basically, you'd want to go into the bios and look for the section "cpu frequency." it is more than likely going to be at 200mhz. you up the frequency by 5 to 10mhz increments. but, as you have an amd processor, by increasing the cpu frequency, you'll be bumping up the hyper-transport link frequency and ram frequency as well, which makes things get screwy if you get it out of spec too much. what you basically do is, as i stated before, up the frequency by 5 to 10mhz increments, reboot and see if you can get into windows. if you can, cool. restart and go back into bios and up the frequency again. reboot and see if you can get into windows. what you are doing is seeing the a good frequency that you can get into windows. if you can't start windows, though, reboot and go back into the bios and set the cpu frequency down to the last frequency you were able to get into windows with. once you got the frequency set, you want to test the overclock with a program like prime95. run the program until either your computer crashes or your computer runs the program for a while (up to you, but i'd say at least an hour) with no problems. if your computer crashes, again, you'll have to go into the bios and mess with the ram frequency and/or the hyper-transport link frequency. for ram, look for a section in the bios named "dram frequency" or something like that. you'll probably have to change it from "auto" to "ddr2 667." go back into windows and run prime95. if you have no problems, cool. if you crash, go back into bios and look for a section labeled "ht link frequency," or something similar. as with the ram, you probably have to change the setting from "auto," and this time set it to "800mhz"

i am actually (honestly, scouts honor) doing this to my desktop right now (and i'm on my laptop right not and was scouring this forum looking for some help too). i have an asus m2a-vm motherboard, athlon 64x2 5400+ black edition, and ati 690g chipset. since i have a black edition processor, i can overclock by changing the multiplier and cpu frequency, if need be. the stock speed of the proc is 2.8ghz and i'm trying to get it above 3.25ghz, but cannot right now, and i'm not really trying to push it that hard. right at this moment, i'm running the prime95 program that has been running since 7:56pm (PST) and i haven't had any problems. what my current specs are: 3.2ghz from 2.8; ht link freq set at 800mhz; dram freq set to ddr2 667; cpu voltage set to 1.45v from default setting; i have a stable temp of 45c during the prime95 test.

if you want to do it, be prepared to spend some time and don't make huge steps in changing settings--just be patient and take little steps.

my two cents

update and fyi: i finished the prime95 run last night (let it run for 2 hours). everything was fine. the extent of my use of my computer is this: internet (obviously), games, and editing and burning family vids. i never really stress the machine greatly, so i'm comfortable with the overclock. i might try for 3.3, though.

Yes you could do damage. RAM is the biggest one to look out for. As has been stated just take it in 5-10MHz jumps and thoroughly test for stability each time.

Try Prime95 (for CPU stability) and Memtest (for RAM stability). Just Google them and you should be able to download them.

Originally Posted by stormy13

One thing no one seemed to notice and no one mentioned,

System Manufacturer/Model Number HP / Custom Build

so true, if it is an hp motherboard, you can forget it.