> What I want to know is how you got the FSB up above 100 MHZ. I'm not exactly a pro at overclocking, but I thought you could only jumper the FSB to a speed supported by the motherboard--where did you find a motherboard that allows FSB speeds >100MHZ?
>
> Still, a PII 233 running at 280 isn't bad. I've heard stories of people overclocking 266 and 300 MHZ PII's to over 400MHZ. I think they must have used liquid nitrogen to cool them or something. ;-)


Actually, most of the latest motherboards support little extra FSB settings above 100MHz. I'm using an ASUS P2B, which I bought so that a future upgrade to a 500MHz Katmai processor will be possible just by swapping processors, without needing to replace the motherboard or other system components. (Yes, the 440BX chipset will support Katmai processors up to the 500MHz version, although Intel hasn't announced it officially yet.)

The ASUS P2B has jumper settings for system bus speeds of 66MHz, 75MHz, 83MHz, 100MHz, 103MHz, 112MHz and 133MHz. That's actually not all that uncommon anymore; some boards even have a 124MHz setting.

I've run my 233MHz PII at 250MHz (2.5 x 100MHz), at 257MHz (2.5 x 103MHz), and now, daringly for me, at 280MHz (2.5 x 112MHz). It will be a couple of years before I upgrade the processor, since I have a limited budget and only want to have to make one processor upgrade. So sometime in 2000 I hope to buy a 500MHz Katmai processor; until then, I think I can get by just fine running at 280MHz. A 280MHz system should be just becoming obsolete in Q1 2000, after which it seems justifiable to make that big upgrade.

This is starting to sound like the Intel Processor Forum, which I used to frequent almost as much as I do RinkWorks now. The next two big upgrades on my wish list are 64MB of PC-100 SDRAM (only 32MB in my system right now) and a Diamond Monster MX300 sound card. If I sound like a hardware junkie, hey-you've got me pegged. I know diddly-squat about coding, and folks like Sam who have jobs programming appear to me wreathed in a terrible majesty of arcane genius. Or something like that. I'm about halfway through _The Two Towers_ right now, can you tell? :-)

Iss "upgrading to a Borg implant in AD 2007" achar