new member needs help.

Hey all. this is probably a dumb question, but oh well you gotta start learning somewhere right?

I have a computer that i bought from Gateway. It is a AMD Athlon 850. I am wantong to speed the little guy up and was wondering how you overclock. I read a LOT of the old posts and so far this is what I have figured out:

On some chips you have to "UnLock" them by connecting dots on them. ok, cool. but why? what exactly does this do?

as you slightly increase the voltage to the CPU you also increase the FSB (Front Side Bus, right). ok, how do you do this? If I read it correctly it is done through BIOS. isnt that the area you get to while booting up the cpu when you hit F1 or some thing like that? I went into that screen and nothing for FSB or voltage. so where is it?

Everyone seems to be able to measure their CPU Temp. how is this done? do you all just stick a heat sensor on the damn thing? or does the computer have a system that will tell you? I can figure out the fan thing for my self... Cut hole, insert intake fan, cut another hole, insert exhaust fan. Right?

Every beginners FAQ that I found seems to be aimed at a peson building a computer specifically to OverClock, but not really aimed at those people like me who already bought a system from a company.

Im not expcting to gt great results, but I just want to learn how to do this so that I can say "I did this!"

In a few months I plan on building a sytem from the ground up, but I cant right now as I have a current project that is taking all my money. (Gotta fix up my ducati after it got layed down.) I hope to have figured ou the basics by then so:

1. I know what to buy.
2. I know how to assemble it.
3. I can make it SCREAM!
4. I can name it "The Beast" like so many others have.

If at least a few guys could help me.....

Mike

Unfortunetly most company's "lock" their chips AND fsb from being overclocked. I believe Gateway is no exception. That's why there aren't really any guides on this, because it pretty much can't be done(none that I know of atleast). There is a chance if you use softFSB I believe it is, but that rarely works with company comps. Unlocking of chips refers to something a little different. To get the mhz rating of a cpu, you do this: Front Side Bus(FSB)xMultiplier. So, you can overclock a cpu by either increasing the FSB or the Multiplier. Most people prefer increasing the fsb, though, because it increases the speed that your entire system is running at. All Intel chips since the p2 i believe it was(not sure on that)are completely multiplier locked. However, some AMD chips come factory unlocked(a lot of t-birds above 1ghz) and those that don't, can be manually unlocked. The t-bird and durons are fairly simple to unlock by connecting the L1 bridges on the chip(2 popular methods are using a pencil(not mechanical) or using defogger paint, if you want to find out more about doing this, there's a section on the front page called beginner's guides that explains all about it). The new AthlonXP's are somewhat more dificult(can be opinion) because they started actually making pits or slits inbetween the dots. By connecting the bridges, you gain access to the multiplier. the FSB is motherboard controlled however and is alot easier to use as long as the motherboard supports it. Different mb's use different BIOS's and will allow you to change different values and give you different information, that's why choosing a good mb for overclocking is very important. Of course, company comps don't support overclocking and won't give you those options or information. Most(company comps don't always apply here) motherboards come with heat sensors on them, and will show the temps in the BIOS. There's other programs such as MBM5 and Sisoft Sandra that will give you temps as well. Hope this helps and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

BTW WELCOME TO THE FORUM!!!

so how wuld I get into the BIOS?

mike

you should be able to get into the bios by pressing DEL or ESC or some other button. It should say when your computer is booting up. (i.e. Press DEL to enter setup).

If you wanna overclock. Build a system. Brand name computers aren't worth crap for overclocking.

The bad news is that you can't increase your fsb and multi thru bios, and i'm not sure about the jumpers on your mobo, thats perhaps your only chance...

or

Couldnt he change his multi if he pencils his L1's and by connecting some L5's, get more vcore?

Lucifer

Unfortunately, company's like Gateway and Dell don't give you the ability to o/c thier computer's. Your best bet is to build the system yourself, with the component's that YOU want in it. Of course, there are different board's for different cpu's, but the better one's will let you change thing's in the bio's too. Don't forget to have a good power supply. These are just a couple of thing's to think about.
I think from some of the question's that you have asked, you may benifit from reading some of the beginers "How To O/C" article's on the front page and do some more research on the web too, and keep reading in our forums.
Good luck, and...

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS