overclocking

[Babyface786]

how would i over clock my computer. i have a further 1gb ram (1.5 total) coming and a nvidia 9500gt 1gb. what am i looking for in the bios?

pc is a philips ls1100 3.2ghz.

[Rick9955]

make sure that firstly you have very good cooling cos you can fry a cpu in seconds,your cpu/ram/graphics card all must be able to be clockable and your motherboard must handle the increase in data and bus speeds, imho too little gain for too much risk especially as cpu's ram etc are a lot cheaper than they used to be, your system could become very unstable as well so if you are going to use the pc for anything important dont bother, its not a exact science.

[Babyface786]

Originally Posted by Rick9955

make sure that firstly you have very good cooling cos you can fry a cpu in seconds,your cpu/ram/graphics card all must be able to be clockable and your motherboard must handle the increase in data and bus speeds, imho too little gain for too much risk especially as cpu's ram etc are a lot cheaper than they used to be, your system could become very unstable as well so if you are going to use the pc for anything important dont bother, its not a exact science.

noted and will avoid. not really needed like you say. ram upgrade coming so will just see if it runs better. also a better graphics card (1gb) replacing an ATI x300se 128, so a load of the cpu i think?

[Rick9955]

ram upgrade will make a massive difference just make sure its the same as the stuff you already got, because you will have to different size sticks your motherboard might need the larger stick in slot 1, dont forget to uninstall the old graphics drivers before you remove the old card and install the new one.

[Babyface786]

Originally Posted by Rick9955

ram upgrade will make a massive difference just make sure its the same as the stuff you already got, because you will have to different size sticks your motherboard might need the larger stick in slot 1, dont forget to uninstall the old graphics drivers before you remove the old card and install the new one.

not sure where to fit them now. i have 4 slots> green, purple, green, purple. my old 2x256mb sticks are in both the green slots, how would i rearrange it when adding the new 2x512mb sticks? would i put both 512s in first two slots (green, purple), and move both 256s down (remaining green, purple)..or do i colour coordinate i.e, 512s in green and 256s in purple?

also might be daft but if i delete my drivers will my picture/screen go blank? and do i install new drivers before i put new gpu card in?

sorry for multiple questions.

[remote matt]

put the 256mb in the same colour slots and the same for the 512mb,
i.e :- slot 1 and 3 = 256,
slot 2 and 4 = 512.
the reason is your ram will run in dual channel mode (if selected in bios)
equalling better performance!

[baabz89]

Your screen wont go blank by deleting your gpu drivers and you should install the new gpu drivers after you've installed the new graphics card. Don't forget to uninstall the old drivers. I would recommend something like driver sweeper for deleting old gpu drivers.

[Rick9955]

Remote matt is correct you need the ram to match but it also depends if your cpu has support for dual channel memory control, you might have to put the larger of the 2 pairs in 1 and 3, check your motherboard manual for support of memory modules because its just possible that the purple slots are for 64bit support, by the way what make/model is your board?

[elli5on]

Dual channel will only work if the memory is of all the same size and speed.... Overclocking a CPU these days doesnt generally do anything bad to the CPU. You r motherboard will have a cut off point once the CPU reached a certain heat temperature anyway, Hence the reason you need to Clear the CMOS and start again if your system isnt bootable.

You would also need to run Prime 95 to stress test the CPU for hours and hours before you can officially say you have a stable overclocked system.

Dependant on what CPU you have and motherboard combination will generally differ the amount clockable.

Regards

[Babyface786]

Sorry guys, i have been without a monitor over the weekend. i have installed the ram (512s in green and 256s in purple), the computer has registered them and now displaying 1.5gb ram. not sure about the motherboard but i do have windows xp home edition installed (32bit), this only allows a max of 3-3.5gb..and im well below that.

just to add..i read somewhere not to include the 256s as these in the second slots slow down the higher ones (512s) in first slots. is this true? not seen much improvements but have only been back online a short while, will make my opinion over a little time.

the overclocking seems too much effort for little rewards gained..im not a pc gamer at all so no point really, got the consoles for that. btw with the fresh thermal paste and a clean the computer did sound alot quieter on start-up when the fan kicks in before settling down again. will try a few things to put it to the test tonite.