Simple overclocking FAQ

I was just wondering if you might clarify how much more dangerous it is to attempt to overclock a laptop, or a Micro ATX machine.

I had a friend in the town where I used to live, big computer aficionado, worked in a shop and everything. Tried to overclock his Area 51 with just a little bit of compound applied to the CPU heatsink and NB, and melted his memory socket. Don't ask me why it had to be the memory and not the NB, I don't know.

Well, I'll see if I've got any extra words left to add that information (10,000 character limit/post).

But I'll mention this here right now, one of the most important things to look out for in an overclock is your heat. If you can manage your heat output, your overclock (if stable) is fine.

If this means a bigger fan, put in a bigger fan. If this means watercooling, put in watercooling. This is true in both ATX and micro ATX cases.

Hardware is also an issue, where micro-ATX motherboards aren't as geared for overclocking as ATX boards. This doesn't mean you cannot overclock, but it means that you shouldn't expect overclocks as high as other ATX boards. For example, a chip which can be overclocked to an FSB of 500mhz on an ATX board may only go to 420mhz on a micro-ATX board. But I do need to point out that it is the FSB that will be limited, so you may still get to the same speed by increasing your CPU multiplier if that is possible.

In the case of laptops, its mostly the same. Numbers change, but heat is still the big factor. Laptop chips are designed (specifically the CPU) to run at higher temperatures than their desktop counterparts, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, they are usually pushed to the limit anyway in terms of temperatures. It will help if you bought one of those laptop coolers to cool it down a little, but the difference isn't as much as changing the CPU heatsink on a desktop unit.

It doesn't help that you can change your fans or heatsinks in your laptop, like you can in a desktop.

Bottom line: it is possible to overclock laptops, but don't expect to be able to overclock it a lot.

But also: heat would be a bigger issue in a laptop, because of the proximity of parts. Correct?

Or rather, heat in specific and focused areas would be a bigger problem.

Well, proximity of parts do play a role in keeping the heat in.

But if you can just transport the heat out via a huge heatpipe or maybe tons of airflow, it doesn't really matter. I dare say all laptops today are cooled via heatpipe, but a heatpipe doesn't magically make heat disappear. Heat has to go somewhere, and this somewhere are the heatsinks on the other end of the heatpipe. However, due to spacial constraints, the heatsinks on the other end of laptop heatpipes are usually tiny.

Laptop coolers generally are just plain old fans pushing more air into the laptop than the fans on the laptop. More air = better cooling.

Also, I didn't specify it, but I'll just do so now: the components in laptops aren't built with overclocking in mind as well. They generally are pushed to their operational limits already. They do have some overhead, so it is possible to push them some, but manufacturers have much bigger problems to deal with when it comes to laptops.

Thanks a ton.

As it's stickied, it not possible to bump it, but a rousing BUMP to this FAQ.

good guide! nice and simple to unerstand for somone like me whos never done this before.

Exellent guide =] Understandable for beginirs like myself

I have to agree.. very good guide.. massive Kudos to you bud..

Nice guide. Thanks. However, after reading it, I'm less inclined to overclock, since for me the life of the hardware is more important than maximum performance.

lol sounds like something that i need to stay away from but i seen vids of extreme over clockers with liquid nitrogen or w/e to cool of their machine, i mean wow.. hardcore !

very helpful thread, i think ill stick to stock settings and keep my "nubbie" title for a bit longer i spent 3 hours the other night on a problem as small as me not seeing my cd driver was jumped as a slave and not a master.

Thanks for all the feedback. I do still check this thread once in a while to see if there are any changes to be done.

If anyone notices anything which may be out of date, or may be clarified, anything at all, don't hesitate to post.

I don't think im seeing the big picture

is it just me or is it seemingly impossible to overclock in a Phenoix BIOS? or am I missing the big picture......thanks in advance

he does it on a phenoix but his looks nothing like mine

I'm sorry, I can't really answer that question, as all different BIOSes, as well as the different builds of the same BIOS would have different overclocking settings.

This isn't really a How-to as you can see, just addressing many different questions on overclocking, hopefully to help you reach an informed decision on whether you should, or shouldn't overclock your computer.

basic overclocking question

OK i have a fic k7mnf-64 mother board with a( sempron 3000+ SDA3000DUT4D
Front Side Bus Speed: 333 MHz )
the mobo is supposed to run at 266/333/400 MHz Front Side Bus
my bios choices were 100/166/200
when i got it i had to do a little research and found on this board there is a bios jumper that stops you from changing the FSB, so i removed it and was able
to move it up to 166 which with the sempron dual something or another effectively
clocks my cpu at 332 right???
that raised me from 1.2ghz to like 1992 say 2 ghz.
hurray for the newbee thank you master google.
so it seems to me that in a sense I've overclocked it up to specs.
i have phoenix 6v bios and i don't seem to have the option to raise the vcore.
its some thing like 1.53v now and i believe its rated at 1.6v.
as for the memory freq. i had to set it to auto for it to boot.
if i raise the FSB to 200 no go.
so i guess my real question is where do i go from here? i don't feel that
i have accomplished much as to overclocking it.after all i'm just getting exactly what the chip was supposed to do in the first place.
how do i get past the 333mhz barrier? the mobo is supposed to go to 400mhz.
as i said mine only goes to 200mhz and wont boot at that speed.
i have two sticks of 512 ram @ 400 mhz that should be ok right?
as for the multiplier it 12 and cant seem to change it either.
have i reached my limit or am i missing something?as i said before mobo FSB
is supposed to have the choices of 266/333/400 but i have 100/166/200.
or do i need new bios version.
any help would be great
thanks again

Not too sure about the overclockability of your chip.

Try increasing the fsb a little at a time from 166 (in 5mhz blocks usually).

Your RAM should be fine, seeing that its rated for 400, and you're only doing 333. Same goes for your motherboard.

Also check the voltage for your RAM, although I don't think it should be a problem.


About your multipliers, they usually are locked, although with some chips you can reduce the multiplier, which can help, but from there, you're looking at very minimal improvements by getting the best fsb:multiplier ratios; I don't know too many people who would reduce multipliers...

i have played around with cpu cool
is there a free overclocking program that you might suggest?

Ghazi is a Guru

must-read site for over-clockers: www.tweakguides.com

Many thanks for all the great info in this FAQ. Thought I'd throw in a site I've found just a wealth of knowledge as well.

Thx.

hello everybody,i m a new member here and i don't know much about overclocking,but all these days i'm trying to do it.maybe you think why?because,i would like to see where my pc can go and of caurse to avoid bying a new cpu without having tried this before.i have an intel core 2 duo e6300 1.86 ghz,when i got into bios and changed my fsb from 266mhz to 300mhz i saw that the speed raised to 2.1mhz without having any problems.after that i raised it to 310 but my pc didn't boot.i got again into bios and left it to 300 witch means 2.1ghz.what can i do to go higher?any ideas?