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[Doth Togo]

Folks, I need a bit of help/advice on a project I'm working on.

I've got a Dell 2.4ghz 533 with 512RDRAM and a 120 gig hd with an ATI9700 graphics card. I'm in the process of starting to learn about overclocking. Can I overclock this machine? If so, is it possible for me to overclock it without messing with the hardware...as in, working with the BIOS to speed the processor up that way?

I'd appreciate any and all comments or website referals so that I can learn more and figure out how to do this.

Thanks all! Much appreciated.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

Cooling, cooling, cooling.

Personally, I would never OC a Dell much, if at all. You won't really notice too much of a performance jump.

Don't bother.

What are you trying to accomplish? A few more frames per second? Doom3 anticipation?

You neglect to tell us what speeds you're trying to achieve.

 

[Doth Togo]

Ah. Well, since I'm new to overclocking, I don't know much about it. My friends OC their Intels and AMDs and I'm aware how easy AMDs are to mod.

As for speed, I'd like to boost it slightly. 2.6ghz maybe? 2.8ghz if I can get away with it? What's a good, safe boost that you might recommend? Not sure I want to install new hardware on it. Software that could boost the processing power is what I'm thinking of. Though I'm open to all options. Let me know what you think...

Much appreciated.

 

[nubbe]

First off, you can’t overclock a Dell since you have no possibility to adjust the FSB in the BIOS.

Then even if you where to put a newer CPU into the computer, it wouldn’t boot since the bios doesn’t support the newer CPUs.

Even if you where able to make it boot with the new CPU it wouldn’t run at full speed since the FSB would be lower.
3.2Ghz@800MHz = 16x200x4
Which means it would be running at 16x133x4 = 2.1GHz@533MHz

Intel and Dell are best buddies so overclocking is not going to happen.

Well... it might be possible to overclock if you use a software overclocker… but I have never used on… so I don’t know

 

[DaCocoBrova]

lol!

You can't adjust the FSB?! That's some sh!t.

 

[Ecrofirt]

so wait, you're saying I can never upgrade the processor on my 1.8GHz Dell because it won't do shit?

 

[Neo_ZX]

All the Dell BIOS setups I've seen do not offer any option to adjust FSB/Multiplier. I HAVE changed CPUs and had it successfully update but I have never seen a feature that would allow overclocking.

Also, I believe the big Intel overclocker is the 2.4C/800 FSB which can reach 3.0 or 3.2 fairly easily on stock cooling. Can't find those around anymore that's for sure.