[SOLVED] What is Overclocking

Hey, Reap3R! I noticed your saying or whatever it's called at the bottom of your posts. What is "overclocking"? Does it speed your system? I have a XP Pro laptop that needs speed badly. It only has 1GB RAM, and it dual boots with Win 2K Pro, a slow startup system. Tell me more about it.

Overclocking is when you increase the frequency and voltage settings of hardware. This pushes the hardware more and makes it run hotter. Most hardware can be overclocked alittle and still be within safe limits, that is if overclocking is an option to begin with.

Overclockers usually find themselves pushing the hardware to its limits. When the hardware is pushed to its limits, the life span is probably shorten,. especially if cooling fails.

Personally, I don't recommend overclocking for the general audience. Laptops in my book should never be overclocked. To be honest I don't even know if you can overclock a laptop.

As Clifford said Overclocking is pushing your system to the brink to see what it can do. Who knows an $80 CPU might be able to reach 4.5Ghz… my 2.4Ghz Q6600 will OC out to 3.6Ghz stable on air but it is HOT; with that said, if you care about your system or can’t afford to replace it then DON’T OVERCLOCK. I’m chose my CPU/ Motherboard for the well known overclocking ability but be warned, if you are going to do it you need a good air cooler or water cooling system stock is no good in the long run. Also be warned that once you start you will not be able to stop. Once you got it, you got it and it and you will try to overclock everything. (You should see my calculator with the internal refrigeration system hooked up!!! Lol)

The best thing to do with the Laptop to speed it up is upgrade the ram (if it will take it), do a clean install of XP (if you need to keep XP that is) and make sure you have the latest drivers available for your graphics. My wife’s laptop is an Acer Aspire 3620... it’s crap if you ask me. Came with XP home on it and was a slug from day one, there were so many 3rd party programs installed on it from new that it was lucky to start. I ended up taking it to bits as it overheated a lot and cleaned it all out as well as replaced the crappy thermal pads with ArcticSilver thermal paste as a hot lap unlike a hot lappy is no fun for anyone and just doesn’t perform as well. It now runs heaps cooler thanks to the internal clean. After the cooling issue was fixed I formatted the HDD (after trying to OC it ) and installed PCLinuxOS to see if that speed things up. It did but I am a Windows man so I soon installed Windows 7 RC and it ran heaps quicker again. I should mention that we keep nothing on it, no office suit at all and no other unnecessary programs. It is used just for web surfing and the occasional download. Well ok then I have uTorrent installed and Avast Home anti-virus but they are necessary tools I feel.

In closing (sorry for rambling on) speed up your Laptop by cleaning it both physically and re-installing the OS (7 if possible), there are plenty of guides online for the internal clean and you would be surprised what Windows 7 will run on and with some minor tweaks (Google is your friend with these) it goes well. If you are looking for tweaks for 7, most if not all Vista tweaks will work. I get mine from http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm but use at your own risk as I’m sure anyone will tell you and it even tells you it on the website.

Overclocking will also void the warranty on the parts Overclocked, i have OCd many Computers in my younger days and burnt out one or two parts , there is a saying (Don't Overclock what you cant afford to replace)

Mate I would love to OC your system... how does the V8 cooler go on the i7? I was going to change from the thermalright +120 eXtreme to it but was told it is heavier and doesn't out perform it so instead I'm going to go with water.

I should stop now as this isn't an OC thread or forum for that matter, sorry. I'm getting all excited about the prospect of i7's, watercooling and all the fun I could have... would hope without tears at some point too lol

After all of your comments regarding it, I'll not overclock my laptop. It's 7 years old and I don't want to lose it. Thanks for the advice.

Thought this conversation needed its own thread.

Cattilly, I doubt you would be able to OC your laptop but if you decide you want to (and can) the trick is to work in very small increments. I work in increments of 10, then 5, then 2MHz. The adjustments can be made in different ways depending on what board you have and again to what CPU you have. For the hot whether we are having at the moment in Brisbane I use the following (from 2.4 GHz)

Multiplier: 8 (choice of 6, 7, 8 & 9)
FSB Strap: 400 MHz (choice of 200, 266, 333, 400)
CPU Frequency: 400 MHz (choice of between 200 - 800)

This gives me 3.21 GHz according to both the BIOS and Windows (8 x 400 MHz) and is stable as they come. When it is winter I change to this

Multiplier: 9 (choice of 6, 7, 8 & 9)
FSB Strap: 333 or 400 MHz can’t remember (choice of 200, 266, 333, 400)
CPU Frequency: 381 MHz (choice of between 200 - 800)

This gives me 3.43 GHz according to both the BIOS and Windows (9 x 381 MHz) and is stable too but runs hotter. At this stage of the game I move up to 3.6 GHz which I had boot into the OS but it was not totally stable and produced too much heat at idle so I clocked it back. I will leave it untested until I put a nice water cooling system in then I’ll go for 3.6GHz…


If you chose your components carefully when you buy them, heat will be what stops you climbing the GHz ladder not h/w limitations, get a better cooling solution and have a cool ambient room temp (A/C your room) and who knows how high you can go. There is so much more to OC than what I have put above and there is a wealth of knowledge out there to help you achieve your goals. Google has helped me to no end with what seem like simple things now but really were stumping me at the time like manually setting memory timings, north bridge, memory and CPU voltages (still I don’t play with CPU voltages, auto is fine atm) the list just keeps going and the more you learn the more you need to know.

One wrong setting will leave your system unusable (until you clear the Cmos that is) but with today’s tech it is getting easier and easier to get more speed for free as newer chips have built in safety cutouts for when they get too hot. Still not a good idea to get to that limit and I’m happy to say I haven’t as I have a good heatsink but its nice to know that the CPU should protect itself if I do get too greedy or is that stupid... I’m undecided at this point

Reap3R , you seem to be very knowledgeable about this. You probably have forgotten more on this issue than I'll ever learn. I was just looking to see if it would be right for me. This laptop (a Dell C640) that dual boots Win 2K Pro & XP Pro SP3 is 7 years old. I upped the RAM from 256MB to 1GB, the max for this model. It runs hot enough as it is now. And I'm not going to spend any more money to keep it going, because I have another one (a Dell D610), the same dual boot setup, and runs twice as fast (2GB RAM). I will keep both of these laptops as long as they run, because the OS's on them are reliable and are still being updated every month. Yesterday, even Win 2K Pro got eight updates. They are old, but when I go to the sunroom or outdoors, I still have a computer. Win 2K starts up slow, but I sometimes use it. XP Pro still has plenty of life in it. But the two of them together doesn't stack up to Win 7. It is simple to use and so far, no problems. But I do want to thank you for your advice. I would like to play, but can't afford a new laptop at this time.

No worries mate,