Has anyone overclocked his system?

[AceChilla]

I wonder if anyone here has overclocked his processor or videocard over here.

For anyone who don't know what overclocking is, it means setting card faster than it was originnaly supposed to be.

 

[funxus]

I asked a friend about it, and from what I understood, most package deal computers, including ours, can't be overclocked. I probably will take time to do it if I buy a computer some time though...

 

[AceChilla]

It probably depends on what kind of bios your using, check if you can change you front bus speed in your bios for example. But don't change it if you don't know anyone who can fix it, and if you change it do it in very little steps, one mhz at a time.

If you got an good videocard you can probably overclock that using a program like Powerstrip, I overclocked my 5900xt with that program but unclocked it again because my computer got a little hot

If you can't change settings in your bios you could try changing you bios version but that's a more difficult thing to do.

 

[ainwood]

I have overclocked my FSB and GPU... At one point I needed a CMOS reset because I overdid things a little....

Main problem was that my heat sink and fan were a bit crappy. Got a new one, and it is a bit better now. I don't think overclocking is really worth the hassle overall => difference in applications I use is negligable.

 

[SanPellegrino]

I did it with my outdated PC, worked fine when I left the cover off, wouldn't try with my new one though.

what funxus said, I wouldn't try it with Compaq...

 

[FireBall]

Yep... I've done it with a few older PCs...

It depends on your MotherBoard. If you have an Intel or and AMD one, you probably wont be able to overclock, at leasst very minimally.

 

[Goober]

How do you do this? Which settings do you have to mess around with, what does this do, and does this do any harm to your computer?

I have one that was build for me, not a prebuilt, if that helps!

 

[phoenix_night]

One time, I had my XP1400 running as an XP2000. It wasn't so stable though.

 

[SanPellegrino]

Originally posted by RealGoober
How do you do this? Which settings do you have to mess around with, what does this do, and does this do any harm to your computer?

I have one that was build for me, not a prebuilt, if that helps!

you set the clock of the CPU higher than its specifications, so it runs faster. but it can overheat your system. if you have little experience with hardware, I would keep away from it.

 

[Hurricane]

I have my 2.8 GHz P4 running at 3.05 GHz. There is a clear difference in benchmark tests I have run, but I can't say I haven't noticed much in practical use.

 

[Rheinmetall]

P4 1.6 Northwood @ 2.133. It can go higher but the USB goes nuts when I push the FSB over 140 and my USB mouse doesn't obviously like it. I wish I could get my hands on a mobile athlon XP but they are really hard to get around here.

[Edit] Just checked and the mobile athlon XP's are back in stock. I think it's time to upgrade my system.[/edit]

 

[Padma]

AMD chips tend to run hot to begin with, and the air conditioning doesn't work that well in my computer room, so I just stick with my default clock settings.

 

[Goober]

Originally posted by SanPellegrino
you set the clock of the CPU higher than its specifications, so it runs faster. but it can overheat your system. if you have little experience with hardware, I would keep away from it.

Ya, I talked with V2010 about this, and he reccomended I don't try to mess with it. I would just mess things up, as I am good at doing, and my computer is fast enough anyway.

AMD chips tend to run hot to begin with, and the air conditioning doesn't work that well in my computer room, so I just stick with my default clock settings.

And this is a good reason not to, considering I have an AMD. This would explain why I have dual fans for my computer, which are noisy . . .

 

[xerxes_thegreat]

Just yesterday I got ahold of AquaMark3, so I wanted to see how big a difference it would make if I overclocked my video card. I used the Redline software I got with it and was able to overclock my card from about 400/300 to 440/330. It got me 1,500 more in my score, but then I overclocked it too much and spent about an hour and a half trying to get my system working back again. So with my experience, it's not really worth it. After all the trouble to get it overclocked I ended up not getting much more of a performance increase. Although, I should see what kind of fan it has. IIRC, it's a tiny little thing.

 

[crystal]

No. But I underclocked my graphics card. Yeah, that's right. It was crashing my computer all the time when I tried to play 3D accelerated games, so I had no choice but to decrease MHz's. I haven't really noticed any difference in speed, though.

 

[Goober]

Hmm, how could I find out if a computer were underclocked?

 

[FireBall]

umm... Through the BIOS I guess... I doubt it'd be underclocked though, unless the chip is badly made, therefore causing it to overheat at regular temperatures.

 

[marioh]

I only OC'ed my PC once, using the FSB method (AMD Athlon 1Ghz). The slight increase in performance didn't warrant the decrease in stability.

 

[hbdragon88]

No, but I know someone who did. He said that he didn't know that you only overclock it 10 MhZ at a time. He said he did 100 MhZ at a time or something and it ruined the CPU.

 

[Grisu]

I underclocked my old pc as well. It was a 1Ghz Athlon, but it wouldn't run stable (regular freezes), so I tried underclocking it to 950MHz and it worked like a charm

I tried to overclock my GPU but couldn't get a noticable speed burst (a few fps) so I turned it back down.