Unlocked PCI/AGP bus. How far can I push the FSB without harming components?

Hello. I have an Athlon XP 2100+, which by default runs at a clock speed of 133 MHz (266 FSB). I have PC2700 memory, so by making use of the divider of 5 on the mobo, I set the FSB to 333 MHz. If I want to push the FSB any higher, the PCI/AGP bus speeds increase. There is not a divider of 6 on the board, so pushing the FSB to 400 MHz would result in a PCI bus speed of 40 MHz. My question is how far can I safely raise the FSB from 333 MHz without harming my system. I have heard some horror stories of corrupted hard drives and ruined video cards, and I definitely don't want that to happen to me. Should I play it safe and stick with 333 MHz FSB, or can I raise it slightly (say to 340 or 350 MHz) without risking too much? Thanks!

I've never heard about ruined video cards, but harddrive controllers that get quirky at extra megahertzes are a well-known phenomenon. Should you want to shoot for the limits, make sure you backup essential data.

Does anyone else have any input regarding my question? Any personal experiences with this particular board or other VIA chipset boards that didn't have AGP/PCI bus lock? The reason I ask is that I'm not satisfied with the performance improvement of my system when I only raise the multiplier. I really don't notice much difference between 12.5x166 (2075 MHz) and 14x166 (2324 MHz), and I'm trying to squeeze out extra performance from my system while I anxiously wait for Venice to arrive for my new rig. On the other hand, I really don't want to damage any of my components. If my Windows installation gets corrupted, I can deal with that--I'll just reinstall. But physical damage is unacceptable. With that said, what do you recommend as safe limits for PCI bus: 34, 35, 36 MHz, etc.?

I would say that 40MHz is the absolute highest you want your PCI bus at, but even at this speed you risk corrupting your HDs.

My system is P95 stable at 172x13.5! All seems fine with PCI/AGP bus at 34.4/68.8 MHz. Even this 6 MHz increase in FSB significantly raised my benchmark scores:

3DMark01 from ~13900 to ~14500
3DMark03 from ~9500 to ~9950
3DMark05 from ~3800 to ~4050

My system appears to be severely limited by the memory bandwidth. I had been under the impression that 3DMark05 is completely video card dependent, but that doesn't appear to be the case if you have an older machine like me. Of course, some of the increase is probably due to a faster AGP bus, but I think the FSB increase made the biggest difference.

Not a bad 05 score, if I do say so myself You might just want to dish out another 50 bucks and get a used Socket A mobo from the classifieds .

Yes get the NF7-S if you can.. best for it's class.
Dual Channel and frequency locks.

I can't overclock this k8v-x board any further than 219 otherwise the Raptor 10,000 rPM drive gets corrupted.

Can't say I've heard of permanent Hard DRIVE Or Video card damange due to higher operating frequencies, but software damages I've definitely heard.