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Overclocking FAQ
For a more detailed look at overclocking check the "links" page. This is more of a trouble shooting FAQ, we will however reiterate
some of the basics.
There are 5 Basic areas to be concerned with.
This is designed as an introduction and by no means conclusive.
Heat, Voltage, Memory, Power supply, Windows registry! oh yeah a motherboard that supports overclocking
It's assumed you already have an OCing board if your here.
Heat: Proper cooling is required for Overclocking. a 300Mhz increase will yeild a increase of 20 watts of additional heat to displace.
Both a quality heatsink fan and good case cooling are required.
Voltage: an increased voltage is generally required for a stable overclock. Not all motherboards support this.
Memory:High quality memory is generally required particularly if your increasing front side bus. A common OC on an AMD board is to lower the multiplier and
increasing the front side bus to 150MHz plus. Many PC133 sticks of memory will not run at 150MHz. Even when not increasing the front side bus but increasing the
Multiplier, the system can become instable due to cheap ram.
Power supply: along with heat its the most important issue. All power supply's are not the same. AMD approved list Here.
Even with Intel its important. Remember just because its approved for your stock cpu doesn't mean its approved for your OC target. EG: AMD 1G stock speed,
attempting 1.33G. You need an approved power supply for 1.33G.
Windows: an old install with lots of registry changes can be unstable without overclocking. overclocking just adds more potential for registry failures.
a clean install is always best.
Basic how to:
AMD: AMD 1.33 and 1.4G Thunderbird processors are multiplier unlocked. (you can change the multiplier without modifing the chip).
on most motherboards that are OC enabled the basics are the same.
AMD XP are mostly locked and require Modding, MP processors however are unlocked.
Lower processors can be unlocked using the "Pencil trick" which is simply connecting all the L1 bridges on the top of the CPU with a lead pencil. You can also use rear window defogger repair kit.
Start by changing the multiplier by .5 and increasing the voltage to 1.85V. Continue increasing the multiplier until you cant post anymore. You most likely will have to clear the Cmos to be able to boot again,
which means everything gets set back to default again.
Once you have established your highest multiplier that you can still boot to, start changing the multiplier a MHz at a time to reach your threshold. It is highly recommended that
you use 3D Mark2001/2000 as a burn in and stability tester. if your not building a gaming box then use Sisoft Sandra's burn in wizard.
Download 3DMark Here
Download Sisoft Sandra Here
Intel:Celeron, CeleronII, PIII are all multiplier locked. The only adjustment you can make is Front Side Bus.
The ideal OC is taking a 66MHz FSB to 100 FSB(celeron1 + II) the general rule is dont expect more that the highest sold chip in that category. EG:a CeleronII 700 to go to 1050MHz.
although Intel now has Celeron II 1.3G they are the Tualatin core and are differant. A 1G Tualatin should run at 1.33MHZ.
Pentium 4: are multiplier locked but can be adjusted by both FSB( by taking a 400 fsb and running it at 533 fsb)and multiplier, again depending on the motherboard.
Trouble Shooting your overclock:
Problem: Wont't boot after setting OC in bios.
Answer:Your settings are too high you will need to Clear the Cmos and change your setting to a lower OC. Also make sure you have changed your voltage to a higher setting.
Other potential problems: Power supply not adequate, Memory not good enough, thermal paste not applied.
Problem: Boots into windows but locks up in programs.
Answer:Your settings are too high you will need to change your setting to a lower OC. Could also be a heat issue, Memory, power supply. Also you may want to try reaching the same MHz but a differant multiplier.
EG: 10 x 150fsb = 1500MHz, can also be done 11 x 136fsb.
