Can you teach me how to overclock?

[UoAoE]

Hi there guys,, will I’m new in overclocking, I have never tried to do it and I would love to learn how to do it, so if you can offer you’re help I will be great full.

I’ll list my system main specification:
Motherboard :EPox EP-8K7A+ (http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8k7a+.htm)
Processor : AMD XP 1800+
Memory : 512 DDR (2x256 Micron Branded)
OS : Windows XP professional
Graphic card: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 with 64MB (PCI)
Cooling : Danger Den (http://www.dangerden.com) :-
Water Block : MAZE3-1 AMD,
Card Block : Chipset & GeForce 2&3 Vid,
Radiator : Black Ice Xtreme,
Peltier : 156W,
Pump : Eheim 1250 1/2 Adaptor

If you guys can help me out I’ll be great full

NOTE:Latest drivers have been installed + last version of the BIOS

[Ragnarog]

There are 2 different methods of overclocking the CPU.

1. You raise the Front Side Bus (FSB) from the default of 133 to as high as it goes while making sure, with benchmark progs that the machine is still running stable.
Note that upping the FSB generally takes the PCI and AGP higher too, which can result in instabilities due to the IDE/gfx/NIC/any other PCI card....

You can do this in the BIOS.

2. You unlock the CPU by connecting the L1 bridges on it. There are several unlocking guides on the net and I'm sure one of the gurus around here will point you in the right direction :)
When a CPU is unlocked, you can chose, from the BIOS, at what multiplier setting you want to run the CPU.
The frequency speed is determined as follows:

Multiplier x FSB

In the case of your Athlon 1800+ which is running at an FSB of 133, your multiplier is 1533/133=11.5

After unlocking the CPU, you could actually just upping the Multiplier to 12 or 12.5 while leaving the FSB alone...


Remember that, while oc'ing you usually need to up your CPU voltage. the default is 1.75V and 95% of the mobos go to 1.85V max by default. Now It could be that your Epox lets you go higher but I wouldnt recommend going over 2V...

Hope that helps a little :)

Rag

[UoAoE]

In the look for how to unlock the AMD I came across this guides:

Plastic Surgery: Releasing The Athlon XP To Hit 2000+ (http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/01q4/011112/index.html)
Unlocking The Athlon XP/MP - Video (http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/01q4/011124/index.html)

Any way can you tell me what the deferent between the two ways of O/Cing, (what will get out of each?)

[Ragnarog]

Oc'ing by the multiplier only will result in ONLY oc'ing the CPU...it will narrow down your search for the weak part when you experience instabilities....

If you do it the FSB way then you will speed up the rest of the system too, including the RAM, but you will also have multiple sources of instabilities....

Prolly the best way is to first figure out just how high you can go using the FSB only....lets say you can push it up to 145 from 133...this will get you 145*11.5=1667 Mhz.

After that you can always unlock the cpu and then up the multiplier until you hit the CPU limit...maybe it'll take 12x145...maybe not...

Also,generally speaking, a system running at 11.5*145 is faster than a system at 12.5*133 because in the first case you are speeding not only the cpu up a little but the rest of the system too...

Rag