Do you overclock?

Cat you should visit the over-clockers forums
Most motherboard vendors these days will have applications available from their website. It'll be called something like EasyTune5 or Cool'N'Quiet or etc.

Avoid these programs like they are the plague. I can overclock from 2.66 to 3.33 in my motherboards BIOS fine. Every single time i try to do it in windows, WITH my vendors' OFFICIAL overclocking software, my PC hard locks and won't even reboot unless i hit the reset button.

All CPU and RAM overclocking should be done in the motherboards' BIOS. You may have to update your BIOS to get the options "unlocked". Some vendors & motherboards do not allow overclocking at all.

Your system may Blue Screen or hard lock after the overclock. That's nothing to worry about, it just means yuo've over-clocked too much and you need to lower it a bit.

I have a laptop that is a playtool in this stage of it's life now, and want to see how far I can push it. I would never do this to my desktop, it's less than four months old. But I would like to squeeze every last drop of performance out of this laptop, just to see what I can make it do. It's a stock Dell Latitude D610, Intel Pentium M processor 2.13GHz, 2GB RAM, Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family.

It's a word Ian, very frequently used

Core 2 Quad/Dual maximum temperature is available though the application Core Temp. In the readme it specifies multiple VERY useful links such as the sources they have gotten your maximum CPU temperature from.

My C2D e7300 sits at 50*C when IDLE and has a maximum warranty covered temperature of 105*C. I don't think any of you have to worry about temperature - but if you're really that worried, you can set CPU overheat warnings on in your BIOS and in Core Temp in most cases.

EDIT: As far as i know, ALL athlon XP, X2's and phenoms will fry at 71 degrees celcius or higher. Not just start taking damage, but FRY.

Overclocking requires small increments in all settings and the hardware to keep everything cool. Benchmarking to reach system balance and performance, also an understanding of what you are about to perform.

Overclocking is a tricky thing to do. It requires patience and time.

Personally, for me, I don't mess with it. Plus it shortens the life of the CPU.

This is very true, also Overclocking will void the manufactures guarantee, I don't know who first said the following but its a good one not to forget - Don't Overclock What You Cant Afford To Replace.

Intel processors have always been warranty covered for overclocking. Always.
To begin with it was only a 10% allowance since there is a 10% error margin in their processing methods and you may have gotten a CPU slower than what was advertised.

These days you're warranty covered to overclock a C2D or Quad to ANY value, as long as the voltage doesn't go over 1.3 volts and the temperature doesn't exceed the design specifications.

Overclocking is a system wide exercise ... not just the CPU

Obviously everybody looks at this topic a little differently, and everyone seems to have different degrees of luck and success with their overclocking attempts. I'm not too worried about shortening the lifespan of my CPU, mainly because my overclock is moderate, and I'm not taking it to any kind of extreme. But I think the main reason I feel the need to do it in the first place is because if you ever spend enough time in certain forums like EVGA's (I have an EVGA motherboard), it seems like most of the regulars there are quite serious about the practice, and the general consensus is that overclocking is almost a requirement in order to fully utilize all the power of today's high-end video boards. I, for example, have a Radeon 5870, and I don't like the idea of anything "bottlenecking" my graphics card. But I suppose even that can be a subject of debate. One thing's for certain, though -- I see no reason to overclock my video card. It seems powerful enough as it is.

A few years ago I would spend days / weeks OCing, today i don't bother as I purchase the hardware that fits the job, I find no need to OC my main rig as it does all I need it to do.