Overclocking
Afterburner Overclocking Card by Outside Loop Computers
Useful resources
Tom's Hardware Guide: Overclocking AMD's Athlon Processor
Anandtech: AMD Athlon Buyer's Guide - Part 2: Overclocking
I'm not going to offer a discussion of overclocking here since many people have done so already, more expertly than I ever could. Briefly, one can overclock a CPU by adjusting its front side bus speed, its frequency (or clock) multiplier, and/or its core voltage.
One can also reduce the speed of the CPU's Level 2 (L2) cache, which can increase the amount one can overclock one's CPU.
It's difficult to overclock the Athlon CPU because AMD locked the Athlon's frequency multiplier. You can increase the voltage and alter the front side bus on the Asus K7M mainboard, but these adjustments yield only a small performance increase, and the computer becomes very unstable because the PCI and AGP busses object to the increased front side bus speed.
One way to overclock the Athlon CPU is to crack open its casing and adjust the frequency multiplier using a soldering iron. I have never used a soldering iron and don't plan to begin the practice using my expensive Athlon CPU as my first subject.
The sensible way to overclock the Athlon CPU is to pry open its casing and attach to the Athlon's feature connector an overclocking card that allows you to adjust the CPU clock multiplier and the CPU core voltage.
After reading about overclocking cards in Anandtech's article on Athlon overclocking, I decided to try the Athlon Overclocking Card built by Outside Loop Computers. I obtained the overclocking card on February 1, 2000. Several days passed before I found time to install the overclocking card. Before I installed the overclocking card, I finished my taxes and some other important work on my computer, in case I wrecked my CPU.
However, installation was simple. I spent a nerve-wracking twenty minutes prying the casing off my K7 CPU, using a small flathead screwdriver and saying many bad words. I was careful never to touch the printed circuit board (PCB) of the K7 CPU with my hands or the screwdriver.
Finally I got the casing off, and attached the Afterburner overclocking card to the exposed feature connector.
I adjusted the knobs on the Afterburner card, setting the clock frequency to 700MHz and the voltage to 1.75V. I also set the voltage on my K7M mainboard to 1.75. I installed the CPU, crossed my fingers, and started my computer.
It booted up smartly and was quite stable. No smoke or lightning emerged. I let it run for a while and ran different programs on my computer, then I reached inside the chassis and felt the CPU's heatsink. It was barely warm, so I assumed the CPU was not getting too hot.
I was able to reach 750MHz at 1.75V. I tried to get to 800MHz at 1.75V, but the computer was not stable. I set the voltage to 1.85V, as high as I dared, but the computer still was not stable at 800MHz. I was stuck at 750MHz.
I tried a different strategy. In the BIOS, I set the front side bus to 101MHz, which brought the computer to 800MHz. I changed the front side bus to 105MHz in increments of 1MHz, but was unable to get better than 800MHz.
The result is, I have overclocked my CPU from 650MHz to 800MHz.
