[cooldrum3]

This is probably an assinine (spelled right?) question, but is it possible? As much as I love Dell, their BIOS lets you do nothing in the way of making adjustments to boost computer performance, which is absolutely ludicrous. I suppose they do it to reduce support calls and warranty repairs though. Anyway, just wondering if it can be done with a system tray program or something. I want to try to boost my SETI WU times.

[NiTrO bOiE]

It's possible, but most likely you can't. Locate the PLL chip. It's the rectangular chip next to the crystal (silver thing that has 14.3 stamped on top of it), then download check the CPU FSB page to see if your PLL chip is supported. If it is then it's overclockable, if it's not on the site, you are out of luck.

Here's the site.
http://www.podien.de/FSB.HTM#finding%20the%20PLL List of PLLs

Download page.
http://www.podien.onlinehome.de/CPUFSB.HTM

[y23kc]

Set FSB is one possible way. If your chip is a 400mhz 'a' chip, it may can get up to 133mhz fsb via of the pin trick. Of course if you have something like a 2.0a or 2.4a, reaching 133mhz fsb may be a little difficult with Dell's cooling solution.

[Ludio]

I thought Dell used the Intel boards meaning they aren't gonna overclock at all. I guess it would be different if they used asus or abit and somehow locked the bios adjusment settings, which I guess you were implying NiTrO bOIE with the PLL chip.

[ol' man]

You have two options with a Intel motherboard and in the end you could do a combination of the two really.

First set the BSEL pins to a 133fsb and then optionally set the vcc pins to say 1.65v or whatever is pertinent to what ever speed you want to run at. Now that you have done these things with say a 1.8a which now effectively is a 2.4b(1.8a OC'd to 2.4GHz/533fsb) then you can use CPUfsb to increase the speed of the CPU further. I would not doubt that many of the 1.8a's OC'd this way could hit pretty decent speeds especially if they can hit say close to 3GHz on default voltage. I am wondering if intel made a new bios to allow 166 and 200 fsb for their older 845 motherboards? If they did then maybe setting the 1.8a C1 stepping to 166fsb with the BSEL pins would be the way to go if there is such a thing. This would effectively give you a 3GHz CPU on a 166fsb. Alot of the 1.8a's did not hit 3GHz though so that is something to keep in mind.

I have OC'd CPU's this way on intel motherboards in the past. It is not that difficult.

[cooldrum3]

Thanx for all the help, but I'd rather not go into all that on my mom's computer and have her whine if I screw something up. I guess I'll just leave it as is for now.

[batboy]

I think some Dells used stripped down Asus mobos. Sometimes these OEM stripped down mobos have all the adustments removed but they still use the same PLL chip as their regular mobos. If so, then softFSB "might" work. If it's an Intel brand mobo, that won't work.

[ol' man]

Originally posted by batboy
I think some Dells used stripped down Asus mobos. Sometimes these OEM stripped down mobos have all the adustments removed but they still use the same PLL chip as their regular mobos. If so, then softFSB "might" work. If it's an Intel brand mobo, that won't work.

It doesn't matter about the pLL. I have not found a motherboard yet that CPUfsb didn't work with in terms of pLL. Most of the time it is a Winbond, ICS, Cypress or Realtek pLL of which CPUfsb can handle.

I overclocked my brothers 1.8 celeron in a dell with a proprietary dell motherboard with CPUfsb. It had a cypress pLL. It is really easy all you need to find out is the pLL on the motherboard which involves a flashlight or other bright light source usually and looking at its writing.

One thing I wish I knew was if CPUfsb can set the PCI/AGP divider right in windows also like say going from 100MHz fsb to 133MHz and the setting of the 1/4 divider @ 133MHz(533 effectively). If it can that would be great. I notice some of the other realtek pLL besides the one in my ST6 had options for 133/166/200 MHz and 33/66Mhz options for all of them.

[cooldrum3]

Well I just couldn't help myself. I'm now running at 2460 MHz on a 2 Ghz machine! Super stable too. I used the fastest setting possible in CPUFSB. I guess that means I'm maxed out even though I'm sure I could keep going?

[MrMarbles]

This is good news. I have a 2.4b Dell myself and I pretty much gave up on trying to overclock it. I thought I'd have to get a new mobo and case which wouldnt really make it worthwile in the end.

I am not going to attempt to overclock my rig until the warranty expires. Anywa, the only thing I would gain from an OC'd machine now is more ppw in my folding stats. Oh wait..