An Overclocking Journey:
What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been…
Written: 11/26/99
Written by: DivideBy0
Okay, I admit it... I’ve been bitten by the infamous and
merciless “silicon bug” in a bad way. I didn’t fully realize my dilemma
(disease) until I stumbled across an article named “The Silicon Money Pit: Part 1” on the SharkeyExtreme website. Not
unlike any other day, I was trolling through the tangled web of techno-babble on the web
searching for that one “golden nugget” that would put me over the edge and give
me that extra 10mhz of processor speed (like I’ll ever NOTICE the advantage of 10mhz)
or the 5 frames per second to play my favorite 3D games (Again… Like I’ll ever
SEE the difference 5 FPS provides).
But, today WAS different… It wasn’t hard for the article’s
title to catch my attention. So, I started reading. My attention was fixated like a baby
staring at a mobile. The further I read into the article, the more my emotions were mixed.
Yes, it was a witty and humorous article, but at the same time it hit home hard. I was
confronted with the harsh reality that I was being described in the article. Immediately I
was defensive and denial set in. “Oh no, not me…” As I went on, I
eventually lowered my head in defeat, raised my white flag, and surrendered. You just can’t
deny the symptoms when they’re put in front of your nose in plain old black and
white. I still don’t see myself as a “geek” in ANY sense of the word. I
think I’m a really hip kind of guy. Hmmm… How’s that expression go? Oh
yeah, “Denial is not a river in Egypt.”
So here I am... Over a year from the ATT 486DX2 66 system with the 1
gigabyte Western Digital hard drive and none the richer. Ahhh… Much can change in a
year’s time. And you know what? A lot has changed. I won’t bore you with the
details of every upgrade and change I’ve gone through over the past six months
(Everyone... Say, “Thank you.”) But, to make a long story short, in my
zealousness I’ve made some bad hardware decisions. I skimmed over the overclocking
newsgroups and forums instead of “reading” them and I paid a premium to get
where I’m at now because of it. When I saw that people were overclocking their
Celeron 300A and 366PPGA processors, I only saw the Celeron part and went out and bought
myself a brand new Celeron 433. If I have a faster processor to start with, I can
overclock it more… Right? Gee, I thought I’d be able to pay a little more
attention to detail with 8 ½ years of military training under my belt. Needless to say,
trial and error has been both my worst enemy and closest ally through this whole journey.
No wonder the “experts” don’t usually post specific answers to some of the
basic questions in the newsgroups and forums. No matter how tedious it seems, I’ve
found it more beneficial to do the research on your own than to have the answers handed to
you.
I think I’ve got a keeper right now. So here’s a somewhat
detailed account of my current system. (Read quickly, this list may change at any given
moment):
Next page: The journey begins
[Page 1] [Page
2] [Page 3] [Home]
|
