Finding your FSB Max
First thing to do is find the limit to your FSB [Front Side Bus]. You will increase the FSB by a factor of 10 then by a factor of 5 after that. With each bump, make sure to keep your CPU speed as close to its stock speed. For example if my stock speed is 3.0 GHz which is 15 multi and 200 FSB, when I get to 210 FSB my multi should be 14.5. Same goes with your HT, CPU NB Frequency, and the RAM timings, and ratio. Once your computer does not boot up any longer, this means you have found your FSB maximum. Now you can move on to seeing how far you can push your CPU.
Overclocking the CPU
add in info on using punched in settings for BIOS, and making sure nothing is set to AUTO unless for certain items
For those that have an unlocked multiplier, do not increase the FSB, rather increase the CPU Multiplier by a factor of one and follow the steps as written below. You do not have to worry about the FSB until later on in the game.
Now that you have found your FSB Maximum, you can now push the CPU to see how high of an overclock you can accomplish. Before we begin, you must understand that there will be a limit to the CPU, and you will have to accept it. Depending on your PSU, cooling, and hundreds of other factors, if you try to continuously push your CPU over the max, you could end up harming it. With that in mind let us get started.
Lower your FSB back to 200 stock speed, and bring your CPU multi back up to its stock value. Start pushing the FSB by a factor of 10, and then by a factor of 5. For each successful boot, make sure to run some sort of bench mark tester or stress test. Check the section titled: Benchmarking and Stress testing tools for more information. Once your computer starts to crash during boot or during the benchmarks, you will need to try 1 of 3 different options. Your first option is to raise the CPU Voltage. While this will work for the majority of the time, it does not work all the time. I would first try to increase the Voltage before exploring the other two problems. Your second and third option is to increase the CPU NB frequency and/or voltage. Please use table 3 and table 4 for more information on what NB frequency and Voltage you should be at. You should first try increasing the voltage before increasing the frequency. It tends to work better. You can push the CPU-NB voltage to a max of 1.40v. If you are having troubles with your overclocked CPU instead of increasing the CPU-NB try to bring it down. This same process will work as well with the HTT. For the most part you will not have to do much with the HTT but sometimes lowering it below stock will get you to the CPU speed you want. As a rule of thumb you should keep your HTT between 1200-2200 MHz when overclocking. The third option that you may want to try is messing with your RAM. You can do a couple of things with your RAM. First increase the Voltage from stock by 0.2v. This usually does the trick. You can increase the RAM voltage up to 2.1v or something similar for RAM that is already at 2.1v at stock. If this does not do the trick try working with the Timings and a different Ratio. Sometimes a 800 ratio is better than a 1000, or 1066 ratio and vice verse. Overclocking is not a very simple task. Sometimes it takes time to find the sweet spot for your CPU. Make sure to try a variety of different settings until you feel comfortable. Just make sure to work inside the limits of your computer and the limits I have mentioned in this guide.
As you continue to increase your CPU speed, make sure to watch the CPU temperature. Once it hits a maximum of 60C LOAD, you MUST STOP! You are close to damaging with the CPU if you go any further. If your goal is to make your CPU stable, you NEED to lower the settings to have the CPU LOAD temp at a max of 55C.
