Hi guys
as the name of the post implies this is a quick post for novices who want to try some simple overclocking ... nothing too hardcore... just basic safe overclocking to get some extra performance out of your pc
now the main problem many will encounter is oem pc,s such as dell and acer... and these manufactuers have their motherboards built for them and they disable any oc options in the bios... you may see clock frequency options however these are for simple tasks and dont allow you to change fsb,multiplier or voltages...
however you can use programs such as set fsb and clockgen which uses the PLL or clock generator chip on your motherboard.... this can be found on your motherboard and will have something like "ics954119" on the chip .. this is your pll and you will need this when using clockgen or setfsb ... however i recommend clockgen over setfsb.... mainly because its much easier to use and is less confusing for novices

clockgen is split into 4 sections ... however you need to start with pll set up were you will find a drop down list of pll codes.... locate yours and then press "read clocks " ..... then as long as this is correct you can then press "pll control" were you will see your cpu clock speed,memory speed and also pci-express and pci clock speeds... however you only need to concentrate on the top slider which will overclock your fsb and in turn the cpu frequency .... move this in 10mhz increments and then press apply selection ...
during this you should also have speedfan and cpu-z open aswell... speedfan to monitor tempertures and cpu-z to confirm the clock speeds and fsb values..
using my old pentium D 915 i was able to oc this on a oem acer mrs600 motherboard to 3.3ghz from 2.8ghz stock..... and i used 20mhz increments as i knew the pentium D 915 could easily handle 3.3ghz....
clockgen is a excellent utility/tool and it basically overclocks your cpu via the back door... and since manufactuers like acer and dell dont want you to overclock your cpu this is the only way...
however overclocking via the bios is still the best method.... and even the most basic mainstream boards come with some excellent overclocking tools .. and these can be found in either the advanced section of the bios or using specfic options such as mb intelligent tweaker or cell menu....
simple overclocking using these options will basically involve raising your fsb or front side bus which will in turn increase your cpu clock speed.... for example a cpu with a 200mhz fsb and a x12.5 multiplier will give you a 2500mhz clock frequency... and by simply raising the fsb to 233mhz this will increase your clock frequency to 2912mhz... however by increasing it again to 266mhz this will give you a impressive 3325mhz(3.3ghz )
you can go on... for example increase it to 320mhz and you have 4ghz,however you are now getting some serious overclocks.. and this is when you need to also consider increasing your cpu core voltage... however this is delicate and too much voltage to your cpu can fry it..... pure and simple... however this is were i will talk about cooling
with adequate cooling you shouldnt experience any problems.. infact a small overclock such as 33mhz increase can be done with the stock intel/amd cooler... however 4ghz overclocks require a decent 3rd party cpu cooler or water cooling ... and you should ensure you use some decent thermal compound like artic silver mx4 ect
to be honest i wouldnt even start any overclocking until you have both excellent cpu cooling and plenty of case cooling in the shape of 2 or more 120mm fans ....
finally you can also oc with windows based programs such as asrocks "oc tuner" or gigabytes "easytune 3" ... these allow you to tweak the fsb,voltage and fan speeds directly from the windows desktop... however in my opinion these are not as stable as overclocking via the bios..... and as with many windows programs they can experience errors which can affect the overclock.... allways oc in the bios.... its were the pro,s overclock and they acheive some amazing speeds (7ghz )
i hope this has helped.....
peace guys