Major Question

[nightscope]

I have been studying about computers and how they work for the past 2-3 months from online posts/sites. And I still do not get the whole picture of everything. For example, overclocking a cpu is done by either raising the multiplier or the FSB of the processor, correct? So how do you know when to increase the voltage? How does the processor work? How does it work with the motherboard? How do you know how much the motherboard can handle overclocking? How do you which ram, for example, goes with which motherboard/cpu best? Which is the best ram? I heard that AMD favored low latency, but, is that true? Does intel also favor that?

I know some of these questions should be on the cpu overclocking messageboard, but it'd be much easier if I can get all the information I need on one thread.

What new AMD processors are coming out? What about Intel? Which is the best time to upgrade? How do you know which motherboard is the best? I would love to have all these questions answered in this thread. It's amazing how much you all know about this stuff, so please share with me

Thank you!

 

[Sirfiroth]

Well, the subject title suggested a major question but your actual post is pretty broad..... you will get better response if you narrow it down a bit ...

The system clock, voltage regulators (CPU, memory, northbridge) voltages and such are set during the boot up of the system.

When you turn on your computer or your press the reset button, a boot strap loader initiates the boot sequence. The first thing that happens is the voltages to the CPU, mem, and such are set to default ('safe') values, and initialization code is executed --- this is the BIOS. The code is actually executed by the processor, it first initializes the processor then IO periphrials and such.

The CMOS (a volatile, programmable ram on your motherboard) allows you to setup certain settings that the BIOS code will use to setup your system. For example, default bus speed for an Intel CPU (Core 2 Duo) is 266 (x 4 or 1067 MHz fsb), but if you wish some BIOS and MBs have variable system busses, so if you wish you could set the system speed to 300 MHz (4x or 1200 MHz fsb) simply by changing that startup parameter in the BIOS such that it sets the clock during boot up.

Now, BIOS code was commonly also used by DOS, and today at a very low level is used for various periphrials, but for the most part Windows has taken over most of the control code for various HW to the point that the BIOS is most only a boot up/initialization and clock/multiplier control mechanism. This is not to understate the importance of the BIOS, but over time it has lost some of it's significance.

Nonetheless, to answer one of your questions --- you set the voltage to your CPU as a parameter in the CMOS that your BIOS reads at boot up and sets as part of the initialization sequence.

Jack

Ever the Gentleman Jack, you make us proud! :trophy:
I was about to flame the guy for being lazy or not knowing how to read.
Me thinks his question is:
When do you increase voltage while overclocking the CPU? :?


________________
”No matter where you go or what you do, you live your entire life within the confines of your head”. ~Terry Josephson

 

[dragonsprayer]

if you been studing it for 2 months - you need to play with a system - hit del on your computer when it boots or f1

 

[nightscope]

Thank you for that incredible answer Jack, that was very helpful. Now, I know you are probably thinking that I'm lazy and whatnot because I posted this post, but the truth is, I'm not. For 2 months, I've been reading every single article on any computer related board that I could find, including most of the ones on this site. It interested me that I wanted to fill up all the gaps I'm missing, or that I couldn't find. So, where is the best place to ask these questions? Of course, here, where all the experts on this issue are.

Everytime I see a question rise up on this thread that I think I know the answer to, I become relentless as to whether answer it or not, because I still don't have enough confidence in my knowledge. One more thing, my computer's motherboard doesn't allow me to overclock from the bios, so that's why I can not experiment with it and find out all these questions by my own. Moreover, I'm not really demanding that you post here...this is a voluntary thing, if you want to help me, then it's appreciated, if you don't...then just please don't reply.

But yeah, I understand the voltages increases now, so that gap is filled. But as you can see from my post, there are many more gaps to be filled, so if anyone can help me, it'd be most appreciated.

Thank you