Dan,
You are frightening them. Hard disk settings have nothing to do with overclocking, there isn't a "clock", and you can't possibly know the extent of Falkman's overclocking potential on the info provided. You need chipset and specific mainboard info to deduce that.
Falkman,
By updating your graphics card to something designed in this millenium, you will achieve far better performance results than ANY attempts at overclocking.
Unlike Dan's advice, you actually won't find a Clock in your bios. Clockspeeds are simply the operating frequencies of your hardware, and these speeds are generated by crystal oscillators or other timing devices (clocks) on the mainboard in a similar way as a quartz watch works.
You need to understand the architecture of your PC and how CPU, FSB, RAM speeds are derived and their relationships. Also, how DDR architecture factors in and how DDR affects speeds.
Ideally, in modern AMD systems, the host clock and ram clock should be identical, but it's quite possible to deviate from this, though not always beneficial.
Your system spec is a dead giveaway that you need to do some research before we can help you, as it's missing the most important info of all, your mainboard and chipset info. Find out what that is, read about that technology, it's capabilites and limitations, then post the details here if you still need help.
I might be able to assist a little bit in advance, so maybe come back and read this after you do your research.
Say the host clock is 133mhz on your rig. DDR technology means that data is processed twice in a clock cycle, thus giving a virtual DOUBLING of the clock rate, or 266mhz DDR.
Where RAM (system memory) is concerned, DDR 266 equates to PC2100 and that is the speed the RAM runs at standard clockspeeds.
You state a RAM specification of PC3200/PC2700. This is an ambiguity as you can now see. It's important to actually positively identify your ram modules and their actual rated speeds. If more than one module exists, verify if they are the same specification, identical, or different specifications.
RAM in mixed specifications are ALL read by the system as the lowest specification module present in the mix.
Overclockers seek out overspec RAM, because RAM does not overclock very well, and in order to overclock a computer by increasing clock speeds, (the usual method), one needs RAM that will cope with those increased frequencies.
CPU's get their speed ratings by applying a Multiplier to the "host clock" or Front Side Bus speed.
If your FSB speed is 133mhz and your CPU multiplier is 11.5, then this is your formula for CPU speed.........
11.5 x 133mhz = 1529.5mhz, or 1.53ghz, which is the correct speed for certain XP1800+ cpu's.
********Please don't try this as an example, this is purely explanatory.********
Now, let's say that you have PC2700 RAM installed. PC2700 RAM's standard clock speed is 166mhz, and it will probably push to 170mhz and remain stable.
So, the ardent overclocker may change his host clock, or FSB speed, to 170mhz in this example....... thus running his ram at it's upper limit and slightly beyond it's rated speed.
The DRAM clock will, in most cases, follow, or "ride" the bus speed up along with the "host clock", or FSB speed, remaining identical in speed and in "sync" with it.
This has a profound effect on the PC.
First, we have a mainboard that is passing information faster, (the Front Side Bus resides on the mainboard, and it's speed is controlled by the "host clock"). Now the FSB speed is 170mhz or 340mhz DDR.
Second, we have memory which is now running a little faster, (340mhz DDR rather than 266mhz DDR. You can see here how DDR doubles our overclocking advantage!)
[Remember, we changed the FSB from 133mhz to 170mhz, which is a jump from 266mhz to 340mhz DDR ! ]
Thirdly, we have a CPU with a multiplier of 11.5 which also gets the benefit of a faster FSB speed, and this is where the most profound effect occurs, because of the large CPU multiplier involved. So, the new CPU speed is derived thus:
11.5 x 170mhz = 1955mhz or roughly the same speed as a comparable XP2400+ CPU.
The biggest problem with this example is that it would rarely work in the real world because the CPU would not handle such a profound increase in speed without some voltage increases (vcore) and additional cooling solutions, and possibly it would still not work, depending on the individual CPU.
Older mainboards, and indeed some new ones, have the PCI and AGP buses tied to the host clock (FSB) as well, so other hardware installed may fail immediately to function, albeit, temporarily.
Overclocking mainboards offer "locked" PCI and AGP buses with speeds that are independent of the FSB (host clock speed). They offer fine tuning of bus speeds, ratio setting of FSB/RAM clocks and fine Voltage adjustment of core components like RAM and CPU. All in All, a mainboard either usually supports overclocking, or just offers basic configuration settings. There are a few boards that fall in between these categories.
Overclocking is more of a hobby than a science, and trials by error are commonplace in it's execution.
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