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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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Last modified: Friday, April 04, 2008