[Stealth870]

I have a 1.6A P4 (northwood I believe), and I want to overclock it. I've read that it can easily get to 2+ Ghz so I was wondering:

How do I exactly get into those bus settings? I went into BIOS and oculdnt find anything. I have a Dell with WinXP Home. I will probably have an Abit IS-7 when I overclock so will it come with its own software? Also, when swapping CPU's from my old mobo to the new, I should apply new thermal grease right? Where exactly? What kind and is it cheap?

I plan on buying a Thermaltake fan so I'm pretty sure this is sufficient cooling for an OCing to lets say...2.4 Ghz?

Also, I have PC2100 RAM, what will be done to this in OCing?

[tokyodrifter]

Try to look up an article on 'Pentium 4 OCing' at Tweak3D. I don't know much on OCing, but I can give you some pointers:

1. Make sure your cooling system is adequate. This is quite critical, considering if the heatsink/fan does not keep your CPU at a stable temperature, you're gonna have to buy a new CPU soon.

2. Even if the fan can cool down a CPU at, say up to 2.4 GHz, I would not recommend you OC it at 2.4 GHz. Common sense.

3. If you are planning to OC it at 2.4 GHz, I wouldn't exactly set it at 2.4 GHz on the first time. Try increasing the clock rate at a reasonable increments and make sure your system can maintain stability under OCing.

I hope this helps, and good luck.

[raskren]

You won't find any settings like that on a Dell motherboard.

The IS7 will have a section in the bios called Soft Menu. It contains fsb, cpu voltage, mem voltage, pci locks/dividers, mem dividers...all on one "page".

The most powerful fan in the world isn't going to make any difference without a heatsink that can aqequately pull heat away from the cpu. Don't expect to hit 2.4 ghz with the stock cooler. Try Googling for the companies Swiftech and Thermalright. They make the highest performing air cooled heatsinks available...hands down!

If you're using a socket 478 I recommend the Swiftech 462-V http://www.swiftnets...ts/mcx462-V.asp (I think the p4 version is out now) or the Thermalright SP94 (the best).

For thermal compound use a brand name: Arctic Silver III, Ceramique, or Arctic Silver 5 are what I use.

As for the ram, it depends of what sort of multipliers/dividers your motherboard has. They will allow you to run the memory faster, slower, or at the same speed as the front side bus. You probably won't get too much out of Dell OE ram so I would recommend upgrading to at least some DDR 400 modules which is PC3200. Also, be sure to check the CAS, RAS,... latency of the modules - lower is better.

Not to discourage you but I'm not sure if Dell power supplies use the standard ATX connector. Can anyone verify? You may also run into problems hooking up your power led, reset, hdd activity, and power button to a Dell case. Of course, this assumes you're not buying a new one.

Don't worry though. Some of the 1.6A chips are absolute gems. You CAN hit 2.4 ghz and beyond ON AIR!

[TonicX]

Dont even think about overclocking with Dell's computers...

[raskren]

Just one more word of caution. When you get your new motherboard, don't run the cpu beyond 1.6 volts for any length of time. Others may argue against this - do a search on "Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome" for more info.

[Stealth870]

I AM getting a new PSU to go with my mobo so no worries...^_^

Unfortunately I cant upgrade RAM, seeing as how I dont havea job, and my mobo and OSU techinally are taking all my Xmas money...

[SupaFly-TNT]

Just a note, Ram is very important when overclocking your machine, especially if your bumping up the FSB and voltages. You will need good rated ram, most cheap ram won't OC very well and will hinder your maximum speeds you can attain. I recommend Mushkin (www.mushkin.com) for overclocking purposes, most of their ram is rated to be overclocked and they will exchange or replace ram chips that won't overclock to what they specify.

[Stealth870]

Looks like I need a job...