i want to overclock my crap ass Celron D so i can multitask and listen to music at the same time without lagging.
i have an ASUS P4S800-MX-UAY67 motherboard
1X 512 MB DDR400 ram stick and a 256 MB DDR400 stick
Radeon 9550 256MB
Celron D 2.4GHZ processor
windows XP pro.
and a 200gb hard drive.

how can i overclock my CPU to a better speed
i've read some forums and some people say that they got theirs up to 3.6GHZ!!!
i need a step by step guide how to do it

Buy a 3.6 P-4 and sell the Celrond on Craigs list as overclocking the celron will eventually burn it up and you will have to upgrade anyway. Overclocking can overheat and shorten the life of your board also. This way you get something out of the celron. Oh and add as many fans as the case can support for the P-4 especially if it is a preshott chip.

Michael
@Working Computers

Do NOT listen to the above.

All you can do is try & see how far you can get. You're biggest problem will be your motherboard...SiS based boards are not the greatest.

I wrote this recently for someone else. I had to change it a bit to fit an Intel system:

"...you should strive to run both the CPU & RAM at the same bus speed. Since you have a locked 133MHz (533FSB) CPU & 200MHz (DDR400) RAM, you're gonna have to shoot for something in between.

Go into the BIOS & lock the AGP speed at 66MHz, change the DRAM setting from "BY SPD" to 100% (or if there's a CPU:DRAM ratio, set it to 1:1), disable all Spread Spectrum settings, then begin raising the FSB a little (3-5MHz) at a time. Reboot & test your system after every change...if the system becomes unstable, you can try adding a little voltage (0.025v at a time) to the CPU to see if you can get it to stabilize. It's all trial & error & it will take some time. Keep an eye on your temps. Once you're satisfied with your clock settings, run a couple of Stress Tests to see if your system remains stable under load. TOAST is one program you can try...Super Pi is another. Still another is Prime95, or try the newer version called Stress Prime 2004. These programs will run continuously until you stop them. Try TOAST for 30-60 mins, if there are no probs, move on to Prime...let it run for a couple of hours. If you have no problems, blue screens, lockups, overheating, etc, you should be good to go.

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_cpu.html

http://www.sp2004.fre3.com/download.htm

thanks for that, i was actually thinking that buying a new P-4 would be easier, and save time, cause i will only be using this computer for just under a year cause i'm upgrading at christmas. thanks anyway, i already have 4 fans in it and it runs fine now but it pisses me off when it laggs.

Overclocking speeds up everything including the time a machine will last. If you have money to throw away then overclock your components but it is a rich mans game. Processors are fast enough now that overclocking is not needed to run even the high end games. I worked on one overclockers machine and everything in the box was worn beyond repair. Upgrading to a better machine or chip makes more sense as you void any warranties and make the components useless to anyone.

Michael
@Working Computers

X-bit Labs rated the Celeron D quite highly actually, especially for it's ability to be overclocked:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/celeron-d_15.html

Excerpt:

"One more important thing resulting from the shift to a new 90nm Prescott core is the increased overclocking potential of the Celeron D processors. Our first overclocking experiments indicated that Celeron D processors can reach pretty high frequencies when overclocked. And the performance in this case appears comparable with that of the Pentium 4 3GHz, which is a pretty high achievement for a $100 CPU, I should say. Therefore, Celeron D processors should be much more beloved by overclocking fans than their Northwood based fellows. In general, I have to admit that Celeron D is a pretty competitive CPU for low-cost PCs. This processor will become an excellent choice for many user’s out there."

Dig