Athlon XP unlocking, is it necessary?

[sticky52]

I recently purchased an N-force2 board for the home theater system and an Athlon XP 1700+ to go with it. I've been doing some checking up on unlocking the processor, but haven't been able to find specifics on particular chips. I'm looking to underclock it.

So for the record, is unlocking necessary if I want to change the multiplier? Or is it just required to change the FSB?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jeff7181]

If it's a thoroughbred core, then no... you can adjust it all the way down as low as your BIOS will let you... and your front side bus you can probably run at 100 Mhz... my BIOS allows me to go down to 5.5 I believe, and with a 100 mhz FSB, that would yield 550 mhz. Quite an underclock... but you'll be able to reduce the voltage quite a bit I would assume and keep the temps down on your home theater system.