What is overclocking? how to overclock?

[beginner]

hi

I am new in computer hardware and I want to know, what is overcloking?
how to overclock?
what would be the effect of this to my computer?


links deleted

spammer pushing two other offshore sites

esquared
Anandtech Senior Moderator

 

[krnmastersgt]

Overclocking is pushing the hardware in your computer above their standard specifications, the benefits are that the system will run faster (hopefully, at least its the intended effect) however there are different degrees of overclocking, a slight overclock will overall improve the power of your system but also use more energy while a large overclock uses a lot more energy and over time damages components faster, most people that know how to overclock tend to replace their system before any of this happens. To overclock you go into the BIOS of your system at boot-up and tweak settings there to get the desired effect, you could easily damage your system from too high an overclock or make it harder to use by disabling something you shouldn't have, that's why most first timers should follow the guides on respected forums.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Hello, welcome

The object of overclocking is more speed, kinda like hotroding a car. There are various ways to improve your computers performance one of which is "Overclocking your CPU"

CPU speed these days is measured in gigahertz(ghz) example Intel C2D E6600 runs 2.4ghz which is derived by multipling the CPU bus speed x the CPU multiplier, for the E6600 that is 266x9=2394mhz or 2.4ghz. You overclock the CPU by increasing the FSB or the multiplier(multi) in bios, however only top of the line extreme chips have an unlocked multi so overclocking non-extreme chips is limited to increasing the FSB.

The risks to hardware through overclocking is vastly overstated as long as reasonable guidelines are followed. The real risk in overclocking is lost or corrupted data including critital operating system data, which can cause you to have to reformat a drive and reinstall Windows(worst case), but this too can be avoided. Overclocking invovles increasing the speed in small steps and testing for stability, and your final overclocked settings must be tested throughly for stability. Once you have throughly tested your system stability the risk of data loss or corruption are about equal to a non overclocked system.

For these reasons you should always back up all your data before overclocking, and I recommend overclocking a fresh install and throughly testing stability before loading programs and data on new builds

 

[CTho9305]

Keep in mind that as soon as you operate a component outside of what the manufacturer specified, you're risking losing data (e.g. hard drive corruption, etc). People here play down the risk, but is it 1 in 10? 1 in 100? How much risk are you willing to take? Keep in mind that this is an enthusiast forum, so the "norms" here are relatively far from what "normal" people would consider "normal" .

 

[PolymerTim]

I just have to ask if anyone else thinks this person is a bit suspicious. beginner asks a basic computer question on a computer related forum and then posts a couple links to a staffing company and an internet advertising company, which have nothing to do with the question or even this forum. Reviewing beginner's post history shows that the only other post is similar; asking a simple question followed by a couple unrelated links.

Am I just paranoid or is this blatant spamming?

My apologies to beginner if this is not the intent, but I am curious about the purpose of your links.

Edit: typos

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Good eye! PT, definately all the signs of a clever spammer.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Good catch. Can we get a mod in here to delete those links. No sense in donating AT's pagerank towards some spammer's website.

 

[nerp]

Spammer.

And you guys are too nice, posting helpful explanations. That's part of what makes this place great.