is also worth remembering that things only 'burn' if you let them.. with sufficiant knowledge and cooling Durons lower than 800 mhz often hit 1 ghz. There are some exceptional CPU's which obviously go that little bit further than the norm, however to make such wide reaching statements without facts proves very little indeed. Why did your CPU Burn?.... Were the tempratures not watched?.

In terms of real overclocking speeds check the CPU database on the front of this site and it will show that for the 700 Duron the Average overclocked speed is 949 Mhz with a great deal easily reaching over 1 ghz with some going as far as 1.1 ghz on Air Cooling