Noob to OC'ing

Hi guys I wanna get started on overclocking my P4 Pressy. After reading about all the performance gains people get I can't stand back and not OC anymore. I have some knowledge of the terminolgy from the overclocking sticky and from reading other threads. The only problem is that I cannot afford to screw up one of my computer parts while doing this but I'm willing to take the risk to get more performance for my games. My pressy is a 3.0J and If someone can give me ballpark settings that I can overclock this thing to then I can get an idea for it and figure it out myself and it might save me from overclocking it too much and frying my cpu. I'd like to get to 3.6 Ghz but don't know if thats possible on all air cooling. Any advice would help. Thanks in advance!

Mobo: ASUS P5LD2-VM (Socket T)
CPU: P4 Pressy 3.0J
PSU:500w Fortron
CPU HS: Thermalright XP-90C
RAM: 2 GB DDR-2 667 GEIL RAM.
Vid card: Geforce 7800 GT

You have a nice system for overclocking. There is almost no risk at all when doing a modest overclock as long as you don't overvolt or overheat. Lock the PCI frequency to 33 and the PCI-E frequency to 100 MHz. Set the CPU clock speed to "user define" and try increasing the FSB from 200 to 210. Check temps and test for stability. Congrats, you are now an overclocker.

ok cool I'll try that out. Thats for the info

What do I do with my RAM though? After I increase the FSB the FSB of my RAM increases also right? Since I have DDR-2 667 what do I put my RAM at so its stable but at the same time I don't want to fry my Geil RAM with too many volts, so is it possible for me to get to 240mhz FSB on air cooling and a great heatsink (XP-90c)

I think it is very possible . I have not set up my new rig yet but , on the Abit NF7 you can set memory divisors , or even set it to auto , or speed so you can just OC your cpu to start and then play with memory and stuff at a later date

For now just leave the memory on auto and don't increase voltage. There is no way to fry the RAM if you do that.

i think 3.6 ghz is possible for you...im currently running 2.58 ghz from my 2.0 ghz cpu and im thinkin i can push it way past 2.6 if i get another gb of ram...

air cooled is pretty good as long as you have temps that you personally like
my temps are in my sig and ambient for me is 21 C not bad but i think it could be better

im not familar with your ram but does it not have lifetime warrenty?

so I was under the impression that increasing FSB on the CPU would do something to my RAM since its FSB increases as well. So am I assuming the wrong thing or....? In other words Lets say I put my FSB to 240mhz which is my hopeful goal. This would put me at 3.6ghz, now if I don't touch my RAM and just keep it at automatic your telling me everything would be stable and good to go? I guess it just seems too good to be true.
Maybe someone can clarify this for me Also thanks to those who replied and gave me info.

Do what batboy says.....he is the authority around here when it comes to Intel chips. You're in good hands here.

You are right, as FSB increases, so does the RAM frequency. I did not say your RAM would be guaranteed to be stable, I said you would not damage it if you leave it on auto and more imporantly, don't overvolt it. The auto setting will automatically drop the ratio down, so the RAM will stay in spec. This might not give the best memory bandwidth performance, but it will be the safest route.

At some point after you gain more confidence, you will want to manually play with the memory ratio and RAM timings and maybe even give the RAM a little more voltage, but for now since you are new to overclocking and a little nervous about frying something, let's just do a modest overclock and stay perfectly safe while getting you some overclocking knowledge and experience.