|
| MAIN Latest News News Archive Overclocking Downloads Advertising Links Contact Info Message BoardHARDWARE Reviews Articles Specs SOFTWARE
|
How to do it All over the Internet, overclocking is made to sound so easy anyone could do it. And, in effect, it is easy, but only when it works. Also, you may not have much success. Some chips can be overclocked better than others, and it has nothing to do with the brand. It depends on the chip itself. One guy's Intel Pentium MMX may overclock better than another's chip of the same type. Since system speed is controlled by jumpers on the motherboard, you change the jumper settings on the board and make it think it has a faster processor. For example, if you have a Pentium-200 on a motherboard, you change the settings to make the board think you are running the next fastest Pentium, you could try 233MHz if you're brave. This works because the chip does not have an inherent speed. It accepts the speed given to it by the motherboard. If you're lucky, this will work. If it doesn't work, you may have periodic errors and crashes, or, if overclocked too much, you could damage the chip. A lot of times, you can add extra cooling to the chip to increase the chances of a successful overclocking. Overclocking the system bus is more complicated because in effect you are overclocking many other parts of your computer. It works the same way: you change a jumper setting. But, the success depends heavily on the chip's capabilities and the board's. Boards are designed to run at specified bus speeds with specified multipliers. A multiplier is the number of times faster the processor speed is than the system bus. For example, the Pentium 150 operates with a 60MHz bus speed, therefore it has a 2.5x multiplier. Anyway, motherboards are designed to support certain bus speeds and multipliers, so you can't exceed these limits. An example: most Pentium boards are made to run at a 66MHz bus speed, therefore can't operate at 75MHz. On this board, you could not overclock a Pentium-166 to 200MHz unless the board could handle a 3x multiplier (that's assuming the chip could handle it too). |
|
Back to top |
|