I have a scaled down OEM bios (Phoenix Tech 6.00 pg). I would like to flash the bios. I'm a novice and I'm unsure about these things. I want to over-clock the cpu. I'm looking to get my feet wet. Can you steer me to the easiest and safest way to do this?

You have an emachine...the BIOS is deliberately crippled so that you can't play with the settings. That cuts down on support calls & RMAs due to BIOS tampering. You may be able to flash to a newer emachine BIOS, but that won't gain you any overclockibility. Flashing to a non-emachine BIOS may render the board useless. If you insist on trying to overclock, do a search for overclocking software such as SoftFSB, CPUFSB, or ClockGEN ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

The safest way to begin to "get your feet wet" is to d/l software overclocking and try overclocking your graphics card if you can. Later you might want to buy a new mobo or build yourself a whole new system and do some minor BIOS overclocking. Also, not only emachines but most other manufactured systems lock out overclocking options so don't go to a new brand thinking you can overclock them. Build-in-Progress: NZXT Nemesis Elite Athlon 64 3200 Abit An8 OCZ EL PE Rev2 DDR400 X800PRO

Thanks for the information. I was unaware of the fact that there was no way to over-ride the locked bios settings of a manufacturer. Also, I have overclocked my video card with good success, but was not too successful with the cpu overclocking software. I probably lack understanding. My timing for asking questions is off since I just bought this system. (I just want to play.)

You spent how much on a machine and you want to overclock it without any knowledge or experience, but just to be able to say you overclock it? People who do this don't buy eMachines. And people who do this can burn up components. But hey, it's your cash! You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users