Ok im new around here and to the whole over clocking world, and well im a bit of a fool when it comes to it, i have no clue were to start, wow im going to make such a fool of myself here.

Ok here is how clueless i am, i cant even seem to open my damm BIOS, and even if i could i wouldnt know what to adjust to improve anything. Also iv seen you guys with print outs with things like bus speed etc, is this a programe you have downloaded/bought or is it built in, where do i find it.

Also im aware that my motherboared should have built in temp sensors how exactly do i get at these?

Im sorry for the tottaly noob questions, but i need to start somewhere.

Please ask anything, and try not to take the piss to much.

Thanks all.

Well, first off what equipment do you have. Motherboard, memory, processor (you seem to have that covered etc - be as specific as you can. Whats operating system do you have. What type of cooling are you using - Im assuming stock air cooling. Give us all the info you got.

Ok will do my best for you.

Proccesor - AMD 64 3000+
Memory - 1GB RAM, not sure what type
Graphics - ATI Radon allinwonder 9200
Motherboared - MSI-6741 K8 AMD 64 - AMD Athlon 64 K8 micro-ATX
Its all in a Lian Li case, running 4 fans, 2 intakes, 1 rear outtake and a top blow hole outtake.

sorry thats as much as i have, i know there is a flie someware on here at shows me my whole system but i cant remeber the extension to find it.

hope this helps.

welcome aboard the OC Pimprig - the fact you have gone for the 64bit line is a good start - there is much to look forward to.

overclocking is not a good noob activity, especially as it seems your just begining. Get a good a decent amount of computer no how before attempting anything OC related - building your first computer by yourself is always a deciding milestone wether or not to go further a field or not - it took me a year of reading up and looking at other pre built PCs before I attempted a build for myself.

As for speed monitoring and stuff? that isnt a problem - the defining piece of software used by all to proove a successfull overclock or speed is CPUZ.

you can download it HERE, an simply install and run - gives you all the info you need, then screenshot, save as a .jgp file, then send it here for us to have a look see. the screenshot should look like this - courtesy of CPU Z website:


EDIT - found your motherboard courtesy of MSI:

these boards are certainly the PC builders option for a 64 system at low cost. the setout of the board is based around a minimalistic setup - if it works it works sort of thing, nothing more.The lack of MOSFET heatsinks means that overclocking will be very limited, but as they are heastsinked you may get away with it (silver heatsinks).

one thing that does shock me is the northbridge (green square) cooler - is that overlapping???

Thanks for that link, Em another small problem how do i post the screen print, cant seem to find a site that will host it.

Ok so does that mean my mother boared could be a problem, in all honesty the sytem came with it and its already anoyed the hell out of me (problem with sound drivers)Em no the green thing dosnt seem to over lap, is it meant to?

err no - i guess its just the photo - the green heatsink cools the northbrige chip (like a central controlling crossroad for data). It looks like its overlapping the area where the athlon heatsink holder and lock mechanism goes (large plastic sqaure). but no its not supposed to.

once youve go the screenshot i recomend you use PHOTOBUCKET. simply regester with a username password and i think e-mail adress, then upload the pictures using the easy to use interface. we you pictures' uploaded, look beneath it for a URL box - copy whats there then us the picture icon in the PR reply area to paste the URL in. PS - MAKE SURE THERE IS ONLY 1 HTTP:// at the begining, not 2 (http://http://).

you should find the picture displays in the reply window then add your message and reply - easy!

Thanks for that site,iv been looking for something like that for a while. There you go for the pic.

If the mother borad is going to be a serious issue i was considering changing it at some point oh also a bit more details on the RAM its Kingston DDR-SDRAM PC2700.

One aspect of overclocking that you'll have to get into is running benchmarks (programs) to see if your overclock is stable (if you can't finish a benchmark, that usually means the overclock is not a good one). Running software that loads up your CPU will tell you this............examples of this are http://www.7byte.com/ which is Hot CPU........if you can run this program for 12 hours without an error or lockup, then your overclock is a good one.......But.......you want to know what has helped me and alot of others with the "Dark Arts" is reading the postings here in PimpRig and then go to other websites and research what's out there in regards to your system.....and then.....most of all, start out slow....a lil at a time.....to get a "flavor" for what's going on as you make adjustments.......Good Luck and welcome to PR......

Thanks iv taaken a look at that program,i take it im not meant to be running other programes at the same time, when i did it became very slow. Thanks for the help so far guys. are there any other utilities you guys use that i should know about, for monitoring temps etc?

Well.....you can try...lol.....the whole idea behind that progrma is to load your system to see if the oc is good.........here's what most of us use regarding monitoring temps
http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ ............

LOL yeah i tried didnt work so well, will run it tonight when i dont need the comp. Yeah i have motherbboard monitor 5, the only thing is it dosnt seem to have my motherboard, it has other msi boards but not mine, is there any way i can get it. I tried using the closest one to mine, dont think it worked since my case was at -128C and my CPU was at +128c.

Ok finally found a monitoring programe to work with my POS MB, called smart fan. Anyway i went ahead and overclocked my sytm a little, so its up from 2ghz to 2.2ghz, i know this isnt huge but its a start. It seems to be stable and temps arnt to bad, well i dont think so, at 40c idle and around 45c load. Anyway i just did this by adjusting the FSB, what other options do i have, also with regards to graphics cards RAM, voltages etc. Thanks for all the help its bee very useful



special thnaks to nev for helping me out so much aswell.

no problems dude - good to see things have turned out for the best - a 200 mhz overclock means your now level headed with a 3200 - crank it, but watch those temps - 45 is about as high as u need to go.

oh dear i think i might be in trouble, i turned my system off and it wont come back on, all the lights and fans start but nothing loads, am i done for?

ouch - try it again, and try reseting if it doesnt work - it should kick in after a while, if not it looks like a bios reset, and ull have to doo the OC again - it may well be the OC that did that tho, so be warned.

WOW that was the fright of my life, i left it over night and everything started up fine, im now a bit suspicious about those temp reading since they didnt change much between idel and loaded and were the same when i put the OC up.

Was that after you messed with some of the bios settings while attempting to OC? That would be you tried to go to far and your system couldn't handle it. Whenever that happens to me I use the jumper to reset the bios to normal and that usually fixes it for me.

LOl yeah thanks i got everyting running again now. I cant seem to push my FSB past 220, is there anything else i can do to get some more juice out of it. Regarding the graphics card and memory too.