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ok now i have most of my problems out of the way(as there was along list. lol) i have always wondered what over clocking involves. i know it's making various components run at faster speed than they are supposed to, to improve performance but that’s about it. so what are the advantages/disadvantages of it? What does it involve doing? and is it recommended?
What is involved depends very much on your system, in particular the motherboard. My Gigabyte mobos, for example, are an overclockers delight. It is normally done by incresing the speed of the Front Side Bus (FSB) in the BIOS, which will have the effect of increasing the CPU clock and the RAM speed.
The advantage is that you get extra performance out of the PC for nothing, the disadvatange is that you can potentially damage something.
The secret to overclocking is to make changes in small increments, and then check for stability before going any further - as soon as the PC becomes unstable, back off a bit. And keep a very close eye on the temps at first.
I have overclocked both my PC's by around 12.5%, using the stock Intel HSF's that came with my P4's, it has increased my CPU temp only by about 1 degree C, and has cost me nothing more than a few minutes in the BIOS Setup.
ok sounds good i want to get in on all the fun :) . how do i get to my bios screen and what should i change?
system specs if needed are attached.
and some of us don't have 'Gigabyte mobos'. :(
When you boot up the PC it should tell you which key you need to press to enter Setup (often Del). Once you're in there find the "Frequency / Voltage control" section, or similar. Then find the "CPU Host frequency" and increase it slightly, save the settings and exit. Boot into Windows and use Everest to carefully monitor your temps, and just generally ensure that there is no sign of instability. Repeat the above steps until satisfied :D
As BIOS's all vary, you may not have exactly the same in yours, post back if you're in any doubt.
Here is an excellent guide to overclocking that I found:
Overclocking Guide
Be very careful about adjusting the Vcore voltage that it mentions, as that is what can cause the serious oveheat/damage problems. I have managed to overclock mine without needing to touch Vcore.
If that is a Northwood Pentium chip you have there, then if you can get the FSB up to 240, it will hit 3.6 Ghz and be stable IF you get a good third-party cooler on it. I wouldn't go much higher than that though.
The parts mostly to get damaged are the cpu and motherboard :eek: So be carefull.Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperSparks
well what are the temps for the cpu, memory that i should not exceed? Cpu normally runs at 35-50 depending on what i'm doing and memory at about 25-30 (i think, am away from computer at moment). so is there an uper limit i should not pass?
It reaches the end of it's safety range around 70ºC...but you don't want to go anywhere near there. When I was running a 3.0 at 3.6, it rarely reached 45ºC even when playing graphics-intensive games. But I am also using a Zalman 7700 CPU cooler. Like mentioned before, before you overclock you should get a 3rd-party cooler. Yes...you can overclock with a stock cooler...but as you can see with your current cooler, even when NOT overclocking that sucker can get quite hot. If it goes up to 50ºC from time to time when not oc'ed, then it probably won't be able to handle an overclock too well.
What is the make/model of your motherboard? Memory speed?
Addendum:
I was thinking about those temps you cited and wondering why they were a little high. Could be that you have the 3.0 Prescott (3.0E) instead of the older Northwood and are using the stock cooler. The Prescott's tend to run much hotter than the Northwoods. If that's the case...and I suspect it is...then you most definitely need a 3rd-party cooling solution before considering overclocking. I'm now running a 3.2E Prescott, overclocking it to 3.84 Ghz and it's running at Idle 41ºC/Load (benchmarking program) 50ºC....again, using the Zalman cooler.
here are my system specs as asked for. this report from everest should give you everything you need to know, and a lot more. cpu runs at about 35-37, mobo 25 idle. have seen the CPU at 50 or there abouts when playing games for a few hours and it's not a prescott processor. one 512mb memory stick is 3200 and the other is 2800 (i think, can't remember).
Also when i went in the bios set up i couldn't find where you change the CPU settings. When looking around i went into CPU power set up and all it gave me was fan control options and some other information on the various voltages but didn't allow me to change them.
Don't mean to be a grump,,but noticed no one has mentioned it. If you overclock, your CPU warranty is gone... :rolleyes:
Look for a section in the BIOS called "Frequency/Voltage control" or something along those lines - "Power options" is something different. Or post the names of all the sections in the BIOS SEtup and we'll see if we can figure out where the settings live.
Well, that's definitely PC-3200 that you have in the DIMM 1 slot, but it's not telling me what that is in the DIMM 0 slot....it looks like a speed match, but can't tell for sure. If you have a mix in there, then overclocking may not be for you. You should have matching RAM before attempting oc'ing. BTW, if that other stick is 2800, then that's the speed your memory is running at...it is limited to the lowest speed.
Even grumps like Ridgerunr will tell you that.... :D :D
"Warranties? HA! I laugh in the face of warranties!" :rolleyes: :D
Well yeah the memory sticks are defiantly different speeds, and i know it runs at the slowest but it was the cheapest and i thought it doesn’t matter if it's the same or bigger as it will still run fine. so should i not overclock with this then?
On a slightly different note, i have been playing games for several hours and when i exited out of the game my CPU is reading as 92degrees C!. left it for about 5 min and it wouldn't go down past 90 so i went on to my bios set up that showed it as 45. so i hope everest was just messed up for a bit.
Yeah, you'd know about it for sure if the CPU really was that hot, it would throttle right back and the PC would run like a dog, or it would shut down altogether.
I don't think I would be inclined to try overclocking with mismatched RAM myself, RAM is critical to a successful overclock.