Overclocking ?

[thegreatone]

Hey, i just wondered how many people here actually overclocked there computers ? It's starting to seem like common practice with the people around me, and so i ordered a lovely new fan to get to work on my Celeron 335 (2.8Ghz)
Its interesting to see the results i can get with this thing, i can make it beat a P4 EE @ 3.2 (when i'm clocked to 3.3)

Heres my max overclock to date, actually i did this earlier today...


Thats with RAM at PC2700 because at PC3200 i can't go above 3.3Ghz.
As you can see it does have its advantages
Also, i think many people know about my Radeon 9550 @ 495/442 (should be 300/400)
Fun

[just_a_me]

I just did a slight overclock on my computer. My computer is nothing special though. My new computer was pieced together from 3 junked computers that people were getting rid of. I just have a AMD Athlon 1700+ with PC2100 RAM. I'm just glad it's better than my old Athlon T-bird 700 Mhz.

[Newbie programmer]

i still haven't figured out what overclocking is and why people do it because the word OVERclocking to me sounds like it would ruin it...and how would one overclock thier pc?

[si_the_geek]

Overclocking is making your computer (usually CPU and RAM) run faster than they are officially designed to.

All manufacturers have tolerance limits, so a CPU designed to be used at 2GHz may be safe at 2.1 - if appropriate cooling etc is in place.


If you know what you are doing, you wont ruin anything... but you will invalidate your warranty on those parts.

If you don't know what you are doing, you could end up with an unusual (and expensive) ornament.

[thegreatone]

I agree with Si here, although i must admit my knowledge all came from playing in the BIOS on my old PC (Athlon XP 1600+, 640Mb Ram, Radeon 9200SE)
I soon learnt what too much meant, and which settings did what.

I then looked online for special information, like documentation on my motherboard, and eventually invested in better cooling which allowed for my 700+Mhz overclock on my current CPU (Shown in Post #1)
I have a Zalman 7000 Cooler. All Copper based, so very cool

The best thing to note on overclocking is noting when enough's enough. When your Processor is too warm, or isn't stable, or seems to be running slower (Yes, slower !) its usually time to give in.

I don't recommend doing it unless you can afford to replace your entire PC in one go because you messed it up.
Luckily though, i've never had to do this.
Worst thats happened to me is cutting a power cable apart in a metal fan... Ouch.

[just_a_me]

When overclocking my computer I just looked around the internet to see what other people where running for their front side bus and bus/core ratio and the results that they got. There is a website called overclockers.com I think where people post their overclock setting for their mobo and cpu combo. Overclocking is somewhat complicated because you have to consider many things such as you memory speed when doing an overclock. One of my biggest suggestions would be to make sure that your computer is properly cooled. Also I like to go into BIOS and turn on the temperature based shutoff that shuts down the computer if the CPU gets too hot before making any speed increases.