Dave’s Ultimate Guide to Overclocking

[cadaveca]

Dave’s Guide to Overclocking



1. First makes sure your board will let you change multiplier/front side bus settings, as well as a lock on the PCI and AGP bridges. Do this by reading the manual. Best to read every last page…they make them for a reason.
2. Ensure that your processor is not locked. Doing a search on google will get you numerous results on how to figure it out.
3. Download a few programs from the net…one temperature monitoring program(mbm5/etc.), and one testing program(prime95/cpuburn-in/folding@home)
4. Install monitoring program and check your temperature. You want to have a starting point of about 45c or so…the maximum “under load” temp should not exceed 55c when overclocked
5. If your temp is high, you first need to provide sufficient cooling. Aftermarket heat compounds and heatsinks offer a multitude of combinations. Find one to suit your taste. Also ensure that you have proper airflow in your case. Opening the side panel should not cause the temps to drop. There are numerous silent case fans that will both lower temps and keep your system silent.
6. Decide on wether you want to do a “burn-in” or not. The opinions are varied, but it is believed by some that this will “stretch a proc’s legs” so to speak, and make higher overclocks possible. You do the burn-in by running @ regular settings with the voltage maxed out. Running prime95 will raise temps as well as give you error reporting. Generally you want to be running it at 1.9v or so and for @ least 24 hours…with no errors. remember the 55c temp highpoint.
7. set your multi low to 10 or so and your front side bus to 200mhz(make sure that you have memory that supports this)with loose timings like 2.5-3-3-9 or so, or whatever is recommended by the OEM for this frequency. Boot the machine. Once in windows…run prime95(or whatever) and make sure it will run without errors for at least an hour. If you get errors, you either want to up the voltage slightly or loosen your memory timings. Each has their benefit and a risk. Do some research and decide what’s best for you.
8. once you have a stable overclock, you may want to repeat the testing process, either by adjusting front side bus or multi’s. once you are comfortable with the overclock, running prime 95 for a day or 2 with no errors should confirm the stability of your system.
9. Enjoy your new-found speed!
10. fill in any details i missed!

[cadaveca]

it generally seems that when windows freezes(no mouse movement) you need more juice @ the cpu.give it a little and run prime 95. got errors? try a little more.
if you get memory reference errors, your timings are too tight or incorrect. loosen cas immediately upon leaving the 400 mhz mark, although some more expensive sets or ram will let you go higher with a cas2 rating. this is very inportant, as the CAS rating directly has an affect on your performance; with some ram the difference between CAS2 and CAS 2.5 can mean 500mb/second...not something anyone wants to throw away. Reach CAS 3 and you'll see such a performance drop that you'll shake your head and back off the overclock. I have had the CPU in my sig @ 2800mhz...but it was with a different psu(this helped slighty but not tottally) and different hyperx mem. my current set of mem would allow it to get to 2400mhz(with said psu)...no higher. The higher your front side bus, the more the info goes around all over, the more i have been able to push the proc(multi's lead to huge jumps in speed...@200mhz fsb .5 of a multi is 100mhz remember)