Alright! I had a TBird 800 - fun chip. Inexpensive, too, so if you toast it, no biggie! J/K...
Mine would go up to 1030 - most Thunderbirds below 1GHz, whether they were 750s or 950s, usually cap out at just above 1 GHz - don't expect too much more than this. It's a function of the old aluminum interconnect manufacturing process that limits it, but that's another story.
Your AK31 should have most of the settings you'll need to modify in BIOS. If you don't know how to get into BIOS, you'll need to do some more basic research before going any further. If you can do this, you're golden. Assuming your cooling is adequate and your machine is put together correctly, off we go.
Step 1: Unlock the multiplier on the CPU itself - close the L1 bridges on top of the CPU with a pencil or conductive ink. There are several how-tos on this around this site and the web.
Step 2: Find the highest stable speed your CPU will run at. Determine this by slowly inching the multiplier up, one-half step at a time. The default is 8, so start by moving it up to 8.5, and so on. When your computer becomes unstable, raise the core voltage of the CPU (also called CPU voltage....) Eventually, you'll hit a point where your voltage will not go higher and you will reach a speed where it will not be stable no matter what. You can assume this is the cap of your CPU.
Step3: Determine how high your Front Side Bus will go. This one is easy, too. First, lower the multiplier down as low as the board will run your CPU. 5 or so will suffice. Go with whatever is lowest. Set your FSB clock speed up from 100MHz to 133 MHz, since your motherboard supports this speed by default. Make sure your PCI divisors and AGP divisors are correct (you motherboard may automatically do this), so your PCI devices and video card aren't running out of spec. Now, inch the speed up one MHz at a time (this may be a long process) until you encounter instability.
Step 4: Come to a conclusion. Here's the trick - you are going to get the best performance from a high FSB speed, so adjust this before the multiplier when you are finalizing the settings. Let's assume that you determine your CPU speed caps at 1000 MHz, and Front side bus speed caps at 145 while still maintaining stability. Leave your FSB setting at 145. Adjust the multiplier to as closely match your CPU speed to 1000 MHz as you can. Here, you would put the CPU multiplier at 6.5, thus making for 942 MHz. Although this may not seem like much compared to 1000, your entire system, not just the CPU, is sped up by adjusting the Front side bus. 6.5*145 to make 942 is going to be much faster overall than having settings of 10*100 to make 1000.
If you have no idea what I was talking about this whole time, keep reading other posts. That will be your best bet to learn the very basics, and apply this to your experience.
Hope this helps you out, and happy clocking.
just keep in mind temperature is the enmey so u have to have a good Heatsink and fan. Overclocking takes place in the Bios of your computer. you either higher the multiplyer, or higher the FSB (front side Bus) or both, or lower one or the other. you have to experiment see what works. "dont get mad, get glad."
