Overclocking a PIII 500 Slot1

[Wa11y]

I have an old PIII 500MHz Slot 1 processor on a Supermicro P6SBA motherboard. It's just sitting around, so I wanna try to overclock it. But I have no idea how. Up to this point, all my research has been on AMD processors, since they're cheaper than Intel. But...I want to learn. Who can point me in the right direction? (And yeah, I've read the beginner's guides, but they're kinda vague, and not specific to the type of processor.)

[The Doors]

Hi Wa11y,
you must rise the Fsb from 100Mhz to 133Mhz setting the right jumpers on Mobo, or through Bios, and probably you don't need to rise the voltage, like happen me with a P/// 650 slot1 @866Mhz with stock voltage!

I hope it helps, but if you need more support I can check your Mobo for the right settings ;)

[Wa11y]

I check on the mobo later, I was aware of all that. I don't know how overclockable my board is.

Do PIIIs have a multiplier lock like the AMD processors do? That's really the only question I have. Guess I should have started with that.

[The Doors]

You can OC your chip only rising the Fsb, coz the multiplier is locked, but onestly I remember a way covering a specific pin of the Chip slot, probabli pin21, but I don't know if it works on all Slot1 Cpus coz I'm not very experienced on this kind of chips :D

My suggestion is to rise the Fsb to 133Mhz, it's fast & simple, you need only to check your Mobo manual.

[The Doors]

Checking the Mobo specs on SuperMicro website, I founded that it works only with Fsb 66/100Mhz, but now that I've got the manual I wanna take a more dept wiev for more info.

[Wa11y]

I've got the manual at home. I'll start checking out when I get off work, and have a chance too. I'm not sure how much that board will let me increase the FSB. I'm might be screwed. But we'll see.

So the multiplier on that board is locked, and there's nothing I can do to unlock it to be able to increase it?

[The Doors]

Well, looking the user manual you can manipulate the Fsb setting the jumpers JP11 for Auto, 66Mhz or 100Mhz, but generally a Bios update can give more way to go directly into Bios, even if the chipset i440BX is supposed to works max @100Mhz of Fsb :)
Is what happened me with an Epox BXB-S i440BX dual slot1 with Scsi on board with the Chip before sayed.

I hope it helps you ;)

[The Doors]

This seems to be the last Bios upgrade for your Mobo taken from SuperMicro, I hope it helps ;)

[Wa11y]

I'm a bit leery of downloaded a new BIOS. Last time I tried to do that is when I replaced it. The BIOS flash hung for a few hours. I had to get a new BIOS chip from Supermicro. I haven't used it since. But it's just sitting there. I'm going to build a unix box out of it. I just wanna overclock it for fun.

[The Doors]

I've upgradeted many times mine and others Mobo Bios without any probs, so I really don't know what say :(

[Wa11y]

I'm not sure either. But it had a whole slew of problems from the get-go. I could only use every other PCI slot, or I'd run into IRQ conflicts, even when I forced the IRQ in the BIOS. When I installed a PCI card to add 4 more USB ports, I lost the use of ALL my USB ports, including the ones on the mobo! So when I decided to flash the BIOS, I had a bad feeling, but did it anyway. But it's all good. It let me upgrade to a Duron 800.

[GuNRocK]

hey man i know that ever since the 2nd PII core 300~450mhz there has been a multiplier lock....it locks u at the max its set for but ucan change it lower (who would want too???) umm just so u know dont push that cpu past 600MHz 600 is prity much the end of the cpus life i know 450-550 P/// can do 600 no prolblem but 600 is hard to overclock just becuase thats the end of the Katmai core.

i have personally got my firends 550 to 604Mhz but it was getting very unstable...i dident touch the voltage sicne i dont know what pIII default are and what the max can be ...via u guys out here seeing what u have done to yours....and the L2 cache since its external to the cpu(not ondie) does affect the amount of overclock ablitly since its 4.5ns i belive or 5ns

[Wa11y]

Good to know. I'll check out the motherboard, and see what I can do with the FSB, if anything at all.