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Index
Tips and Tricks.
(INDEX)
Here are a couple of tricks/tips you may want to consider in order to improve
your overclocking options.
- Try purchasing a larger heat-sync and CPU fan to reduce heat.
- Purchase a ball-bearing CPU fan because of longer life-spans.
- Apply some thermal grease between your heat-sync and CPU to increase
conductivity. This draws the heat from the CPU into the heat-sync.
- If you own an OEM version of a Pentium II you can place metal washers on the L2
cache chips so that they are in contact with the heat-sync. Also apply some
thermal grease to the washers.
- Add more fans to your case to increase air circulation. Have at least two
industrial type case fans: One drawing in cool air from the bottom of the
case and the other expelling hot air through the top of the case.
- Try and place hard-drives and cables away from the CPU to allow proper
ventilation.
- Make sure your power-supply does not direct the air over the CPU and if
this is the case you have an older powersupply. Look into purchasing a new
one since the new version draw the air out of the case away from the CPU.
- Be careful with "Peltier" CPU coolers because they act as an
insulator if they fail.
- Purchase a full-tower case to allow better circulation and/or keep your
computer in cool areas of your house.
- Last but not least, you can purchase a motherboard that allows easy
overclocking such as the models from Asus and Abit. Most often purchasing a
new motherboard is cheaper than purchasing a new CPU.
- There is no simply method to determine whether your next CPU will
overclock easily. The main factors that directly affect a CPU’s potential for
overclocking are the quality and speed of the L2 cache.
CPU’s like the Celerons or the new Pentium III’s will overclock easier since the L2
cache is directly integrated onto the CPU die, which translates into faster
L2 cache memory.
- You can disable your onboard CPU L2 cache to allow higher overclocking but
this will drastically reduce your overall system performance. A high CPU
speed is not worth the loss of the L2 cache.
- Some motherboards allow you to create "wait" states on your L2
cache to slow down the reads/writes to the cache. When adding
"wait" states to your L2 cache you need to run extensive
benchmarks in order to find the point where system performance begins to
depreciate.
Adding these "wait" states to your L2 cache can
increase your chances of overclocking because it allows the L2 cache to
refresh at a slower rate.
- When overclocking some add-on devices, such as video cards, may become
unstable. Try to change your AGP bus speed ratio to reduce the speed on the
AGP bus itself. Most recent motherboard BIOS’s allow you to change this
setting.
- Adding PC-133 certified RAM will most likely allow you to overclock your
system. Slow main memory can’t refresh fast enough for the overclocked FSB
(front-side bus).
- Do not purchase CPU's with large multipliers if you plan on overclocking
them because every increase in the FSB dramatically increases your CPU
clockspeed. For example a 466mhz Celeron with a 66mhz FSB has a multiplier
of 7. Thus if you increase the FSB from 66mhz to 100mhz your CPU is
increased all the way from 466mhz to 700mhz which will most likely not work.
Conclusion.
When overclocking you need to be patient and move one step at
a time. Do not change two motherboard settings at the same time or else trouble
shooting is impossible. Remember, if you are not familiar with jumpers, cables
and basically opening up your PC then you should not be overclocking. Send me
email with suggestions or questions regarding the article. I will post
updates as new information develops.
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