Overclocking for a newbie

[Cain_tommy]

I've never overclocked anything but now I'm curious.

I'm willing to try it out if you guys are willing to tell me what to do. Note that I'm not after the superduper über system here but a bit of overclocking couldn't hurt

I've got an A7N8X motherboard
AMD 2100+ CPU
TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 256MB
Elsa Gladiac 920
SB live value

- I play _alot_.

Hit me

 

[svol]

Well it first would be interesting to know what cooling you have and which CPU core. You can find out the CPU core type by downloading WCPUID and checking the model number... 6 is Palomino, 7 T-bredA and 8 T-bredB... the T-bredB cores are awsome OC'ers. Both T-bredA and T-bredB should come unlocked.

Anyway with that memory it would be the best thing to start increasing the FSB first. Just start increasing the FSB through the BIOS a couple of MHz a time and set the memory speed to sync. Check your stability and temps and if everything is OK continue increasing the FSB, otherwise back off a couple of MHz. If the temps are low but the CPU seems to be unable to handle the increased speed or your PC refuses to boot with the higher speed slightly increase the VCore... but be aware that a higher VCore means more heat.

A great program to test CPU stability is Prime95 or the SiSoft SANDRA burn-in test (but other benchmarks also work great).

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole