Overclocking advice

[m_stan]

I'm new to overclocking so any help is appreciated.

I've recently bought a Pentium 4 3.2 with HT and an Abit AI7 Mainboard with 1 Gig of TwinMOS PC3200 DDR.

The motherboard will allow me to do some easy overclocking due to the software it comes with - uGuru I think it's called (I haven't built the system yet).

My question is, with the supplied Intel heatsink and fan and some half-decent fans in my case and PSU (ie: pretty bog-standard cooling), how far should I push the overclocking to without running risk of damaging anything ?

My understanding is that I can try bumping up the "FSB" until the system starts to get unstable. Could I under any circumstance actually fry something, or will the system just crash, forcing me to return to slower settings without causing any actual damage to board and chip ?

Thanks in advance !

[BenW]

If you are worried then why not spend a few quid and get some nice fans and heatsink?

[chrisf6969]

The P4 3.2 comes with a nice HSF, its a copper plugged aluminum HS, with a fairly quiet fan. I would think you should be able to hit 3.4 with NO PROBLEM. Possibly much higher, some people hit 3.9Ghz on aircooling(if you're extremely lucky)

You may need to change your memory ratio to 5:4 (and boost your CPU voltage) if you do get a high overclock.

You shouldnt "fry" especially if you gradually bump up the FSB, then test for stability. Bump up 5Mhz (FSB at a time) then run Prime95 for 5 minutes as a quick test. Keep going until it wont run Prime95 then back down those last 5 Mhz and try running Prime95 for an hour. If it still doesnt work back down another 5Mhz and let it run for an hour or so.

I've found you dont need to run Prime95 for 24 hours like some people preach. If it runs it for an hour, you should be fine running anything else b/c nothing taxes a system like Prime95.