Overclocking
From HvWiki
Overclocking is raising the speed of certain components within your computer. People do this for several reasons. The first is getting the best performance out of parts. Another is to save money by buying cheaper components and increasing the parts. One other reason is that it is a hobby. The speed a semiconductor is capable of is closely related to the voltage and the temperature so increasing the voltage and improving cooling is the most important parts of successful overclocking.
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Stability
To make sure your computer is stable you need to run some tests both before and after you overclock. Each program should run for at least a day with the temperature above normal to make sure the computer is reasonably stable. If you have any problems with programs crashing or other instability issues you should undo the overclocking of all components and don't complain or report it until you have duplicated the problem.
Test software
Processor
There are 2 ways to overclock your CPU - turning up the multiplier, or turning up the bus speed. The multiplier and the bus speed determine the CPU's clock speed like this: 
For example, a Northwood core Celeron 2 ghz has a bus speed of 100mhz and a multiplier of 20, giving a clock speed of 2ghz. All AMD Athlon, Opteron, Athlon 64, Sempron and Duron processors have locked multipliers, and all Intel Xeon, Pentium Extreme Edition, Pentium 4, Celeron (Williamette, Northwood, and Prescott), Pentium M, and Celeron M processors have locked multipliers. On Athlon XP's however, you can unlock the multiplier using pencil lead to close a gap. Pentium 3 and earlier processors have unlocked multipliers which can be changed from BIOS usually. On an Athlon 64 or a Celeron Northwood for example, in order to overclock, you would have to turn up the bus speed. This is done from the IOS/motherboard settings under "Frequency and Voltage Settings" or "Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.)" or the like.
Overclocking a processor often requires turning up the CPU's voltage. This is so the computer is more stable, because an overclocked processor can give errors because of low voltage. This can cause damage and overheating however, so be very cautious.
Memory
Overclocking memory can be complicated. Using cheap memory is very limiting, and overclocking can cause damage to your RAM. To overclock it, go into your motherboard settings, and simply raise the speed of the RAM. You may also have to raise the voltage for stability.
Graphics Accelerator
This is a simple one, but can cause damage to your graphics accelerator or other parts of your computer just as the other kinds of overclocking can.
One of the easiest ways to overclock a video card on a Microsoft Windows computer is to use the shareware program PowerStrip. The limitation of not registering is a pop-up help window on startup. Open performance settings and raise the GPU and memory speed bars until it is unstable, then back off a little. This can cause overheating however, and games might run with object's textures not showing up and other problems.
