Can someone explain in SIMPLE terms "overclocking"

[Talahasee]

Can someone explain

in SIMPLE terms

"over clocking"

And I am asking in HERE because I thought some kind person
might explain it in 5 cent words and not send me 10 links.

I have a reading impairment, and 10 pages of Microsoft
"Documentation" are not going to help.

I'd like to know,

1. how to
2. is it advisable?
3. do I need to buy anything?
4. what it accomplishes

TIA


And if this is the wrong group, forgive me. And perhaps some
kind soul could direct me to the right group.

I simply have found other groups NOT helpful, and this group
has been QUITE helpful.

oh! and my system is an AMD Duron 1.8
fan for up to 3 Ghz

ASUS A7V8X-X mobo

512 Mb RAM

3-D Fusion nVidia GeForce MX 4000
8X AGP 128 mb 275 Mhz
RAM DACS Dual 350 Mhz

200 Gb hdd, 80 Gb ext hdd.


Tallahassee

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

The quick simple answer is it is NOT advisable unless you know exactly what
you are doing.
At the very least, you will probably void the warranty of the motherboard
and processor.
The computer warranty will also be void if it is OEM.
The worst case is fried components because of overheating.

Proceed with caution after learning in detail exactly how overclocking can
affect your computer.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Can someone explain

in SIMPLE terms

"over clocking"

Making your system hardware (usually CPU or processor) run faster than it
was rated to do so by the manufacturer.

In other words, you go out and buy a 2.8GHz Intel/AMD processor. It is
rated to run at 2.8GHz (2800MHz). You then use the BIOS settings (or other
means) to change it from a 2.8GHz to a 3.2GHz processor. It was only rated
up to a 2.8, but through manipulation, you have increased its clock speed by
400MHz.

Will it run stable? Maybe.
Will it run hot? Maybe.
Will it burn up? Maybe.
Is it under warranty now (from the manufacturer)? Not if they know you did
this.

Yes - Dell may have created a loophole with their newer overclocked
systems - but I have not investigated it and I do not know what people now
get out of running a 4.2GHz instead of a 3.6/3.8GHz stable system. Before
processors had reached the level where they surpassed what the software
could do - I understood it and tried it a few times - but now - I can only
see doing it to say "I did it". In other words - I see the benefit being
heavily outweighed by the possible cost.

You can use Google to look up more information on it than anyone here could
ever give you to your SPECIFIC situation. My opinion - don't do it. Save
up - get the fastest processor/motherboard/RAM you can and a good fast hard
drive and you can have a three year warranty and stability to go along with
that.

 

[Talahasee]

Making your system hardware (usually CPU or processor) run faster than it
was rated to do so by the manufacturer.

In other words, you go out and buy a 2.8GHz Intel/AMD processor. It is
rated to run at 2.8GHz (2800MHz). You then use the BIOS settings (or other
means) to change it from a 2.8GHz to a 3.2GHz processor. It was only rated
up to a 2.8, but through manipulation, you have increased its clock speed by
400MHz.

Will it run stable? Maybe.
Will it run hot? Maybe.
Will it burn up? Maybe.
Is it under warranty now (from the manufacturer)? Not if they know you did
this.

Yes - Dell may have created a loophole with their newer overclocked
systems - but I have not investigated it and I do not know what people now
get out of running a 4.2GHz instead of a 3.6/3.8GHz stable system. Before
processors had reached the level where they surpassed what the software
could do - I understood it and tried it a few times - but now - I can only
see doing it to say "I did it". In other words - I see the benefit being
heavily outweighed by the possible cost.

You can use Google to look up more information on it than anyone here could
ever give you to your SPECIFIC situation. My opinion - don't do it. Save
up - get the fastest processor/motherboard/RAM you can and a good fast hard
drive and you can have a three year warranty and stability to go along with
that.

Thanks! You answered my two questions.

How? By cranking/manipulating the speed of the processor.
Easily done.

Is it advisable? Everything I've read says, "No."

As for warranties, the mobo, the cpu,and the RAM are all out
of warranty. I mention the pieces since I built the machine
myself.

The mobo is roughly 2 years old and well past the 1 year
warranty. The cpu is roughly 3 years old and well past the 1
year warranty.

however, my choice is to not attempt overclocking until I
can afford to replace both the mobo and the cpu. (as I am a
retiree, fully disabled on Social Security), that time has
not come)

AGAIN, Thanks!


Tallahassee

 

[Talahasee]

Making your system hardware (usually CPU or processor) run faster than it
was rated to do so by the manufacturer.

In other words, you go out and buy a 2.8GHz Intel/AMD processor. It is
rated to run at 2.8GHz (2800MHz). You then use the BIOS settings (or other
means) to change it from a 2.8GHz to a 3.2GHz processor. It was only rated
up to a 2.8, but through manipulation, you have increased its clock speed by
400MHz.

Will it run stable? Maybe.
Will it run hot? Maybe.
Will it burn up? Maybe.
Is it under warranty now (from the manufacturer)? Not if they know you did
this.

Yes - Dell may have created a loophole with their newer overclocked
systems - but I have not investigated it and I do not know what people now
get out of running a 4.2GHz instead of a 3.6/3.8GHz stable system. Before
processors had reached the level where they surpassed what the software
could do - I understood it and tried it a few times - but now - I can only
see doing it to say "I did it". In other words - I see the benefit being
heavily outweighed by the possible cost.

You can use Google to look up more information on it than anyone here could
ever give you to your SPECIFIC situation. My opinion - don't do it. Save
up - get the fastest processor/motherboard/RAM you can and a good fast hard
drive and you can have a three year warranty and stability to go along with
that.

Well, I tried overclocking.

I THOUGHT I knew how.
I did.

I DID find out (as I'd heard), that some CPUs will
overclock, some won't.

I had tried it before, without success. Thought it was
something I was doing wrong.

My cpu simply is one that will not over clock.

This attempt crashed my system, as I'd remembered seeing it
do before.

At least now I know why.

Gracias!

Tallahassee

 

[RJK]

How refreshing to see responders all saying the correct things about how
unwise it is to overclock !!
It's always been my view that it's daft but, there are those that convince
themselves that they've achieved a wonderful technical feat by overclocking.
They rarely ever, if ever at all, admit to corrupted software, even if it
takes a few days, weeks or months for their software to go bang !
An amusing aspect to it, is that the overclocking "enthusiast" appears to
spend hundreds of pounds on watercoolers etc. and for half that cost, (a
woman would be far too sensible to overcock?), ....oops did I miss out an L
there?..), he could have bought the "faster" cpu in the first place !

regards. Richard

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Can someone explain

in SIMPLE terms

"over clocking"

And I am asking in HERE because I thought some kind person
might explain it in 5 cent words and not send me 10 links.

Overclocking is running some componemt of your system (usually the CPU) at a
speed higher than the manufacturer has said it willl work reliably at.

I have a reading impairment, and 10 pages of Microsoft
"Documentation" are not going to help.

I'd like to know,

1. how to
2. is it advisable?

No, it is foolhardy. You could achieve the same increment of speed by buying
the next faster CPU. It would cost only a few dollars more, but you wouldn't
be risking your hardware and your data.

3. do I need to buy anything?

To overclock, no.

4. what it accomplishes

It runs the system faster at a much lower level of stability. Not only the
system is at risk, but all the data youwarite while overclocking also is

 

[Plato]

Can someone explain
in SIMPLE terms
"over clocking"

It means telling your pc to run your CPU at a higher rate than is
recommended. In theory, it will speed up your pc. In practice, you may
void the warranty and get random error messages and crashes.

 

[Don Schmidt]

One other thing about over-, you won't even notice a speed increase; it's a
risk without benefit.

 

[Alan]

That's not true. Some benchmarks give bigger numbers.

However I do generally agree that overclocking is of less benefit than it
used to be, processing power has increased a lot since the P2's, P3's etc.
As it happens the machine I'm typing this on is a P3 550MHz that is
overclocked to 617MHz- the speed difference is noticeable in many
circumstances. I've had it running for monthe at 660 MHz too, less reliably
(The only issues where with a few games. Not many, just a few).

It has ran at this speed for 4 years. And has *never* corrupted any
files-corruption is not guaranteed as seems indicated in some other posts,
but is possible- more so with extreme overclocking. And when you overclock
its success depends on all of the components around the processor-
increasing the BUS speed affects other things like the graphics card and
hard disks too. They can fail or cause problems like corruption.

Overclocking is of less benefit than it used to be- but it can work reliably
without problems.

 

[Don Schmidt]

When I say you won't notice the difference I mean you won't see any files
opening quicker, spreadsheets processing faster etc. You'll see differences
with cpu testing reports but in the real world who's going to notice a
difference between .9 of a second and 1 second?

I read more than one opinion stating unless you double the speed, don't
bother.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

When I say you won't notice the difference I mean you won't see any
files opening quicker, spreadsheets processing faster etc. You'll see
differences with cpu testing reports but in the real world who's
going to notice a difference between .9 of a second and 1 second?

I read more than one opinion stating unless you double the speed,
don't bother.

Benchmarks aren't generally a good measure of actual perceived speed because
they measure things in isolation. In actuality the speed you feel is a
combination of many factors: CPU speed, RAM speed, hard drive speed, video
speed, etc. If you were to overclock the CPU and achieve a 10% performance
increase, that increase is in a single area and is far from meaning that the
overall speed of the computer will be increased by 10%.

Alan says that his 13% CPU overclocking resulted in a performance boost that
is "noticeable in many circumstances." I find that very hard to believe, and
suggest that the mindset of overclockers is such that they see what they
expect to see.

That's one of the reasons why overclocking is such a poor idea. You risk the
stabilty of the computer and you risk damage to your data (because an
unstable computer is likely to damage the data) and achieve a very small
performance boost.

I'm not willing to say that the performance difference will be completely
unnoticeable, but I am willing to say it will be very small, and not worth
the risk.

 

[Steve Jain]

When I say you won't notice the difference I mean you won't see any files
opening quicker, spreadsheets processing faster etc. You'll see differences
with cpu testing reports but in the real world who's going to notice a
difference between .9 of a second and 1 second?

I read more than one opinion stating unless you double the speed, don't
bother.

Double? Most opinions I've read is that a 10% increase is what's
noticable to most users. I'd say that this is especially true if you
saw a 10% DEcrease in the speed of your computer. Which, I do know
from personal experience, users definitely notice.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/
"This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.
I am not am employee of Microsoft."

 

[Don Schmidt]

You could give it a try by going into the BIOS and lower your cpu speed by
ten percent and see how noticeable.

 

[Alan]

Benchmarks aren't generally a good measure of actual perceived speed
because they measure things in isolation. In actuality the speed you feel
is a combination of many factors: CPU speed, RAM speed, hard drive speed,
video speed, etc. If you were to overclock the CPU and achieve a 10%
performance increase, that increase is in a single area and is far from
meaning that the overall speed of the computer will be increased by 10%.

Alan says that his 13% CPU overclocking resulted in a performance boost
that is "noticeable in many circumstances." I find that very hard to
believe, and suggest that the mindset of overclockers is such that they
see what they expect to see.

That's one of the reasons why overclocking is such a poor idea. You risk
the stabilty of the computer and you risk damage to your data (because an
unstable computer is likely to damage the data) and achieve a very small
performance boost.

I'm not willing to say that the performance difference will be completely
unnoticeable, but I am willing to say it will be very small, and not worth
the risk.

Sorry- my statement was based on the particular use of that machine- it was
image editing and applying various filters etc, so made a noticeable
difference on that and on some of the very large and complex spreadsheets I
wrote at that time. The other place it would help would be game frame rates,
but you are of course correct for the vast majority of uses.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Sorry- my statement was based on the particular use of that machine-
it was image editing and applying various filters etc, so made a
noticeable difference on that and on some of the very large and
complex spreadsheets I wrote at that time. The other place it would
help would be game frame rates, but you are of course correct for the
vast majority of uses.

OK, thanks for the clarification.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

 

[NoStop]

Can someone explain

in SIMPLE terms

"over clocking"

It's a passtime of many Wintards who find it necessary to speed up their
processors to try and make up for the sluggishness that comes with running
a toy operating system like XP. If you were running a real operating system
like Linux, you'd have no need for such foolishness, as your computer would
be running quite fast enough.

BTW, the other main passtime of many Wintards is removing viruses and
spyware from their computers. Another passtime that Linux users don't need
to bother with.

I guess there are some people that just like having their computers running
fast and securely and doing productive things, while there are others who
like to waste their time "tweaking" their systems and hoping it won't crash
in the next minute.

 

[Don Schmidt]

Everybody has an interest, yours is obvious.

Don
Satisfied with 1.2 GHz

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

If you have something of value to contribute, go ahead.
This post is nothing but insults and reflects greatly on your own character.

 

[Talahasee]

It's a passtime of many Wintards who find it necessary to speed up their
processors to try and make up for the sluggishness that comes with running
a toy operating system like XP. If you were running a real operating system
like Linux, you'd have no need for such foolishness, as your computer would
be running quite fast enough.

BTW, the other main passtime of many Wintards is removing viruses and
spyware from their computers. Another passtime that Linux users don't need
to bother with.

Thanks. Your advice was MOST helpful! I now know all about
overclocking!

I guess there are some people that

Just as there are some people who can't even speak or write
basic English. One of the rules of basic English that we who
are literate know is that the pronoun "that" applies ONLY to
animals
plants
inanimate objects

which are YOU?

the word used to modify PEOPLE (humans) is the pronoun
"who".

As in, "I guess there are some people WHO..."



just like having their computers running

fast and securely and doing productive things, while there are others who
like to waste their time "tweaking" their systems and hoping it won't crash
in the next minute.

Well, when Linux and Xenix and Unix can run 50 of my
productivity applications, "Office Pro" for one, Agent,
LView Pro, Nero, my Bible software, etc...

we can talk about Linux again.


Tallahassee

ps
thanks again for your help.

And btw, (that stands for "by the way", by the way), aren't
you trolling in the wrong group?

I think you're lost!