Hi, i have just bought an Athlon XP-M 2600+ and have heard it overclocks very well because of the unlocked multiplier and lower temperatures. I've looked at the interactive painting guide here but wondered if it really is as easy as it looks there.

I've also seen that you can do it over the BIOS and wondered how to do it that way.

Basically i suppose i'm asking for help on overclocking.

Also, i've never replaced a cpu before (about the only thing i haven't changed in my pc ) and i understand that i need thermal paste. Do i apply this onto the cpu and place the heatsink on the top?

Thanks

Not sure about overclocking it by messing with the chip itself, never done it before.

Wrote a short how-to on overclocking via BIOS which you can check out, before heading off for something a little deeper. I have mentioned about thermalpaste in there as well, which you should read if you're asking about thermalpaste.

Short answer is: yes, you place the heatsink on the CPU, with the thermalpaste in between.

Hi Dave,

yes, the XP-Ms are great overclockers (for the reasons you already mentioned and because they can do it at lower voltages)

no, it's not as easy as it looks. those "interactive paint guides" make the CPU bridges look huge, now look at your CPU and see how tiny they are. aside from the surgical skills needed to bridge/unbridge such tiny contacts, AMD made it more difficult with each revision (laser cut holes inbetween, and covering the whole PCB with a non-conductive coating, etc.).

bottom-line is unless you want to modiy it just for fun or to say you did it, then be my guest... but if your intention is simply to overclock then don't waste your time with physical mods, do it through your BIOS.

for the most part, overclocking should only be done through the BIOS. it is very easy to do once you get the basics down. CMH's overclocking FAQ is a good place to start

yes, that is exactly what you do. however, different pastes/compounds may require different amounts and application methods, so go by the manufacturer's instructions.

cheers :wave:

ah, here we go - correct forum this time!

Actually it is quite easy with the right motherboard. MSI boards work great. But you gotta raise the voltage and multiplier and FSB in the right combination. You must ensure EVERYTHING CPU and RAM are adequately cooled otherwise you'll end up with a slab of molten metal.

Be VERY careful when stepping up voltage and do it in small increments only.
Thermal paste is applied between the top of the die on the CPU and the heatsink.

The guides and FAQs will help more.

While the 2600+ is not as overclockable as the 2500+, it still can work very well. Google articles about overclocking the athlon XP series.

The top of the line CPU in the series is the 3200+. While it may not make much sense to overclock a cpu this old now, it can be a good training tool.

lol, you won't get a slab of molten metal, but I'm sure Tedster is just exaggerating there.

In reality, you MIGHT see "green smoke". People said that you've not really overclocked till you've seen this smoke. Beware though, silicon smoke (the green smoke) is toxic.

Most of the time, you will smell something. I can't really describe the smell, I've smelt it before, its a very unique smell. Your memory of it is directly proportional to the cost of the hardware making the smell.

one of the reasons i was posting was because i hadn't heard of the painting thing before

i have an ECS mobo (K7S5A v3.1) and on the cpu setup screen there's a list of CPU Brand, Type, Speed, Core voltage, Ratio, Frequency and DRAM Frequency. I can't remember all of the ones that can be changed (obviously the Brand and type can't be ) but i have to restart in a second for updates to finish doing their thing so i'll bring up the bios and let you know which ones are changeable.

Edit
I've looked at he BIOS and for my current processor (Athlon K7 1GHz) the only changeable thing on the list is CPU Speed which shows as 100/133MHz and changes the CPU Frequency and the DRAM Frequency when you change it. I can only see what it says about my current processor because the XP-M hasn't come yet but should do tomorrow

The current ratio is set to 10x and doing a bit of simple maths i think this is just what ECS have called the multiplier, which i should be able to edit with the new processor because it's not locked.
Also i took a note of the Core Voltage which is 1.76V.