what is overclocking the motherboard or cpu? and can i do it?

Question

my motherboard and cpu is a EcS NForce6M-a with a AMD X2 dual core 6000+. how do i overclock it? i think its having trouble reading my memory. i bought 2 sticks of 2gigs of memory and it only read 3.5 gigs total, but should be 4 total gigs? when i do a memory test the computer just shuts down and the power goes off mid way of the test. is overclocking a good idea ?

Answer 1

Both. When you overclock, you must make the settings on the motherboard. But your RAM, motherboard chipset and CPU are all increased in speed.

But I wouldn't. In most cases, you won't see any real increase in performance... but your CPU or motherboard might run HOT and burn out. Every motherboard is different, so you have to look up your exact model and check.

Many motherboards that have a video card built-in use some of your regular RAM. In this case, it looks like 512MB of RAM is used for Video. That is probably a good thing. I'd say that you have no problem with your RAM.

Overclocking is a bad idea, since the gain is minimal. You see, DOUBLE SPEED is not alot faster. Your limitations are already with RAM speed, Hard Drive speed, Internet Speed. That CPU is already sitting around, just waiting for something to HAPPEN.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Answer 2

CPU's and motherboards are always set at "standard" settings of what a normal user will need. By overclocking you are bumping it up the clock rate(CPU,Memory,FSB) to by 100mhz to 2ghz depending on a persons particular system. In theory this is suppose to make things faster but it is not always certain. You might overclock to a point where the computer is not stable enough to work properly.

As to you specs this Mobo and CPU can be overclocked. To do this make sure all your drivers are updated and to have the latest BIOS version ,your should be 1.0b released on 10/05/2007. All you have to do is go into you BIOS and change the settings to what you want. ,

As to your computer having problems reading the memory, everything is fine. Both Vista and XP (32 bit version, you most likely have this) don't recognize the full amount. If you want to take advantage of all 4 gigs of ram i suggest you get XP 64 or Vista Ultimate. In reallity anything over 2 gigs is overkill on any 32 bit OS. In some cases have more ram will actually make your comp to run slower

Answer 3

Every processor is designed to run at a specific speed, by cycling through an instruction every so many fractions of a second. To "overclock" means to speed up the processor so it does more instructions per second that it is suppose to do.

You may be able to increase your computers speed by 1 to 2%, but you risk overheating the processor and burning it up doing hundreds of dollars to the computer's hardware. Usually it is not worth risking the computer for the tiny bit of improvement you get.

Most video cards are designed to set aside part of your computer's memory for the video card's use. By setting the memory aside, the card is able to run much faster, and usually speeds the entire computer. But when you do a "memory check", the video memory will not show up. That is normal. Overclocking your computer would not solve that issue.

But I am concerned that the computer is shutting down during the memory test. That may indicate that one of your memory sticks is bad.

Try running on the memory test with only one stick at a time in the PC. If it works on one, and fails on the other, you have a bad stick. If it passes on both separately, then try it with both sticks in the PC. If it fails then, reverse the order of the sticks and try again. Play around like that until you can determine which (if either) is bad, or if a slightly different arrangementof the sticks might resolve the problem.

Answer 4

Your computer is only reading 3.5gb of memory because you have a 32bit operating system. You would need windows x64 or a 64 bit version of windows to use all 4gb.

Overclocking the CPU is making it go faster then it was when it came from the factory. Your 6000 is rated for 3.0ghz. Unfortunately that is pretty much the limit for AMD K8 CPU so if you were to overclock you would not get that much more out of it. And 3ghz should be enough to handle almost anything. Sure it's not as fast as a core 2, but it doesn't need to be.

Answer 5

In the old days CPUs were not as fast so you would go into the bios and change the voltage and multiplier so the chip would run at a little faster clock speed. But if you have an AMD X2 6000+ you don't need to worry about over clocking it's plenty fast.

Answer 6

pass to AMD's website and get carry of their loose utility on your CPU. it somewhat is going that should assist you overclock and learn the stability. there is now no longer plenty element working a immediately pc that would now no longer sturdy or precise. be helpful that overclocking does now no longer produce errors indoors the FPU or maths purposes.

Answer 7

Overclocking is when you make small changes in the physical connections in your chipset, with the result of slightly increased performance.

I would not reccomend it without the guidance of an experienced overclocker. It is vey easy to over-overclock, and seriously damage your computer. Have someone who really knows what they are doing walk you thru it a few times.

Answer 8

Even if you really know what you're doing, overclocking is a bad idea in my opinion.

If you don't know what you're doing, it becomes a really bad idea.

I don't see the point in squeezing an extra few meg out of a cpu & potentially lessening it's life-span at best & frying it at worst.

I'll probably get a few thumbs-downs for this, but don't bother. (I'm quite experienced in computing & I don't overclock).

Answer 9

Your 32bit operating system, can only access 3.5GB of memory.