Newbie's Overclocking Guide

Reasons to not Overclock

1) Protection - Warranties are voided on almost all CPUs, and some motherboards as well.
2) Stress - More Stress on the CPU (and on all devices if you increase the FSB), can lead to a shorter CPU Life
3) Heat - More Heat Generation from CPU (and RAM if you increase the FSB)
4) Sensitivity - The heat sensitivity of your system will be greatly effected. If you o/c in the winter and summer comes around, you might be forced to reduce your speeds because your system cannot work stably with the large change in ambient temperature.
5) Efficiency - Increasing your cpu with overclocking doesn't increase it's efficiency at processing data. simply because some CPU's have many more optimizations, such as a full HT.

Reasons to Overclock

1) Speed - Your CPU will perform more operations per second (and your RAM if you increase the FSB)
2) Ca$h - Who needs a to buy a "pricey" 1900+ when you can get a 1600+ for half the price and overclock it to the same speed?!

Safety Procedures

KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE - If you are trying to overclock, and you come in and post a thread saying "Help me overclock", we will only be able to help you if WE KNOW what motherboard, CPU, heatsink/fan, RAM, operating system, video card, and add-on devices you have. And the only way WE can know this is, obviously, if YOU tell us. So KNOW what you have.

UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE DOING - The term "Overclocking" is actually very general. There are several ways to overclock a CPU and other components.

While overclocking, you will change several or possibly ALL of the following:

Front Side Bus (FSB) - This is how fast your motherboard chipset communicates with your CPU, and is also one of the two factors that determine overall CPU speed in MHz.

CPU Clock Multiplier - This is a unitless value, who's value increases or decreases in 0.5 increments (such as 10.0, 10.5, 11.0, etc) This value only affects the CPU, and is the other determining factor in overall CPU speed in MHz, when multiplied together with the FSB.

CPU Core Voltage (Vcore) - This is the amount of voltage your motherboard will stream to your CPU. An INCREASE in voltage will ensure that your CPU will cleanly pass data, and will prevent data corruption when your CPU is running at higher than stock speeds. An increase in Vcore will also increase your CPU's core temperature. Find out what your specific CPUs voltage is, because not all CPUs use the same voltage. Look at www.amd.com or www.intel.com

RAM Volage (Vio) - This is the amount of voltage your motherboard will stream to your RAM modules. Similar to Vcore, it ensures stabilty at higher speeds, although you will only need to increase this value at high FSB speeds, not high Clock Mulitplier settings.

Once again, a reminder to please go out and find more resources on all and MORE data regarding what exactly happens when you "overclock". That term is not specific in the least.

DON'T RUSH - The best thing you can do when overclocking is to not rush. Rushing will most likely lead to failure, which leads to aggravation. And there's definately a possibilty of killing your CPU, motherboard, RAM, etc. if you rush.

TEMPS, TEMPS, TEMPS - Any overclocker will know how well his heatsink removes heat from his CPU, and he will measure this using the temperature sensors that almost all motherboards include. Using either the BIOS or other software (such as Motherboard Monitor for Windows) will provide you with real time temperature values. Research to find out what acceptable values for your CPU temperature are. I can tell you that all AMD Athlon and Duron CPUs should ABSOLUTELY and WITHOUT QUESTION be under 70C. If you are overclocking, you will require a much lower temperature. The reference point I usually recommend to overclockers is 60C at full load. Please note, that by "full load" I am suggesting a CPU intesive test. The best one I've seen is Sandra 2002's Burn In Test. Run 50 passes of the two CPU benchmarks using Sandra's Burn In function, then check your CPU temperature. If you are under 60C, you are safe. You can find Sandra at www.download.com.

CHECK EVERYTHING - My last safety suggestion would be to always take your time... make sure your heatsink is installed properly on your CPU and make sure you used a thin, even layer of thermal compound. Make sure your heatsink was perfectly clean before installation. Make sure all your fans in your case and on your heatsink work properly. Make sure your RAM and all PCI devices are snugly in your board. Make sure all cables on the back of your PC are snug.

Following that simple guide, you should be able to cut back on the amount of problems and frustrations you have when overclocking.

Increasing the FSB will affect the CPU and also nearly all devices in your system. This is both good and bad, because in a stable system, while all devices will benefit from a slight boost, this also means all devices are stressed more than usual.

Increasing the CPU Clock Multiplier will only affect the CPU. What MOST overclockers do is increase the FSB and leave the clock multiplier alone. What the HARDCORE overclockers do is lower the multiplier first and then MAX OUT the FSB.

There is no reason you should ever LOWER the FSB from stock speeds, unless you're in an emergency of some kind. It will NOT help in overclocking