Overclocking Simplified

Overclocking Simplified	Overclocking Forum - overclock.net


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Date : February 26th 2001

Introduction

Anything bellow 500Mhz will most probably have to be considered outdated by now. I can just see the face of those who own such systems going sore right before my eyes, as and when they need this. So the ringing question that would probably echo in everybody's mind is that "Is it possible to get a bit more power out of the old horse, or is it doomed for the scrap heap"? These are the same questions that came to my mind when I got my hands on a dusty old Pentium II 266 MHz, thrown out of an old machine in the process of upgrading, and landing in my house, for I'm a renowned collector of antiques.

So back to the pressing question, "Is it possible to blow a bit of life to an old processor, and if so how? The answer is "Yes" (Now I can visualize all those gloomy faces lighting up). The process is known as overclocking. As the name suggests it means running your processor at a speed higher than originally intended or specified. Now that sounds pretty bold and dangerous doesn't it?

Introduction to Overclocking

How is this possible? Well the processor achieves its clock speed by multiplying its FSB or Front side Bus-Speed or the speed in which information travels in the various "buses" in the system by a particular multiplier

For example 266Mhx is achieved through multiplying 66 (MHz) it's FSB by 4 its multiplier.

66 X 4 =266

As processor makers realized the potential of processors being overclocked and being sold by dubious traders to unsuspecting customers they tried to prevent overclocking by locking the multiplier value. So most Pentium II Celerons and later processor as well as Athlon & Thunderbirds are clock locked. But it is still possible to overclock these processors by increasing the Bus-speed, which most Motherboards, allow you to do.

Caution

It is advised that overclocking can cause serious harm to your system and will void any warranty available since it is exceeding the predetermined limits of the manufacturers. It might even make your system extremely unstable and prone to crashing thus extreme caution when proceeding is advised, and we here at Technoyard.com bear no responsibility for any damage caused due to experimentation with regard to this article.

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