Hello, I'm a long time pc user, first time poster on this forum.

I own an amd athlonxp 3000+ which is something like 2.18ghz.
My problem lies when i wish to play games, as soon as any game loads, like battlefield vietnam, call of duty, flight sims, anything that isnt solitare basically , the pc locks up and it either just locks with the game on screen, or spews up the good old blue screen. it used to reset itself until i turned that damn auto reboot off.
This was with the pc running at the bios optimum settings. I changed the bios to fail safe settings and every single game i play worked fine, but at the expense of processor speed.
Fail safe settings dropped the processor to 1.3ghz running at 100mhz.
I later realised i could up the clock speed in the bios and so running at 133mhz i get 1.7ghz, better, but not what its capable off.
The only other clock speed available is 166mhz, and as soon as this is selected, all the games lock up if i try to play them.
I now have my bios on optimum settings, except for the clock speed which i have set at 133mhz, giving me the 1.7ghz. games work great but its annoying i cant get my 2.18ghz speed.
Just about every review ive read on the athlon xp 3000+ says it should be running at 333mhz, but alas, i dont have that option.
Any idea what i can do to rectify this?