[cncadmin]

How do you overclock a P4 CPU, through the bios?

[kong]

The easiest way is to increase the FSB speed (in very small increments), as the multiplyer for the chip is probably locked. I'm more of an Athlon man myself, so hopefully someone else (NeoMoses?) should be along soon!
You'll find the limit pretty soon, when your PC no longer boots! Of course be aware that upping the FSB also overclocks the rest of the system, ie ram, pci and agp. There may be settings in the BIOS to underclock these areas in relation to your new higher FSB setting to promote system stability.

[cncadmin]

Looks like I can't do it on my Dell, it's all locked.

[kong]

Whip the side off' the case, and see if you can find out anything about the motherboard. Try a google on your findings, sometimes it works.

[cncadmin]

Wow what a difference! I'm running at abot 41deg C and my processer speed is at 2698mhz for a 2.3 gig looks like I can get to 3.2 if I get better cooling.

[kong]

That's a nice overclock! You may want to run some stability tests before you go for that 3.2Ghz though! If you have some games, play them. If you have some cad software, do some big drawings. Anything to stress the processor for a couple of hours should tell you if your PC will cope with the next stage.

[cadcam]

Paul take the time and ad some more cooling maybe even water cooling if you are going to push it to the 3.2 arena.

[cncadmin]

I'm looking into a better fan system.

[ufcio]

overclocking ?! what for ?

[Ferenczyg]

Originally posted by ufcio
overclocking ?! what for ?

varies depending on individual basis..

a) more speed for less price
b) less noise for same speed


Fer

[NeoMoses]

Basically all you can do with a P4 is increase the front side bus (FSB). The multiplier is fixed. Depending on the rated speed of your RAM, you may have to play with some different memory dividers to max out the potential of the CPU. Once you're using good cooling, you can also play around with the CPU core voltage to get a little extra speed, but this is the point of diminishing returns.

Make sure you are testing for stability with each successive overclock. Download Prime95 and run the torture test. It's a good way to see if you are really stable. You should be able to run over 48 hours of Prime95 without problems on a stable computer... once you've reached that, you can call your computer 'stable.' Nothing is more annoying than an unstable computer, so make sure you try it out after upping the clock speed.

ufcio: overclocking ?! what for ?

For added speed with a given computer system.

Paul, www.overclockers.com and their associated forums are a great place to learn everything you need to know about overclocking.

[FRAMEDNLV]

I agree, why overclock it. For the added cost you should just buy the faster cpu. I upgrade every 2-3 years and haven't overclocked since the 366 celeron. It was the only one that was a worth overclocking. The added speed isn't worth stability.

My thoughts,
Chris

[NeoMoses]

Originally posted by FRAMEDNLV
I agree, why overclock it. For the added cost you should just buy the faster cpu. I upgrade every 2-3 years and haven't overclocked since the 366 celeron. It was the only one that was a worth overclocking. The added speed isn't worth stability.

My thoughts,
Chris

Here's the basic idea: Buy a lower cost processor and put a little more money into the cooling system. You'll end up with a faster computer than had you bought the higher cost (speed) processor, plus a good cooling system won't become obsolete as quickly as the processor.

Example: Today (May 3, 2004) you can buy a P4 3.0C for $220 or a P4 3.4C for $415. If you buy the 3.0C and spend ~$150-$200 on a watercooling system, you'll probably end up with a P4 running at 3.6 GHz or faster. The watercooling system will also be quieter than the OEM aircooling system with the 3.0 or the 3.4. That's the gist of the whole overclocking community.