Total Newbie

[TMRayfield]

I am a total noob on the overclocking front, and was wondering if anyone could explain to me (in laymans terms) the best ways of squeezing more juice out of my processor. Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Cheers

[james8547]

What kind of proc, RAM, and mobo do you have? What's your system temps?

[TMRayfield]

I have an AMD Duron 800 (no comments please!), 256Mb PC2100 (PC266) DDR Memory and a MSI KM2M mobo. My system temp is about 25C, but that is after it has been connected to the internet and Kazaa for about 2hours. My BIOS says N/A next to CPU temp.

[Confused]

There are two ways to increase the speed (overclock). One is to raise the multiplier. For example if your FSB is 133 then your multiplier is 6 to get 798. By changing the multiplier to 7 you increase the speed to 931. About a 15% increase. Your CPU MUST support multiplier changes. This is commonly called unlocking. I'm not sure how to unlock the Duron. You might check www.overclockers.com

The other method is to change the FSB. You leave the multiplier alone and increase the FSB. For example if your FSB is currently 133 with a multiplier of 6, then by changing the FSB to 150 you increase your speed to 900. About a 12% increase. Problem is when you change the FSB it affects your memory, IDE devices (HD's) and CPU core temps. Hence the system can become unstable very fast because the memory cain't take the faster speed, or the HD's have write errors or the CPU overheats.

So any overclocking should be done in very small steps with a complete system test after each change and you must keep a close watch on systemps if you mess with the FSB.

Chas

[TMRayfield]

How do I change the FSB? My mobo has jumpers so I can choose between 100 and 133, is this the only wat to change the FSB?

[Confused]

Look in BIOS for something like CPU clock. My Epox board has it under PC Health. It will be in there somewhere if your board supports it. Be ver carefull because as I indicated earlier raising the FSB cause stability problems. They sometimes can be corrected to some extent by raising the core voltage but these methods can cause CPU heat problems and ruin your PC.

You need to do some reading and studying before proceeding or you can wind up with a ruined PC.
Chas

[TMRayfield]

I have read a lot of stuff on overclockers.com, but don't understand how, after unlocking the processor, you change the multiplier.

[Confused]

Depends on your board. It is probably controlled in the BIOS and is set to Auto Detect which means that it detects the CPU multiplier based upon the FSB that it is built for. You would turn the Auto Detect off and set the multiplier in BIOS. Some mobo's have hardware multiplier jumpers on the board.

Unlocking the CPU can be a problem depending on the CPU.
Chas

[TMRayfield]

I'm not certain how to unlock the multiplyer, so I need to find somewhere that will tell me.

[TMRayfield]

I have found a website that tells me exactly how to overclock my processor, but was wondering, which is the best way to overclock, changing the FSB or Multiplyer?

[Confused]

I'm not a overclocker and don't know if there is a best way. Keep in mind that changing the FSB also affects the RAM, PCI buss and CPU core. Any of these can cause stability problems. You can sometimes stabilize the CPU by raising the voltage, but that increases the heat and you run the risk of frying your CPU.

I do believe if I wanted to overclock, I would start by changing the multiplier. Just unlock your CPU first and make sure that your boards will let you play with the multipliers and FSB.

Good Luck
Chas