well u increase the FSB but what about the multiplier, what do u do with that? i already have everest for monitoring my computers temperatures.
you will probable find that you cant increase your multiplier anyway, you may however be able to decrease it.
How easy is to damage parts, and what parts could potentially be damaged(not including video cards, I wont be overclocking that)?
if you take it easy then it is unlikely you will damage your other components. And your apg/pci will be locked and 33/66 so you wont screw your other bits and bobs.
How will I know if something is damaged (other than it not turning on)?
keep an eye on the temperature of you cpu, if it gets stupidly high (about 65 - 70C) then either get better cooling or cut back on your overclock
One way is to change the multiplier
i doubt you can
Another way is to lower the latency, so for a CAS of 2.5, I would change that to 2.0? And would that make a significant difference?
you’re now talking about overclocking your ram which is different to your cpu.
Ok I’m quickly going to write a quick guide to overclocking and hope it will compliment overclocking101 enough to answer your questions.
Ok lets assume your working on Pentium4 system.
You computer (the whole thing including cpu and motherboard) works on a clock speed called
"core clock speed" as determined by your MOTHERBOARD
The
"core clock speed" can be 100, 133, 166, 200 or 266.
Most likely yours is 200 (it doesn’t matter if it is not the principle is the same)
You may have heard the term FSB (front side bus), avoid it. FSB can be confusing because....
In reality it is just another term for
"core clock speed"
But.....
Pentium quad pump the core clock to give an overall
bus speed
which comes to 800 in our example. NOW marketing companies market this 800 as the FSB, so the box will say 800FSB - which really is 200FSB/Core Clock Speed and 800BUS speed
The
net clock speed of the processor (so for instance with a Pentium4) is a product of that core/FSB clockspeed multiplied by a scalar (called your multiplier). So we have:
Pentium4 550 = 200MHz x 17.0 = 3400MHz
(These are the ONLY 2 variables that determine the net clock speed value, however they are not the only factor determining cpu speed, but that is a different topic all together often titles AMD vs P4 or something to that extent)
Now it’s unlikely that you will be able to change the multiplier upwards
No how does your ram fit in. Well your ram is attached to your motherboard, which as we know runs on a core clock speed of 200, just like you cpu.
Timings, the philosophy of the tight-timings people is to reduce the number of CPU clock cycles that are wasted before activity (reading, writing) can be performed. So if you drop (tighten) your timing then you will be able get your ram to work faster. Timing are a Ram phenomena and altering them will effect ram speed not cpu speed.
Now comes the link... Both the ram and the cpu are running on the
core clock speed specifed by the motherboard. Increase that and you increase both net clock cpu speed (due to the formula above), and the ram speed (since it is running on the core clock speed)
Now pay attention, remember that I said you ram is based on your clock speed. Well i oversimplified. There is a ratio in place between the ram speed and the core clock speed. In an ideal world this ratio would be 1:1, thus keeping your ram in sync with your core clock speed. However some ram may not be able to handle the 200mhz that your cpu can handle. So you may run your ram at a ratio of 3:5 thus making your ram run at 166mhz. Got that! The ratio can vary but the principle is the same
How does this help overclocking.
Well you now understand that if you increase your core clock speed you will overclock both you ram and your cpu. Lets give an example (same cpu as above)
Pentium4 550 =
210MHz x 17.0 =
3570MHz
so you have overclocked you cpu by upping the core clock speed by 10, however our ram is now also running at
210
This is how we overclock, increasing the core clock speed bit by bit and then running the system through it paces to test for stability
But the saga continues, damn i didnt mean to write this much,
You may find your self at a situation were (after increasing the core clock speed too lets say 240mhz) your system is not stable, and thus you have to ask yourself, what is causing my instability, is it my ram or my cpu (could be both, or a few other things but this the general question)
Lets assume that it’s your ram that cannot handle the extra clock speed, the solution that will allow you keep pushing you cpu is to alter (lower) the ratio that we discussed above to allow the ram to work at a slower speed while keeping the cpu at 240. You can then up the core clock further and see how high you can push your cpu.
If we find that it is the cpu that is limiting the overclocking experience, and you would like to push you ram further then the again we need to alter (increase) the ram ratio, to allow the ram to run faster relative to the cpu.
Eventially you will reach a point were you can not push you core clock speed any high, nor increase your ratio any higher, this is you max overclock (well there are a few more little tricks but I am tired of writing, how praetor does this I’ll never know)
last point (i promise)
You may push your cpu and ram for little overclock but then find that it is not stable past a certain point, the thing to do here is to increase the voltage a touch to the cpu (or ram) untill you get a stable system. You will need to use a process of elimination to determine which of the two components need the extra volts. Be warned increasing the volts will increase your temps, and the stress put on the components, that’s not to say don’t do it, just do it sensibly.
You will need to get better than stock cooling in place to overclock.
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