how can a pc  be safely overclocked without  crashing it?
365544
When a processor is developed, the manufacturer tests it at increasingly faster clock speeds until it no longer passes tests that indicate it to be "reliable under normal operating conditions".  Often, this is more a limitation of normal heat disappation (sink and fan) than an actual physical limitation.  Over time the processor "family" progresses to higher speeds as the fabrication is refined, however they are still sold at the original clock speed for marketing and sales reasons even though it is capable of higher speeds.  This has been a common practice in the PC industry for a long time now.\n\nSafely overclocking includes several factors, one of the most important of which is proper heat disappation.  As clock speeds increase, so does heat.  Using "standard" cooling methods is insufficient.  The more overclocked, the more efficient the heat disappation must be.  Some rigs include refridgeration units to keep the CPU cool enough.  Too much heat = dead PC.\n\nSome folks overclock their memory and video cards as well.  Heat is another factor here just as it is with the CPU.\n\nAnother primary concern is clock speeds.  Some PC busses (high speed interconnects on the motherboard) must be running at the same clock speed of the CPU.  These must match correctly for the components(such as video and memory) to communicate properly with the FSB (front-side bus) and/or CPU.  Many motherboard manufacturers include features targeted primarily for overclockers to remove the guesswork, but some do not so this must be done "manually" by setting the BIOS properly.\n\nMemory latency is another issue that must be addressed by overclockers who want to squeeze the most performance out of their setups.  Having improperly configured CAS timings can negatively offset any CPU speed increase from overclocking and may even make the system unstable to the point where it crashes.\n\nIf you're new to overclocking I'd recommend a lot of research (and a few dollars worth of mistakes) before succeeding.  I used to overclock, and have several friends who still love to overclock just to have bragging rights.  Once overclocking moved into the world of custom cooling solutions I lost interest, but I still understand why folks do it.
703676
Overclocking refers to a process that pushes your parts past the manufacturer's specified speed (the manufacturer here is eVGA, a very reputable company.)  Overclocking voids any waranty that you have on the card.  If you plan on buying the part from a reputable store and just plugging and playing, then you do not need to worry.  It will still be under warranty and will not smoke.  \n\nIf you are buying the card off of eBay, I would not purchase unless you are an experienced overclocker.\n\nBy the way, I have this card and it is a very good card.  No need to worry.
567056
Overclocking is running your CPU (processor) at a frequency (speed) higher than that advertised. Don't worry about overclocking. If you don't know what you are doing and you try to overclock, you _will_ damage your computer irreperably.\n\n2GB RAM should be sufficient (is it fast enough? ;-).\nYou might consider getting a faster CPU, a bigger HD, faster video card, better sound card, etc., depending on your needs. (If the sound quality sucks or you are an audiophile, get a better sound card; if the video is slow, get a better video card; etc.)\n\nJudging by the company who made your computer, you might just want to build a new one from scratch. If you're interested, read my article about that at http://www.sitespaces.net/blog.php?viewblog&706\n\nAfter your computer is built, you should also look at "how can i increase [my] system speed?" on Yahoo Answers - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006050513853
249237
Well, the program called CPU-Z at http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php will help you in the overclocking process, but overclocking requires you to access the motherboard and change settings. This can not be done by software alone, sorry.
981774
You can't really. The whole idea of a PC crash or power cut is that it is unexpected. There is no way to have a progam expect the unexpected. The only option I could think of would be two save often. Then when something goes wrong you only have to rebuild a little of your work
104462
if i were you i would NOT do it.Send it to a computer guy if you still wanna overclock it.
140165
Well it all depends on how good your computer is, RAM, processor, ect. But it shouldt crash your computer, no.
725043
Unfortunately, no.  Unlike RAM on the motherboard, you can not add RAM to your graphic card.  However, you can overclock your graphic card to increase its speed.  Its a free way to boost your graphics card performance. Are you familiar with "overclocking?"  Manufacturers usually set a graphic card to work at a safe speed, giving it a large safety margin.  However, it is usually safe to excedd this speed without damaging your card. Nvida cards comes with a program built-in called "coolbits" which allows users to run the cards at a higher speed.  If you want to know more about overclocking your graphics card, read:\n\n"Secret Tweaks: 20 unexpected ways to unleash the true potential of the technology products you already own." --pcworld.com (http://msn.pcworld.com/article/id,119267-page,2/article.html)\n\nVideo Overclocking Made Easy\n\nMost of the overclocking buzz is not about turning a PC into a supercomputer. Instead, it's about gamers being able to see, navigate, run, and shoot faster and smoother. Not surprisingly, you can overclock the processors on your graphics card in much the same way you would your main CPU. Video gaming has come a long way since Pong first appeared on TV-style monitors in the early 1980s. Even if you don't play video games, boosting the performance of your graphics system can enhance the enjoyment of videos and business presentations.\n\nYour graphics speed boost comes from within, without your having to pop the case. To start, simply download the appropriate graphics board hacking tool for the brand of card you have. NVidia has even built overclocking settings into its latest drivers. To enable them, open the Windows Registry editor by going to Start, Run, typing regedit, and pressing Enter. Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/NVIDIA Corporation/Global/NVTweak/," right-click the right pane of the editor and choose to add a new DWord called coolbits. Edit that entry and give it a hex value of 3, then close your Registry editor. The NVidia tab (Figure 5) under your PC's advanced display properties settings will now feature a "Clock Frequency Settings" page that allows you to adjust memory and graphics chip clock speeds for your board. Click the "Detect Optimal Frequencies" button if you want the utility to try to find safe overclocked settings for your graphics board.
306870
First, you shouldn't overclock. Especially with something as expensive as that. When your CPU tries to go faster than it's made for, it heats up dramatically. Yeah yeah you have a great cooling system. It doesn't matter. Your machine will experience lock-ups. You will kill the poor thing.
276595
use any motherboard you like
102130
Download and run "Coolbits 2.0" Click OK twice.\nIt's a registry entry which unlocks the hidden overclocking features built into the forceware drivers.\n\nATITool 0.25 Beta 10+ also works fine for overclocking nVidia cards, although when you're trying to find the maximum core overclock, it starts from your 2D setting - just annoying. You can use ATITool to scan for artifacts (errors).\n\nThe new "Detect Optimal Frequencies" button (after running Coolbits 2.0) dosen't always find the right clock speeds. For example, my XFX 7800GT (450/1050mhz stock) was supposed to have an optimal core overclock of 474mhz. Although the card wouldn't run anything properly unless I set it back to 469mhz. At the moment, I have my 7800GT running at 465/1200mhz nice and stable.\n\nHave Fun.
862321
you should use your bios to do so,by  pressing the delete button while your PC is starting up, in the bios menu there should be a clock speed in megahertz setting that you can change, for instance from 100 Hertz to 110 Hertz, this will change the speed of the CPU from higher to lower respectively. But I would not recommend overclocking AMD CPU, the AMD tends to run much warmer than Intel PC, so add extra coolers or upgrade the CPU fan before overclocking it, monitor the CPU temperature carefully afterwords, especially after heavy processing, if  applications start behaving strangely, then I would recommend switching back to the normal settings
432385
it seems to be an overclocking problem - the system became instable. reset all clocking values back to the defaults.
42065
In order to overclock you need to have a motherboard that allows u to do that in 1st place.  With that type of motherboard one can change the settings in the bios (at startup ur computer might say something like "press F2 to enter setup").  once in the bios seetings (for an Intel processor based system) you increase the Front Side Bus (FSB) frequency and that will turn ur 2.8 GHz cpu into a 3.1 GHz cpu or possibly even higher.  upside is better/faster performance for no cost, downside shorten life of cpu and can cause ur computer to be unstable.
77369
Most overclocking is done in the motherboard bios, or changing jumpers on the board.\n\nThe most common way is to change the multiplier, so the chip runs faster than the speed it was intended. Another way is to change the front side bus clock speed.\n\nyou should access the computer bios and look for this options, or read the mb manual and look if you need to modify the jumpers.\n\nso there is no new software needed to overclock, its already on the computer\n\n=)
90128
Intel has some nice boards. Although I haven't had an Intel board for that series of processor myself ,I've heard that the ones that Intel offers are very stable and very reliable.  If you want to overclock, then you don't want an Intel board, as they will not allow it.
615305
I'm going to answer the question I think you really have. You imply that the memory clock speed shouldn't be your first concern. And I say this for several reasons. First, the memory clock frequency is tied closely to the operation of several hardware systems from the CPU to memory management to bus control (these last will usually, in PC types systems, be in various sections of the chipset on the motherboard). some motherboards have BIOSes which include routines for changing (in proper coordination amngst the various hardware systems which must interact exactly and without error of any kind) the memory clock speed (or the CPU operating clock, or both or ...). But if your PC soesn't work at all, this kind of fundamental change is nto what you should be about first. \n\nInstead, you should be trying to get the machine to boot at all. Replace the current RAM with the RAM you removed. If that allows the PC to boot and operate, you've established that the memory clock frequency isn't the problem. Perhaps a mismatch between the memory's operating requirements (timing, voltage, ...) and what the motherboard (chipset, CPU, BIOS settings, ...) provides.\n\nIf you've done anything clever, like for instance, some overclocking adjustments, now is the time to back them out since you don't know whether any of these (rpobably) not engeneered by the designers adjustments are causing the problem. Perhaps a transistor deep in the chipset or CPU has \nfinally given up due to heat (from high clock speeds) or too high voltage, or both, for it to endure and has failed, thus preventing the entire system from booting. \n\nIf you cannot, after getting the operating settings and conditions as vanilla as possible, get your machine to work, again the memory clock speed is not your main problem. \n\n========\nboot stages\n\nYou have not distinguished between boot failures in your question. There are several stages, and it's important to distinguish amongst them for troubleshooting purposes.\n\nWhen a CPU powers up from a power off state  or a cold start (not the same as a reduced power hibernating state), it is hardwired (at the silicon factory) to execute the instruction found at this or that address. If there is already some software there (usually as some sort of firmware in ROM, eg your BIOS), that routine will start. The BIOS in PCs is pretty dumb, but it contains enough information (in combination with the small amount of configuration data in the CMOS memory) to find the display circuits, the floppy drive, any IDE devices (ie, the hard disk(s)), and perhaps a SCSI hard drive or two. The BIOS looks around to find out how much memory there is, may test it briefly to decide whether it works, looks to see whether there's a keyboard or a mouse, .... Because one or more of these may be missing, the original IBM PC BIOS (and many others as well, but not all) included a way to tell the user what's been found (or not found). After all, without a display, the user will never see a message on it. That's the famous beep code business. If you're quick, and you have a list of the meanings of the beeps, this will tell you something about (and perhaps enough) to figure out what has gone wrong. \n\nThe second boot stage (if all has gone well so far) is to go to a particular place on the first hard disk (the Mzster Boot Record in the first sector or two in the first track on that disk, at least on PC hardware) and loads a smarter boot routine. In the case of an operating system, this will be the software which actually loads and starts the operating system. Under Windows, it's just part of the environment at boot time. Under Linux, there are several choices, each with a name. GRUB (the Grand Unified Boot Loader) or LILO (Linux Loader), etc.  That routine knows more about hard disks and about file systems (the BIOS is blissfully ignorant of any of that) and uses that knowledge to find the various parts of the o