thermal pad is no good
take it off, lap the sink, then use some artic silver...
that should take the temp of full load down by 1-3 degrees.
But then...I have Duron too...it posts at 1Ghz, but unstable in Windows.
It's even unstable when doing 950Mhz. I am using 914Mhz now, which is very stable.
check whether your duron is of the new or old stepping. Apparently, the old stepping overclocks better and go past 1Ghz most of the time, but the new stepping usually have problem when above the 900mhz mark.
Old stepping are made before week 40, so week 39 and before are old
also check by the AKBA or AKCA pre-fix. BA is old, CA is new
Unfortunately, mine is a week 40 Duron..so it's made the first week AMD upgraded to new stepping....maybe that's why it don't go over 950 stable.
I use artic silver with Hedgehog and Delta fan and have a very cool (temp) case. Still no luck reaching 1Ghz.
Motherboard is KT7-100. Memory is Mitsubishi 6ns 128RAM CAS3 PC-133
I plan to upgrade to KT7A soon with 900Mhz TBird as my friend who wants me to build computer will take my current board and Duron.