Elektro Slime
Harware Guru
- Joined
- 16 Nov 2004
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- 334
[size=+1]A beginner's guide to overclocking Part1[/size]
Warning!: Overclocking can cause irreversable damage to your hardware and will undoubtably void your warranty! Do it at your own risk! This guide is provided for information purposes only, I am not responsible for any damage or injury caused as a result of using any of the information in this guide. You are the only one responsible for your actions!
So what is this overclocking thing?
Overclocking is the process of making your hardware run faster then originally intended by the manufacturer. For example, say you have a 2.4GHz processor, by overclocking you can increase that speed to 2.8GHz and possibly higher!
Is overclocking difficult?
Well not really.....There are just a few basic things you need to know, the rest involves mostly trial and error until you find the 'sweet spot' of your overclocked rig.
Why Overclock?
Well as I mentioned above it's to make your system more specificaly your hardware run faster. Say you are looking to buy a new CPU, the latest one out at the moment is 3.8Ghz(about $600), but your max budget will only allow you to get a 3.2GHz($200ish) processor. So by overclocking you may be able to reach 3.8GHz or possibly more whilst paying only a third of the price!
Another scenerio you may look at is say, you get the latest and greatest game which requires you to have really high end hardware, but say you only have a so and so system and the game doesn't run that well, by overclocking you may be able to get a higher fps which will give you a overall better gamming experience. I hope you now have a basic idea of what overclocking is.
What are the risks involved?
1)You will most likely void your warranty.
2)You will reduce the lifespan of your computer. Not really much of a problem as most of us use a PC for only like 3 years, so i think the extra performance boost is worth it.
3)You may damage your hardware either by running too high voltages through your components which may result in a short circuit. There is also the unavoidable issue of overheating. Heat is the number 1 enemy of computer components, I'll discuss ways of takling heat problems later on.
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Getting down to basics.....
When overclocking, the main component you will be dealing with is the processor. From now on im going to refer to overclocking as oc'ing. . When you get your processor you'll see it's runnig at a certain speed, say you get a 2.4GHz processor, the 2.4GHz is known as the clock frequency. That means the processor is runnig 2,400,000,000 clock cycles every second. The object of oc'ing is to raise the clock frequecy of the processor so it processes more data per clockcycle therby increasing performance. The formula to find the speed of your cpu is:
[highlight]FSB (MHz) x Multiplier = Clock speed(Mhz)[/highlight]
FSB: The FSB is the Front Side Bus, it is the channel through which your entire system communicates with your CPU.
FYI when you see a system with a 800mhz fsb it actually has a bus speed of only 200mhz, the reason for this Intel CPUs are "quad pumped", meaning they send 4 instructions per clock cycle. And remember when you're overclocking you shall only be dealing with the real fsb (that is, the 200mhz).
So for a 3.2Ghz system the formula would be:
200 x 16= 3200mhz
Please also be aware that all Intel processors have their multipliers top locked, that is they cant be increased. The upcomming prescott 2M will allow the multipliers to be decreased, this will be used by the Enhanced Speed Step feature to reduce heat output and power usage during periods of inactivity.
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So how do I overclock?
Actually the first question should be "can i overclock?". Basically your ability to overclock depends upon:
- your motherboard
- your ram
- the stregth of your power supply
- cooling
- the processor
For now im going to be focusing on only the mobo and processor. But before I continue let me say that if your motherboard is made by Intel you really won't be able to OC much, in post #9 Steevo mentioned he only got a 4% oc, not much is it? .
To really be able to OC you need a good mobo from a reputable company like Gigabyte, Asus,Abit,DFI etc.
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The good stuff
Ok, first turn on your system (duh!). Then get into your BIOS setup, on most mobos this is done by pressing the 'Del' key during bootup. While in the BIOS be on the look out for these setting:
FSB, RAM Timings, RAM Speed, Ram Ratio and Vcore
You can usually find them under 'Advanced Chipset Features' and 'Advanced BIOS features' but this can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, for instance on Gigabyte motherboards you can find all the required settings under the 'M.I.T. (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker)' menu.
Since I am going over the basics for the time being heres what you gotta do:
1.Check the Fsb setting if you have a relatively new system it should read 200 on older PCs it will be either 133 or 100. In our example we'll use a 3.0Ghz processor with 200Mhz fsb and 15 multiplier. So select the fsb setting and press 'Enter'. You will now see a new dialog box with a blinking cursor, in the little text box key in the new fsb you would like to use, say 210.
so now we have :
210 x 15 = 3150 thats 3.15GHz! so you have increased your processor speed by 150mhz! woot woot!
Warning!: you should only increase your fsb in small increments like 5 or 10mhz at a time, or you could seriously damage your system!
2.After you have upped the fsb to 210mhz exit the BIOS setup (make sure you save the new settings as well) and then reboot your sytem. Once your logged into XP run some programs like prime95 or folding@home and leave it on for about 2 hours or so. If it runs without any problems, that is to say stable. Reboot and perform step 1 agin this time upping the fsb a little more maybe lets say up to 220mhz.
3. Keep on doing this until you notice any instabilities such as BSODs, system lock ups, crashes constant reboots. Also it is a good idea to back down the fsb a little after you've found the highest fsb possible.
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