Overclocking guide

[jurtje]

Hey guys, I'm trying to make a basic guide to overclocking for all the people who come to these forums asking the same question: How do I overclock my system? I can remember when I first tried to overclock my system, I couldn't find anywhere on how to start.
Now that I have a little more knowledge, I'd like to share that with other people.
Obviously, I'm no expert, so I'll need your help correcting the lies I've written down.
So far I've written only the introduction and the theory. Please be so kind to read it and make all the comments necessary (even spelling).

[jurtje]

A guide to overclocking
v 0.9 [05/11/2004]


Introduction and warnings

PART ONE

First steps
-The BIOS
-Clearing CMOS
-Unlocked multiplier
-Locked multiplier
Getting your system stable


PART TWO

Some theory
Temperature and stability
More on cooling
Graphics cards overclocking
More on memory timings
Benchmarking



Introduction
This is my attempt to help the “newbies to overclocking”, to overclock their computer. Pleased beware that I am in no way an expert; I’m not an electronics or informatics engineer, I’m just a hobbyist and gathered my knowledge from the help of other members of this forum and reading articles all over the internet.

Of course when you are talking about overclocking you have to place a big warning:

Overclocking can be dangerous for your computer parts. You can easily overheat for example your processor and render it useless.
A good rule I’ve read somewhere says: “If you can’t afford to replace the parts, don’t overclock!”
Also, I don’t take any responsibility for your actions, if you screw up an overclock, you and only you will be responsible.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/fried_cpu.jpg

However, if you’re careful and watch your temps closely, it’s pretty hard to actually fry something.
In this guide, I have supposed that the person using it, has some notion of hardware, the BIOS and operating systems.

Why would anybody want to overclock? Because it allows you to get a much better performance of your components without paying top dollar for them. You can buy a midrange processor and have it run at high range speeds.

Not by far all systems can be overclocked. Laptops are out of the question, Macs can sometimes be overclocked by changing jumpers and will not be treated in this guide. But most importantly, any OEM (original equipment manufacturer) computer, such as a Dell, HP or E-machine, will be virtually impossible to overclock.

These manufacturers have hidden all “overclock” settings in the BIOS. The only chance you have to overclock your system, is by either finding a hacked BIOS on the internet, which allows you to change these settings (difficult to find) or trying to overclock by means of some kind of software program (unstable, few options).
The best thing to do when you have an OEM, is to buy a new motherboard. Be sure your power supply and your case can handle a different motherboard, since OEM’s tend to use their own specifications.

Not even all aftermarket motherboards can be used to overclock. For example, Intel motherboards won’t allow you to change anything and there will be no chance to overclock. The same thing with cheap integrated motherboards, such as PC Chips, which also don’t provide the necessary options in the BIOS nor the stability to overclock.



PART ONE


The first steps

The BIOS
All overclocking is best done in the computer’s BIOS. There are some software programs available which allow you to overclock some from Windows, but best results are achieved by changing the BIOS settings. Usually you can get into your BIOS, by pressing DEL as soon as your computer starts posting (when it shows the RAM size, processor speed etc.). Check your motherboard manual for further details.
Usually there is a page called CPU speed or advanced chipset features in your BIOS.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/bios.jpg

There you can change your FSB, memory timings (treated in a later chapter) and also your CPU multiplier (remember, not all motherboards have overclocking options).

Clearing your CMOS
Whenever an overclock goes bad and you aren’t able to boot your computer anymore or your OS starts acting really weird, we have to reset our BIOS and start all over again. This is done by clearing the CMOS (a little piece of memory in your chipset, which remembers your BIOS settings and is powered by a little battery).

Some new motherboards (such as the ASUS A7N8X series), will clear its CMOS upon a faulty overclock by just turning off and turning on your computer. However, most motherboards need a manual clear. This can be done in two ways, depending on your motherboard (RTFM).

The first way is by changing the position of the clear CMOS jumper on your motherboard, powering your computer on and off and then repositioning the jumper to its original place.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/cmos_jumper.jpg
A photo of a CMOS jumper, originally found here (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article37-page1.html).

The second way, if your computer doesn’t have such a jumper, consists of unplugging your computer, removing the little CMOS battery, powering up your computer (your caps will discharge), and waiting a couple of minutes. Then you have to reseat the battery and plug in your computer.

Now your CMOS is cleared, all BIOS settings are put on default and you’ll have to start the overclocking process all over again.

Locked or not to be locked
The first thing to know when we start the process of overclocking, is whether our processor is multiplier locked or unlocked. Now we are going to check that.

To check whether your CPU is locked, lower your multiplier one step, for example from 11 to 10.5 or 10. Save and exit your BIOS and your computer will restart. If your computer posts again and shows the new CPU speed, it means your CPU is unlocked!

However, if your computer failed to post (screen remains black) or it reset itself to its default settings (very low CPU speed), that means your multiplier is locked.



Multiplier unlocked processors

Step one: Have your memtest floppy or boot CD ready, for more information on Memtest, see the appendix on stability.
Usually (considering you have good cooling) your max overclock is limited by your memory. So what we’ll do now, is finding out what the top memory bus speed is which our memory can handle while keeping it in sync with our FSB.

To check this, we’ll lower our CPU multiplier some steps (from 11 to 9 for example) and we’ll increase our FSB some steps (e.g.: 200 MHz to 205 MHz). Save and exit your BIOS and put in your memtest floppy. Your computer will boot from the diskette and memtest will automatically run. Let it run for one complete cycle and make sure there are no errors reported.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/memtest.gif
Memtest86+ running, from the Memtest86+ website (http://www.memtest.org/).

Continue increasing your FSB until memtest starts reporting errors. The previous FSB setting will be your max FSB.

It depends very much on what memory you have, what your max memory speed will be. If you have good brand memory with some good chips on it, you may be able to run for example PC2700 @ PC3200 speeds. Or you can buy real overclock memory which is rated higher, for example PC4000, which allows you to set an even higher memory speed. If you overclock your memory for more than 20% of its stock speed and memtest gives you errors, you might try to increase the voltage of the RAM a little, for example 0,1 Volt and see if it makes your memory more stable.

You can overclock your memory further by relaxing memory timings. We’ll talk about this in a later chapter.

Step two: Now that we know our max FSB, we’ll figure out our max multiplier.
Keeping our FSB @ stock, we raise our multiplier one step at a time. Each time we restart to see whether our computer posts and when it does, whether it passes the first 10 minutes of Prime 95. More on Prime 95 in the appendix: Stability.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/prime95.gif

If it doesn’t post (read the part above about clearing the CMOS), or Prime 95 craps out right away, you’ll have to raise the core voltage a little. The core voltage is the voltage which is being fed to the CPU. Increasing it, will increase stability but also the TEMPERATURE. So if you are increasing the voltage, first check your temp in your BIOS for a couple of minutes.

When you can’t increase your voltage anymore or you reach your max temp while Prime 95 is still not stable, lower your multiplier one step and take that as your max multiplier.

Step three: Now that we have our max FSB speed and our max multiplier, we are going to make some calculations for our optimal settings, using once again, my system as the example:

- Multiply your max multiplier by your stock FSB.

13 times 200 MHz = 2600 MHz

- Divide that number by your max FSB

2600 MHz divided by 220 MHz = 11.8

This is your ideal multiplier. Since we only can set the multiplier in steps of 0.5 (usually), we have to choose the closest value (preferably the lower). In my case, the ideal multiplier would be 11.5.

So, our first overclock will be 11.5 * 220 MHz.

Set that in your BIOS and see if you are able to boot your system into Windows. Whether you can or cannot, read what to do next in the chapter “Getting your system stable”.



Multiplier locked processors

Having a multiplier locked processor means that you can only overclock by increasing the Front Side Bus. We’ll just follow the same strategy as applied in step one of the unlocked processors chapter.

Basically, raise the FSB in little steps, and after every post first check that memtest gives no errors. Then check whether Prime 95 gives any errors, while watching your CPU temperature. Also remember that increasing your CPU or RAM voltage can give you more stability.
When you reach your top (probably because of your memory), you can try to get a little further by raising your RAM voltage or relaxing your memory timings, read about that in a later chapter.

But first:



Getting our system stable

Now that we have initial overclock, whether with a locked or unlocked processor, we have to tweak the system to get it absolutely stable.
This means we have to change the variables (Multiplier, FSB, voltages, memory timings) until having a rock solid system.
This is mainly a trial and error process and takes up most of the time when overclocking a system.
I can’t really give you a step by step procedure, since it depends on so many variables. But I can give you some thoughts:

- Your system will start acting strange if your motherboard doesn’t have a PCI /AGP lock. That means it will keep the frequency of your PCI and AGP bus at 33 and 66 MHz even if you raise your FSB.
Some motherboards have this lock and some don’t. Sometimes it even depends on the BIOS revision whether it works or not. Check your BIOS whether there is such a setting and then hope it will work.
If it doesn’t, it will limit your overclock.

ATi cards for example, are known not to like a very high AGP bus frequency. So, as soon as you hit 220 MHz FSB, your AGP frequency will be 73 MHz and your video card might stop working.
A good thing to think about when buying your next motherboard.

- Remember that increasing your voltage will almost always get your system more stable. But as stated several times before, your temperature will sky rocket. Therefore, the goal is to find the lowest voltage settings at which your system is stable.

- Decreasing your FSB will also get your system more stable. Of course you don’t like to get a lower overclock, but remember that lowering your FSB 2 MHz can mean the difference between a rock stable system and a BSOD after 25 minutes of Far Cry .

- Sometimes, a very high temperature can cause instability as well, so be sure to keep your processor at a decent temperature.
Cooling is treated in the first appendix.

- The ultimate stress test as said before, is Prime 95. When you think your system is stable, run the blend torture test for 12 hours and see if you get any errors.
If you don’t, you can encode nine seasons of Seinfeld at once without any worries.
If you do, back to the drawing board. Lower your FSB, increase your voltage, relax your memory timings etc.



PART TWO


Some theory
So what is overclocking exactly?
Processors and memory are made to certain specifications, one of them is clock speed. For example an Athlon XP 3200+ has a clock speed of 2.2 GHz and a Pentium 4 3.0C obviously has one of 3.0 GHz.
Likewise PC2700 DDR memory has a speed of 166 MHz and PC3200 DDR a speed of 200 MHz.

Your computer depends on clock cycles to operate. Overclocking is shortening the clock cycles, hence the term.
It’s telling your computer to operate faster than it originally was.

Now how do the different clock speeds in a computer relate to each other?
I’ll take as an example, my own computer. I have an Athlon XP 3200+, with a stock speed of 2.2 GHz and memory which is 200 MHz on an nForce 2 motherboard.

The CPU communicates through the Front Side Bus with the chipset (specifically with the north bridge), which has the memory controller which directs the data to the memory through the memory bus. Obviously this is all very simplified.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/chipset.gif
A drawing of the communication between a processor, the chipset and the memory; drawing taken from Intel’s website (http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/845g/download/textonly.htm).

The socket 939 Athlon 64 and the FX series have the memory controller on the CPU itself, so that works quite a bit different.

The CPU speed is calculated by multiplying the Front Side Bus by the CPU multiplier (duh). In my case the FSB (the speed at which the processor communicates with the chipset) is 200 MHz and the multiplier is 11, giving a total speed of 2200 MHz for my processor. It being a double pumped FSB gives me a netto data rate of 2 times 200 is 400 MHz.

Usually the FSB and the memory are in sync, that means my memory bus speed is at 200 MHz as well. But, being it a dual channel motherboard with two sticks of RAM, the chipset communicates at 2 times 200 MHz with the memory, i.e. a 400 MHz data rate.
It’s possible to run your memory bus rate and you FSB out of sync (that’s useful because your memory speed usually limits your overclock), but that usually implies a performance hit.

AGP and PCI speeds are decided by multipliers as well (leaving out the PCI-express development). In this case the PCI speed is the FSB divided by 6, giving 33.33 MHz and the AGP speed is the FSB divided by 3 giving 66.66 MHz.
These speeds are important as we'll see in a next chapter, because if you increase the FSB, the PCI and AGP speed will increase as well. This can cause video cards and other PCI cards to malfunction.
That's why good overclock motherboards have so called AGP/PCI locks or dividers, to ensure the PCI and AGP speed are not increased when increasing the FSB.

The Pentium 4 is a bit different since it has a quad pumped FSB. That means the netto data rate of a Pentium 4 is four times the FSB. For example, you have PC3200 (200 MHz) memory in sync with your FSB, giving you a netto FSB of 800 MHz and a multiplier of 15 gives you (15 * 200) a 3000 MHz processor.

Overclocking basically consists of changing your FSB, memory speed and or multiplier.

All hardware is different and therefore it depends very much on the components you have, how far you can overclock your computer. Most processors these days, are multiplier locked and therefore you can only change the FSB.
There are some exceptions, being a famous one the Mobile Barton Athlon XP 2500+ / 2600+, which is unlocked due to its capability to clock down the multiplier when there is less need for processor power and therefore save power. The AMD FX-53 is also unlocked and I think the Extreme Edition of the Pentium 4 is too, but those are both high end processors.
Even between processors of the same type, there can be huge differences in overclockability. For example, one Barton XP 2500+ can get to 2.5 GHz, while the next will top at 2.2 GHz. This is due to the production process and has a lot to do with LUCK.
So every man for himself has to figure out where his max lies.



Two concerns
There are two things which should always be kept in mind when attempting to overclock.

-Temperature: the one factor that can absolutely ruin your components. As you increase your overclock (especially when you raise the voltages), your system will run hotter.
So you’ll always have to watch your temps.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/mbm.gif
Watching the temps in Motherboard Monitor.

Please keep in mind that different processors run at different temps. The Athlon with the Palomino core and the Pentium 4 with the Prescott core are known to run extremely hot, even at stock speeds. So these processors are more limited by their temperature when attempting to overclock.

The first thing you’ll want to check when you try new overclocked settings is your temp. That can be done in your BIOS and in Windows it can be done with special programs such as Motherboard Monitor (http://mbm.livewiredev.com/download.html) (development of this program has been ended, but so far I haven’t been able to find a good replacement).

So how high is too high? Good question, as I already stated, different processors run at different temps. Also keep in mind that the CPU temp raises considerably when the CPU is under full load.
To actually fry a processor, you’ll have to get it above 70 degrees Celsius. Let’s not do that. I personally like my processor to stay below 55 C, but other people have it running in their sixties under load and yet other people will suffer from cardiac arrest when they notice their temp goes over 45 C.

Read more about how to keep your system cool in the appendix: “More on cooling”.

Stability: temperature and stability are actually very much related. Usually that means: the higher the temp, the lower the stability.
But what do we mean when we say stability?
It means that your computer won’t crash under heavy load due to hardware problems.
If your computer is unstable, it can happen that half way through your DivX movie encoding, you are greeted by a nice Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD), making you have to restart your computer and re-encode your movie. So we don’t want that!

Overclocking your system will eventually make your system unstable if the correct measures aren’t taken (such as increasing the voltages). So after every overclock we’ll have to test the machine for stability. This is done with special programs which stress your CPU and memory.
Memtest (http://www.memtest.org/) is known to find any errors in your memory.
Prime 95 (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm) is a program to find new prime numbers and also has a torture test, which will find any instability, eventually. A system is considered stable when it can run Prime 95 for at least 8 consecutive hours (without crashing / BSOD).
Other programs often used to check stability are Sandra (http://www.ocia.net/sandra/sandra2004.exe) (which has a burn in option) and any @home client (such as Folding@home (http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/download.html)), because they also demand a huge CPU usage and also use the SSE extensions.



More on cooling

Imagine having a piece of silicon with millions of transistors on there, each at least 90 nanometers big. That’s your processor. Now imagine the heat produced when on such a small area, all those transistors get charged with a relatively high voltage.
That’s why we need cooling and lots of it.

Not only your CPU produces heat in your computer. The GPU (on your graphics card) is also a processor and has the same heat problem as the CPU.
The north bridge with its memory controller tends to heat up as well. Not to forget your hard drives, which spin at least 7200 rounds per minute in a very poorly ventilated area.
These are some reasons why not only the processor should be kept cool, but your whole case should be below artic temperatures.

Temperature directly affects your overclock: cooler components, higher overclocks.

There are several ways to keep your expensive parts cool.

Simple convection.
I remember that my Pentium 100 had a big heat sink on it, but no fan. Back then it was enough to cool the processor solely by convection.
Convection is the physical tendency for heat to move to cooler areas.

In our case (get the pun?) the heat from the processor is absorbed by cooler air flowing by through the holes in your case. This can be optimized by increasing the surface of the heat sink (through so called fins), therefore allowing more cool air to flow by.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/nb_cooler.jpg
A heat sink on a north bridge.

Not only the surface but also the material which the heat sinks are made of, affects its cooling ability. For example, aluminum conducts heat better than steel and copper conducts heat better than aluminum. So a copper heat sink enables you to dissipate heat faster than an aluminum one.

Good heat sinks are made of copper and the top-of-the-line ones have, besides many thin fins, so called heat pipes. These are little pipes which run from the bottom to the top of your heat sink, with some liquid inside.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/GPU_cooler.jpg
A cooler with heat pipes on a graphics card.

The idea is that liquid absorbs heat better than solid.
The liquid absorbs the heat from the processor, evaporates and moves to a cooler part of the heat pipe (convection again), where it’s easier to dissipate the heat to the environment. The gas recondenses and moves back to the contact area of the heat sink.

All these processes are called passive cooling, because there are no moving mechanical parts involved (except for the liquid in the heat pipes).
Nowadays you can find passive heat sinks on many north bridges and on some old GPU’s. Your hard disks are cooled by convection as well.

Air
After my Pentium 100, I worked with a Pentium II 266 (with mmx!). This processor had, besides a small heat sink, a small fan. However, at one point all the dust pretty much killed the fan but the processor kept on working anyway. I guess this processor was the transition between passive an active cooling systems.

Nowadays air is the most important way to cool your components. The processor has a fan, your GPU has a fan, your PSU (power supply) has one or more fans, maybe your north bridge has a fan and the case itself might have several fans.

Fans obviously increase the air flow over the components, therefore increasing the convection.
Let’s take for example the most important fan in your system, the CPU fan. Attached to your processor is a heat sink which transports the heat away from your processor and allows to loose heat through convection to the cooler surrounding air.
But modern processors produce so much heat, that in no time the air around the heat sink would be at the same temperature as the heat sink itself and therefore wouldn’t be able to cool off the processor anymore.
To avoid this problem, we attach a fan to the heat sink (this combination is called a HSF, heat sink fan). The fan moves the air more quickly, so before the air has heated up completely, the fan has renewed it with colder air already.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/hsf.jpg
A heat sink with heat pipes and a 120 mm fan attached.

Now, the CPU fan is useless if the air in your case is not cold enough, because the air won’t absorb as much heat. This can happen if there isn’t a good airflow through your case.
If you’re planning on overclocking especially, it’s a necessity to suck cold air into the case and blow hot air out of the case.
This is what your case fans are for. There are some discussions on whether it’s better to have a positive (more intake than outtake), a negative (more outtake than intake) or a balanced pressure inside your case. But generally it’s accepted that balanced pressure inside your case is the best way to go.
That means if you have two fans in the front sucking in cold air, you need two fans in the back blowing out hot air.

Remember that your hard disks can get very hot as well, especially SCSI or RAID setups or disks that have high RPM’s (>7200). Often a fan is placed in front of the hard disks sucking in cold air and blowing it over the hard disks, this way letting them spin cooler.

There are as many HSF and fans as there are tastes and each has advantages over the other. The most important characteristics of a fan are its capability to move air (expressed in Cubic Foot per Meter), its RPM and its decibels, which leads us to the biggest disadvantage of air cooling: the NOISE.

Usually the HSF which comes with a boxed processor is well enough to cool your processor at stock speeds. But as soon as you start overclocking a little, you’ll have to worry about getting an aftermarket HSF. You should make your choice based on reviews you can find all over the internet, frequently HSF are reviewed on this site as well.

All those fans obviously don’t run quietly, especially CPU fans which can have RPM’s as high as 6000, i.e. a 747 landing right next to your desk.
That’s one of the reasons why they came up with:

Liquid
I would love to tell you some anecdote about a liquid cooled system I once owned, but fact is I haven’t gotten the chance to play around with one just yet. Even though liquid cooling has been around for some time, it hasn’t been widely available or popular since only recently.

There are two huge advantages to having a liquid cooled system:
- Noise: having a liquid cooled system, allows you to eliminate most of the fans in your case and replace them by two quiet fans to cool down the liquid.
- Temperature: a liquid cooled system allows you to reach much lower temperatures than with air cooling, since ambient temperature is of much less effect.

The lowest temperature you can get air cooling is the ambient temperature. The lowest temperature you can get liquid cooling depends on the radiator / compressor you’re using, but can get below 0 degrees Celsius (in case of phase change cooling, read on).

So how does it work?
I’ve just described the heat pipes used in some heat sinks. The basic idea applies to liquid cooling as well.
On your processor (and sometimes on your north bridge and GPU, with some more advanced kits) you place a metal plate with a hose going in and a hose coming out. The liquid pumped through these hoses (either water with some cooling additive or a refrigerant liquid in case of phase change cooling) absorbs the heat from the CPU and the hot liquid is transported back to a radiator, where the liquid is cooled down by some fans and then pumped into the hose again, just like you see in a car.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/Watercool.jpg
A liquid cooled computer: you can see the hoses going to the CPU, the north bridge and the GPU. On the right you see the radiator and on the bottom of the case is the pump.

In case of phase change cooling, there isn’t a radiator but a compressor and a refrigerant liquid that easily changes phases between liquid and gas (hence the name).
This system works just like your every day refrigerator and best cooling results can be achieved using phase change cooling.

However, many other problems arise when you have your processor running at -10 C, the most difficult one being condensation.

Many set-to-go water cooling kits have come out lately and prices are dropping as well. There are many differences between the different kits: some cool only your CPU, others your CPU, GPU and north bridge; some have their pump and radiator inside the case, others have them in a box on the case and so on.
The same advice goes as with a HSF: read the reviews on this site and on the rest of the Internet before making your final choice.

Thermal paste
A thing not to forget when talking about cooling, is thermal paste.
If you have ever removed a heat sink from your CPU, you might have seen some white stuff on your processor and on the bottom of your heat sink. This is thermal paste and its function is to make the best thermal connection between the CPU and the HSF.
The paste fills the little valleys on your heat sink and therefore increases the contact area between your CPU and HSF.

The most common thermal paste seen is the white stuff; it usually comes with an aftermarket HSF. If you buy a CPU with HSF, chances are that the heat sink comes with a thermal pad already applied. This is the same idea as paste, but is a little more fool proof.

To get the best contact between CPU and HSF we don’t want to use either.
There are some aftermarket thermal pastes which conduce better than the normal white stuff or thermal pads. The most famous brand is Arctic Silver (http://www.arcticsilver.com/) and their Artic Silver 5. This is a paste which contains silver and therefore conducts heat better.

For removing your old and applying your new thermal paste, there are specific procedures. Artic Silver itself has a very good guide (http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm) on how to do this.

Remove your old thermal stuff with 99% isopropyl alcohol, apply a very (really very) thin layer of new paste (less than a drop) on the CPU die (the little silver square in the centre), in case of a processor with heat spreaders (P4, AMD 64) there’s a different procedure to follow, check the link.
And spread the paste out very equally.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/as.jpg
A CPU die with a very thin layer of thermal paste attached. Picture taken from Artic Silver’s installation guide (http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm).

Then, after putting your HSF back on, the burn-in procedure begins. This means that for a couple of days you have to use your computer heavily and then turn it off to cool it down. You will see your temperature drop a couple of degrees during this period (3 to 7 days). After that, you have to reapply new thermal paste every 15 months or so.



Overclocking your graphics card

I’ve told you all about overclocking your CPU and memory but, especially in games, there’s another component which is very important for your computer’s total performance: your graphics card.

You can see a graphics card as a little computer on itself. It has a processor (the Graphic Processing Unit) with a cooling system and RAM to feed the GPU.
It’s possible to overclock your graphics card in the same way it is possible to overclock your computer and it proves indeed very effective to get more Frames Per Second in games.

The two most famous graphics cards manufacturers are Nvidia (www.nvidia.com) and ATi (www.ati.com).
Depending on what series of graphics card you have, overclocking can be done quite easily. Usually it exists of raising the clock frequency of both your GPU and the GPU’s RAM.

This can be done by installing a special kind of program. NVIDIA has one built in its drivers which can be made accessible by entering the Coolbits registry key. (http://download.guru3d.com/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=201)

Just like with your CPU you have to increase the MHz in little steps to see where your card’s maximum lies. Nvidia has a little test module built in which will tell you whether your chosen frequencies will perform well or not.

Cooling your graphics card is very important when overclocking it. You can get special HS Fans to place on your GPU and special memory coolers to place on your RAM to get the most out of your card.

The newer cards have a temperature probe built in the GPU so you can easily check the temperatures while playing a game to make sure they don’t get to high.
If your card doesn’t have such an option, you can physically place a temp probe on your GPU to monitor your temps in an external way.

If you have overclocked your card too much and/or the temps are getting too high, you will notice strange artifacts while doing GPU intensive tasks such as gaming. You will notice that some pixels are not where they are supposed to be or lines start showing. Or your game can just entirely crash.
Then you have to either clock down a bit or get better cooling.

Another option to get your graphics card faster is by flashing its firmware.
Just like your motherboard’s BIOS, your graphics card also has a BIOS which tells the card what memory it has, the clock frequencies etc.
For some cheaper versions of high-end cards, you might be able to flash them with the BIOS of the more expensive card and this way trick your card into believing it is that more expensive card.

If you’re lucky you graphics card accepts the new values and you will be able to overclock further or have your GPU RAM run at tighter timings.

Explaining here how to do this would be nearly impossible because every card is different, the procedures and results of every card are different and as a matter a fact, with most cards it isn’t even possible to accomplish a successful flash mod.

Google your graphics card type with the words ‘flash mod’ and see if anyone has been able to flash your type of card before.

Thanks to Silenze (www.fawkit.org) for his input on overclocking graphics cards.



More on memory timings

Theory
I shall try to explain how RAM works and how memory timings affect your system’s performance and stability. This will be simplified, because it is a very complicated matter.

Your processor sees your memory as one long row of little bins to store information in. Eight bits in each. However, that would require very long dims and is absolutely illogical. So, bins are put in a matrix configuration, which is a much more efficient use of space. Every bin has an address made up of its row and column number.

The address bus directs the requests of the chipset to the correct address, which then sends the information stored in the bin through the data bus back to the chipset.

So, the address bus first sends the row information and then the column information. However, since we are dealing with transistors here, they need time to charge and discharge.

This is where our first variable steps in: RAS to CAS delay (tRCD). This is the time (expressed in clock cycles) which the address bus has to wait between addressing the row and the column.

The second variable, CAS latency, is the time (cycles) between the address bus activating the right bin and the actual information being sent back to the chipset.

Two other variables often used in memory overclocking, are the row address strobe (tRAS), which is the time (cycles) you have to wait between activating and deactivating a specific row, and the RAS precharge (tRP), which is the time between terminating the first row and accessing the next one.

Last but not least there is the command rate; this is the time (cycles) necessary between selecting the RAM and being able to send a command to the RAM. But this variable usually can’t be changed and therefore is not important for overclocking.

Speed and stability
Now how do these variables affect system speed and stability?
When you buy a stick of memory, it comes with its specifications.
For example it says: 2 – 3 – 3 – 7 – 1T
This means that the memory’s CAS latency is 2 cycles, your RAS to CAS delay is 3 cycles, the RAS precharge is 3 cycles, RAS active to precharge is 7 cycles and the command rate is one cycle.

These specifications are stored in the stick’s SPD (Serial Presence Detect) chip, which is read by the motherboard (chipset).

Now, if you increase the speed of the memory bus (more MHz), the cycles will be shorter and therefore the memory has less time to do its operations. For all variables it’s the same idea, but let’s take CAS latency as an example, because it is the most performance affecting variable.
If the cycle is shorter but your CAS latency is still the same, your RAM will have less effective time to get information from the matrix.

Some sticks are able to keep up with that (good overclocking sticks), but usually the RAM’s transistors can’t keep up with the shorter cycles, so data will be corrupted.
There you have your BSOD and your errors in memtest.

What we have to do to make sure our memory is able to keep up with the memory bus speed, is relaxing the memory timings. So, for example, we’ll increase our CAS latency from 2 to 2.5, thereby giving our RAM more time (cycles) to do its work.
The same goes for the other variables, especially tRAS and tRP.

Let’s say we have a stick of PC3200 2- 3 – 3 – 7 – 1T which runs @ 200 MHz.
When we increase the FSB (and therefore the memory bus speed) to 210 MHz, we notice that memtest starts giving errors.
So we reboot and set the timings in the BIOS to 2.5 – 4 – 4 – 7 and we check whether memtest still gives errors.

Of course relaxing the memory timings means a performance hit. But increasing your FSB means a performance gain, so the challenge is to find the sweet spot between the two. But as a general rule, you gain more by increasing your FSB than by tightening your memory timings.

Another option most motherboards have, is running your memory by SPD. In that case your motherboard loosens the timings automatically as you raise your FSB.


Bibliography of memory timings:

This flash presentation (http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/tech/memory_basics/) @ Corsair
Hannibal’s RAM guide (http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/tech/memory_basics/) @ Ars Technica
Hat Monster’s BIOS Arcana (http://arstechnica.com/guide/building/bios/bios-1.html) also @ Ars Technica
Martin’s memory timings explained (http://www.iamnotageek.com/articles.php?aid=1&page=1) @ I am not a geek



More on benchmarking

Now that we have (hopefully) successfully overclocked the computer, we want to see the results of our efforts. This can be done by benchmarking.
Benchmarking is a way of measuring mainly the speed of one in specific or all components in your computer.

There are programs which are specially designed to benchmark your system.
Each program has its specialty, for example Aquamark 3 (www.aquamark3.com) is a good way to benchmark your systems for game performance, while Sysmark 2004 (www.bapco.com/products/sysmark2004/) benchmarks your computer’s performance in office applications.
A famous all-round benchmarking program is Sandra (www.ocia.net/sandra/sandra2004.exe), this program can benchmark almost any component in your computer, including CPU, GPU, hard drives, memory and your Internet connection.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclocking/sandra.jpg
Playafly’s CPU benchmarked in Sandra.

Please remember that all these programs make so called ‘synthetic’ benchmarks and are not always representative in real life.

But you can also use everyday programs to benchmark your computer. Think of the time necessary to encode a certain MPEG movie in TMPGEnc (www.tmpgenc.net/e_main.html ) or the average amount of frames per seconds in Doom 3 (for example with the help of FRAPS (www.fraps.com)).

The idea is to benchmark your system at stock speed (i.e. original multiplier, FSB, memory timings and GPU settings), write down the results obtained, overclock the computer and then see the improvement reached.
This way you can decide for yourself if it really matters for example to have a 3 MHz higher FSB which runs 10 degrees hotter. If the difference in results is very low, you might decide to go with the lower FSB settings.

Another good thing about benchmarking is that you can compare your results against the results of a friend with the same or a different system and see who has the faster computer. Please be aware that if you want to compare benchmarks, you have to use the exact same version of the benchmarking program with all the exact same program settings.

Many hardware review sites use benchmarking as a way to compare different pieces of hardware, for example an Intel and an AMD processor. This way they can show which processor is better at what task.

At the OCIA.net forums (http://forums.ocia.net) we are always interested to know how much you could improve your Aquamark 3 or Sandra scores.

[undergroundtech]

Looks like a good start Jertje, and well thought out. You might throw in, that the AGP/PCI is best to to be locked at 66/33 on motherboards that have a AGP/PCI lock and that if left unlocked could possibly damage other componants and or limit an other wise, successful OC.

Also might touch on memory timmings as well.

I would be carefull not to throw the hole book at them at once, it might scare some away.
But a basic guide sounds like a great idea.
Just my 2 cents.

[fstroupe]

Cool...I've kind of been thinking about this for a while...I love to write...and no overclocking primer on the overclock intelligence site.

Just over 6 months ago, I was totally ignorant about overclocking. Well, I knew what the concept was, to "hot rod" a system into performing better than specs...a year ago, I didn't even know that. When I decided to build my own computer, I did over a month of intensive research, and of course found overclocking info along with the building info. I decided I wanted an overclockable system, though I really wasn't interested in overclocking, I felt that the system would be extremely stable at stock settings.

Of course, within 48 hours of building the system, I cranked up the 2500 to 3200...with a total of 3 keystrokes, I got a 3200 for $89.

Great job so far

The total noob will need an explanation of front side bus.

Of course, you will eventually need to explain RAM timings, and their effect on overclocking.

[fstroupe]

Damn, undergroundtech gave the timings idea while I was typing it.

BTW, undergroundtech, where in the south are you from...just curious.

[undergroundtech]

BTW, undergroundtech, where in the south are you from...just curious.

N.W. Alabama right now. I have moved around alot so I'm not a full-blown Hill-Billy :lol:

[KryoNexus]

yeh jurtje, very good start so far!!

[Beemer]

Maybe change the title from "Overclocking guide" to "Everything You Need to Know About Overclocking". :wink: I love the Idea, but maybe there could be two seperate guides. One could cover everything - memory, cpu, video card, and be an in depth look at it. Another could be a simple explanation of how to do a small overclock on the CPU (So as not to scare the newbies), a "Basic Guide to Overclocking". There is a lot to know about overclocking to get the best preformance from your box, but a simple overclock is relatively easy to achive. Just a thought.......

[jurtje]

Okay, posted the next chapter, up to v0.4

Undergroundtech: Added the agp/pci lock explanation, memory timings I will treat in a later chapter, because I will have to do some reading up on the theory :oops:

Knutsaac: Added a short explanation of teh FSB. If you have a better description, please let me know.

Beemer: I was thinking about dividing it, but since my knowledge on theory is limited, I'm not very comfortable in writing a whole guide on that. Also I think for all people who try to overclock, it's important to know what they're doing. And the title is just a working title, so it's not definite yet.

Last: As I'm not a native English speaker, the article has probably some misspelled words or badly constructed phrases. Please let me know if you find one.
Also, correct me on any technical mistakes I made.

Cheers

[undergroundtech]

You might want to pull the link for motherboard monitor, as he has just retired the program and the website will not be up much longer.

Jertje I think your English is better than mine, and good work on the guide, I'm sure many will be thankfull.

[jurtje]

what program would be the next best in line for temp measuring etc?

[fastedie]

I like this one aida32 3.93 and it was here http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1033800563/1 the last time I was by there. And it look like this is going to be a big help for alot of plp. Great Job!!!!

[KryoNexus]

Yeh, you're really comin along Jurtre. Keep up the good work!!

[Beemer]

Looking really good, but what if something goes wrong? We need a section about clearing the cmos and starting over........ :wink: :lol:

[jurtje]

v0.5

Jumped some chapters and added memory timings, Man that's difficult.

Also made the CMOS clearing section more obvious.

suggestions??

[KryoNexus]

lol, don't have any right now. i'm actually in the middle of finishing up a bit review for you guys. i'll try to take a really in depth look at all you've got now on monday. :-)

[jurtje]

v 0.6, added some chapters.

C'mon guys, I need some input! There must be a million things I'm forgetting or not explaining correctly.

Playafly, Kryo, Siq, Silenze, Techniq, help me out!

[siq]

aight i've been slacking off lately with the forums I will be catching up soon. I did read it and I must say excellent job with this.

If you want to get indepth with cooling you could explain negative/possitive air pressure, the best heatsinks for certain processors stuff like that. Might not be a bad idea to help the first time overclocker understand better on how to keep his processor cool.

[silenze]

Siq is correct, that's usually 50% of the work involved getting a good stable overclock. And I've been slacking also.. :)

[KryoNexus]

don't forget benchmarking as well. once you think you've got it stable, the system needs to be burned in hard to ensure stability. also, for some of the newer thermal pastes like AS5, there is a burn in time/procedure for it, and you can generally overclock a bit more after this time has passed. for instance, AS5 has around a 24-72 hour burn in time. during this time, you need to turn the computer on, run it hard for a bit to get everything heated up, then turn the computer off and let the AS5 cool back down to room temperature.

[Beemer]

Do you want to add a section on overclocking video cards?

[Beemer]

Maybe throw in a "Dude, you probably can't overclock your dell" section :lol: Lots of people want to overclock their dell, compac, etc.... but dont understand they they arent designed with overclocking in mind. There is no PCI/AGP lock, no bios settings for FSB, cpu voltage, memory timings, not to mention heat issues and the quality ram used :wink: The quality of componets has a lot to do with how well you can overclock.

[playafly187]

excellent job jurtje... perhaps you would be interested in the possibility of publishing this on OCIA.net ? :)

[silenze]

The quality of componets has a lot to do with how well you can overclock.

It should just state, (in the guide, I'm agreeing with Beemer here.) that the quality of the components in the machine (cpu/motherboard/ram/any present PCI devices with absence of a pci-lock.. and in this absence, consider the ability of the AGP card) DIRECTLY.. affect the results of the overclock. And definitely touch base on the fact that, store bought pc's, 99% of them, are running at their max potential when you take them out of the box.

don't forget benchmarking as well. once you think you've got it stable, the system needs to be burned in hard to ensure stability.

Yeah this should be a given, although... when you're looking for stability, if it boots into windows, don't wait for anything... just run a bench, the point is to get it to lock up, so you know the limits of your hardware. Also, very good point on the AS5 burn-in time -- 'cause it might not work better (Or even as well.) than the white paste 5 minutes after applying it.

I think there should be a section on overclocking videocards, but it would be good to start collecting the numbers people are reaching with their GPU's and Memory on various cards. It would be a good thing to have a reference point for people to start with, since it's a little more 'open ended' than overclocking a CPU.

[jurtje]

Thanks for the suggestions. Will add a cooling chapter (including paste procedures), benchmarking chapter, OEM warning.

Siq, tell me more about positive and negative pressure and how it affects temp, because I'm not an expert in that area.

On overclocking GPU's: like Silenze said, I have no idea on how to overclock any other GPU's than my own (fx5900xt), and I wasn't that successful at it either. So, I guess that different people could tell me their applied procedure (in my case, flashing the BIOS, reinstalling the drivers, applying the coolbits reg hack, and then try and try and try).
How does it work with an older GF or an ATi?

Next week I shall post v0.7, thanks for the comments so far.

I don't have any time now, because on Sunday I'm leaving for my home country (holland) for 6 months to do an interchange. I'm leaving my appartment here in Chile, so I have to store all my crap in boxes. And I have a go away party on Saturday, anybody wanna come?

[KryoNexus]

the effects of positive vs. negative air pressure can be debated for hours. if at all possible, it's best to have them be entirely equal.

[Roadracer_4ever]

One of the better temp measuring programs I've come across, and it tucks itself into a nice handy readout on your taskbar is Motherboard Monitor, found here. http://mbm.livewiredev.com/download.html

Hope that's of some use to you, great guide btw! Keep up the good work!

[jurtje]

Hey guys,

I finally finished 0.7:

- added a chapter on cooling, then made it an appendix cos it was way too long.
- added the OEM warning etc.
- overall rewrite, better sentences, easier readible etc.

Benchmarking is next, be patient.

I was wondering if anyone would like to help me make some drawings and pictures to clearify some things and make it less boring to read.
I'm not a creative hero myself and I don't know how any graphical program works, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

I think v0.7 is quite a bit better, please let me know what your opinions are.

[playafly187]

as for actual pictures, i could probably help you there. i have a ton of pics on my pc from previous reviews and stuff... if photoshop drawings is what you need, well, i suck at that :( just let me know what you need...

im about to give the article a good read here in a few minutes. got a few other things to take care of, then ill get to it :)

[Beemer]

A guide I found with some illustrations:
http://store.yahoo.com/directron/fsbguide.html

[silenze]

On overclocking GPU's: like Silenze said, I have no idea on how to overclock any other GPU's than my own (fx5900xt), and I wasn't that successful at it either. So, I guess that different people could tell me their applied procedure (in my case, flashing the BIOS, reinstalling the drivers, applying the coolbits reg hack, and then try and try and try).
How does it work with an older GF or an ATi?


Here's some rough info for ya... I'm bored and just did that article on overclocking the 5900xt.

Well with any Nvidia card using the latest drivers (since they're unified) -- you can just use the CoolBits reghack to show the clocks menu.

ATI I can't speak for, I had an 8500le for about a week once, but I never got it to the point of needing overclocking, had to see how the games ran first... which never happened (stupid drivers).


(on both) For finding the speeds, it's basically trying clock speeds... seeing what locks up, monitoring load temperatures vs that of the default clock speeds (assuming you have thermal monitoring on the card of some sort.).

Or the slow (actually the best.) way is to just step 5 or 10 Mhz at a time on the GPU, then on the Memory - find your boundaries.

This is why I suggested pooling information in regards to average overclocks on various Nvidia and ATI based cards. It would help people to get somewhere a lot faster.

Note; Heat can become an issue even at your highest "stable"(or seems to be) overclock of the GPU/Mem -- benchmarks may not crash or show artifacts, but slowing it down a tad may yield more performance because the temperature is slightly lower. (Generally the 'enable core slowdown threshold' (140° C, but it will lock up MUCH sooner.) -- the throttling of the GPU when heat becomes an issue, will hinder performance. That's why it's good to compare the temperatures.. so you can disable the 'slowdown threshold', remember just like CPUs, the quality of every GPU is different. Also... temperatures seem to climb yet a little more after an hour or so of intensive use, just like CPUs.)

Generally it's the same procedure as overclocking a CPU... stepping up the clocks, running tests, repeating.. But instead of increasing the frontside bus (or if you have say a mobile 2500+.. +'and the multiplier') to effect both CPU and Memory speed, we're increasing 2 individual clocks(the AGP speed also factors in here..).

You can also go into increasing the AGP voltage (which could help achieve really high overclocks with really good cooling) and/or the AGP clock -- my AGP clock is at 73.3Mhz for instance, since I have no PCI-lock on my motherboard. I see a lot of people going up to 80Mhz.. I did tests in the past at 66Mhz AGP and up to 83Mhz AGP on my MSI K7N2 Delta-L with 2500+ @ 2.2ghz w/the same fx5900 -- I got slower results from increasing the clock... not to say it would be the same for everyone.

But there's somewhat of a rundown, if I think of anything else I'll append with another post.

[jurtje]

It's been quiet for some time, but I think I'm getting closer to the final version.

New in .8:

-Benchmarking
-gpu overclocking
-Divided the article in two parts: part one=basic overclocking, part two=more in-depth.


so?

[undergroundtech]

Sounds good, that way they can get as involved as there comfortable with.

[KryoNexus]

yep, still coming along very well.

[playafly187]

anyone else have any suggestions for the guide?

i talked with jurtje and he is going to allow OCIA.net to release it as an official overclocking guide :) (credit given to him, of course)

so yea, any other suggestions before it begins editing?

[undergroundtech]

What!!! No credit for those of us who chipped in with our two cents worth?

J/K :lol:

[playafly187]

heh, would could put in a bit about the forum members helping as well, if its cool with jurtje

[silenze]

Thanks to Silenze for his input on overclocking graphics cards.

Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah! :P

[siq]

Eh we should leave it up to Jurtje to mention who should be thanked. Actually I would like to thank for letting us release it. It's a very very nice guide and will probably bring us a good amount of traffic

[undergroundtech]

I was only trying to be funny, Jurtje worked hard on that guide and deserves every bit of the credit for it.

[jurtje]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the input so far. In the final version, credits will be given where due ;)

As far as I can see, the only thing missing are the illustrations. Who can help me with some (copyright free) diagrams and photos?

I need:

- A nice picture of a burnt CPU.
- a bios picture, preferably of the clock settings page.
- a pic of the CMOS jumper
- a diagram showing the cpu talking through the FSB with the chipset talking to the memory through the memory bus talking to the PCI and AGP bus.
- diagrams showing simple convection, air and liquid cooling.
- a HSF pic, a watercooling kit pic
- a processor with thermal paste thinly applied
- a GPU with a non stock cooler


And if you can think of anything else?

Who can help me out??

[KryoNexus]

well feel free to use any of the images from our reviews. for instance, if you need a pic of a hsf or waterblock, i've done both.

other than that, techniq and silenze are both good at graphics.

[playafly187]

here are a few that i came up with, all from our reviews. like kryo said, feel free to use any of these or others of ours that you find:

http://www.ocia.net/reviews/8rda%2B/epox26.jpg


http://www.ocia.net/reviews/mcx6400/img/MCX6400-V.jpg


http://www.ocia.net/reviews/swiftech_8600/Dscf0098.jpg


http://www.ocia.net/playafly187/paste1.jpg


http://www.ocia.net/playafly187/paste2.jpg


http://www.ocia.net/reviews/vgacool/Dsc01063.jpg


http://www.ocia.net/reviews/vgacool/Dsc01079.jpg


below is a pic of a paste-coated Northbridge Cooler:


http://www.ocia.net/reviews/8rda%2B/epox19.jpg


http://www.ocia.net/reviews/8rda%2B/epox20.jpg


lemme know if you need any others, and ill see what i can find.

[silenze]

http://individual.utoronto.ca/cmike/temp/fried.jpg

ZZZZZZT POP! what's that smell...

[silenze]

haha... And.. why you should invest in a good power supply for any system, especially one that will be overclocked:

http://www.fawkit.org/tmp/images/pop/MVC-003F.jpg

[silenze]

http://www.slapps.com/review/epox_8k3a/xp1800_toast.jpg

btw I found this on the net.. obviously (and the other fried cpu pic, the psu one is one I took), if you look at the url.. give credit where credit is due? (copyrights.)

[playafly187]

havent heard anything on this in a while. how close are you to completion, jurtje?

[jurtje]

Sorry guys, it has rather busy with studying etc, next week in france I'll get the images up. It would be nice if I could host them somewhere....

[playafly187]

send em over to me and ill get em up.

[badwind]

Great idea jurtje! I appreciate the effort. I just built a new system and I think I'm finally ready to try overclocking. I've built a lot of systems before but like somebody said, "You have to have the money to replace components you blow." Kind of like the stock market. Don't play with money you can't afford to lose.

Anyway, I think the system I have lends itself to overclocking. I had a lot of problems up front getting this system together. The Abit board has some problems with getting the memory seated. When you put the mounting bracket on the board it slightly warps it. Not enough to notice but when you put the memory in it won't seat properly. I would have never figured it out if I hadn't read all the posts on the Abit forums. Just couldn't get it to post. I finally took their advice and put it together outside the box. The secret was to put it on a hard surface and really push down hard on the memory.

Anyway, they have a hardware chip and software especially made for overclocking. It's called uGuru. It gives you a GUI interface for the overclocking. Along with your guide I think it will be a breeze.

The only problem I have now is that I can't find the latest edition of your guide. Where do I find it? I'll be glad to grammar check it if I get a chance.

Thanks again for the hard work.

[badwind]

Oops!!! Here's my sig with system details.

[playafly187]

Great idea jurtje! I appreciate the effort. I just built a new system and I think I'm finally ready to try overclocking. I've built a lot of systems before but like somebody said, "You have to have the money to replace components you blow." Kind of like the stock market. Don't play with money you can't afford to lose.

Anyway, I think the system I have lends itself to overclocking. I had a lot of problems up front getting this system together. The Abit board has some problems with getting the memory seated. When you put the mounting bracket on the board it slightly warps it. Not enough to notice but when you put the memory in it won't seat properly. I would have never figured it out if I hadn't read all the posts on the Abit forums. Just couldn't get it to post. I finally took their advice and put it together outside the box. The secret was to put it on a hard surface and really push down hard on the memory.

Anyway, they have a hardware chip and software especially made for overclocking. It's called uGuru. It gives you a GUI interface for the overclocking. Along with your guide I think it will be a breeze.

The only problem I have now is that I can't find the latest edition of your guide. Where do I find it? I'll be glad to grammar check it if I get a chance.

Thanks again for the hard work.

the latest edition of the guide should be on the first page of this thread. he just updates the original post with each revision.

we would be more than happy to have you help in the grammar editing process. once we have a final revision, we will begin this process :)

[badwind]

Great! Thanks guys. Great web site.

[playafly187]

hehe, thanks for the comments.

btw, not sure if you are aware or not, but we have 2 contests running in the contests section. be sure to check those out for a chance to win some killer free stuffs ;)

[jurtje]

Finally got around to adding the images, check it out. I also reread the whole article and changed some little things.

I think it's ready for editing, so this is your last chance to comment something!

[siq]

I will be sure and check it out tonight when I get home. I must say you've done a phenominal job so far Jurtje

[playafly187]

hey guys. i went through and edited and uploaded part 1 of the guide to the OCIA.net server.

http://www.ocia.net/articles/overclockingguide/page1.shtml

thoughts, comments, suggestions? find any grammar errors?

thanks again jurtje!

[jester]

Thats a nice little tutorial, thumbs up :P