I need some help with overclocking my PC. I have been having some problems with the system just powering off on its own. I have added another 80GB HD since I bought the unit. I have also added an ATI 9200 video card and an LG 4040b DVD writer. Friends have suggested that I either add cooling and/or entertain overclocking it. This is all very new to me and I dont know where to start. I crave more power from my system but yet effeciency and reliability is also a big factor. Does overclocking reduce reliability and/or stability of PC ? Any help is appreciated. Thanking you all in advance.

I hate to tell you this but when you added the ATI card, you could have asked the power supply to do too much. HP and other proprietary machines are built to just run as configured from the factory and no overhead is built in to handle a higher electrical load. Overclocking is not a fix here and even if you could get a few more Mhz out of your machine, it would likely only add to the problem. The bios on Compaq, Dell, HP and other such machines is stripped down to the basics and overclocking is seldom an option. Adding cooling may or may not be an option. Do you have a means to check cpu and system temps (in bios) now? Skip