Help needed OC'ing Athlon XP 2400+

[RuneScaper]

After fixing a prob i had yesterday when i was gona start OC'ing i think i'm ready to give it another go

Well i have a couple questions. First of all since it seems like my Athlon 2400+ is locked so i can't change the multiplier only the FSB. Yesterday i tried going straight to 166FSB but it just stopped my pc from working. Well i'm guessing that i needed to change the voltage to make it stable but i don't think it can be done since i belive it would go way to high up to 2.5ghz with 15 x 166. Also when i was looking at the voltage in the bios it said something like H/W so i don't know the current voltage and i dont know wich one to set. In truth i'm just wondering if there is a way to lower the multiplier without having to work with the proccesor itself, that way i would be able to reach 166FSB wich is what i'm really looking for.

Also i don't really understand how to OC my ram, i have it currently running at 6 3 3 2 but i don't know if i should go lower. Also how should i set the FSB/DRAM ratio thing? its currently set to auto.

My Specs

MSI K7N2G mobo
AthlonXP 2400+
2 sticks of 512mb PC3200 ram(one is Geil and the other 1 Corsair)
GeForce Ti4200
WD 80gb 7200 rmpm 8mb ram HD

P.S i did a lil testing increasing the FSB 1 by 1 and i got up to 145 stable but i read that it could damage my PCI slots if i dont keep it going up by 33mhz. And also the current temp of my proccesor is 55C since i'm using the heatsink that came with it.

 

[bootoo]

Hey runescaper; loosen up those memory timings for now, you can play with them later; you want them loose like at 2.5-3-3-7 while you're finding your fsb limit.

I would start at maybe 140 and from there go in 5mhz increments upward till past 170 or so; from there go in 3's, benchmark a lot so you can catch degradation in performance or even instability. The degradation/instability will tell you if you need to bump your vcore up which you should do in the smallest increment possible and then benchmark again.

You're running 2 different memory sticks, are they in dual or single channel?

Also, set memory to 100%. It'll then follow your fsb so you'll be synchronous (much happier) - example, at 168mhz it'll be running at 168/336.

You won't damage your pci slots or get problems like that; you have a pci-lock nforce 2 motherboard from what I read, it comes with a locked frequency on the pci.

And I hope you have your case fan in front and one in back - before you try the above I'd open the case and blow a house fan toward it from several feet across the room to make sure it's the hsf and not some nasty airflow problem in your case. In any case start looking at nice combo's for your new hsf, pspada has mentioned a link to one he likes, pm him for the link or search for it; thermalright slk700 w/ ystech adjustable for $20 a nice price.

The problem with pci going in 33 mhz jumps was for via boards without the pci lock.