Overclocking (Help required plz!)

[scotty]

I am the owner of a Hewlitt Packard, Pavilion, model # 8575c. I am presently running a pentium(R)3 550mz. The motherboard chipset is a 440BX. It has 100mz frontside bus, 20gb ultra dma hard drive and
128mb sdram. The primary cache is(L1) is 32k, and the secondary level cache(L2) is 512k.
My predicament is that I am unsure if this particular processor can be safely overclocked. I have heard that HP may have done something to the chips to prevent overclocking. I have searched this site for info, but have been unable to locate any pertinant info. All I know is that the system is upgradeable to a max 600 mz. I wish I had known that when I initially bought the comp.I am not gonna pay for a new processor that will only increase speed 50 mz,lol. If there is a method of reversing any blocks for overclocking or that it is possible to overclock this processor without any probs I would dearly like to know. Hence I am reaching out to all the qualified or self taught technicians out there for any assistance they can provide to assist me in overclocking this particular processor.
Sincere appreciation, Scotty

[outhouse]

heres the problem most name brand PC's have taken overclocking options out of there BIOS to overclock you need to be able to change FSB [frontsidebus] and CV [corevoltage] to your CPU but without options in BIOS your left with a grim outlook. The only means if your lucky is a software program that will let you change FSB but as far as CV you have no options, so at best you may get a weak overclock but hey that would be better then nothing. I think Pinky has the program and it may also be in the tips section look for softFSB theres one other also but if you find softfsb you should find the other.

[The Doors]

Hi Scotty, welcome to the Forum,
Take a look here (http://members.tripod.de/podien/) for the program called CpuFsb, I'm not very experienced about, but for sure you have to know the Mobo (Brand/Model) that you are using, Sisoft Sandra (http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/sandra) will help you.

[Yodums]

I recommend you finding the stepping if your board is clockable since, if you have the Katmai core your 550 will go a little over 600 tops since the Katmai is bad at overclocking.

To determine your stepping open up Sandra, and CPU info and look for stepping if its kB0 or kC0 then its Katmai anything else and its a good clocker.

Good Luck Buddy