Windows 7: Overclocking For Dummies!

Hi guys, new here! I have a Acer aspire 1 netbook rocking a Intel Atom(R) N450 CPU 1.66Ghz



Can i overclock this?

How do i overclock this? My apologies to the oldies who know overclocking back to front! Any help is greatly appreciated.

It is highly recommended to NOT, I repeat, NOT overclock a laptop, notebook, or netbook. They are known to have heat issues as is and there is not really anyway to improve there cooling system. Overclocking is almost exclusively done on desktop computers. If someone is interested in learning how to overclock, they use start out on an older desktop that they don't mind if it gets ruined in the process.

To give some basic info on overclocking, you send more power to the CPU. This allows the CPU to run at a higher clock rate than it was originally designed to. Because the CPU is working harder, it is also generating more heat. Some people think that water is the worst enemy of electronics, but it isn't. Heat is. If the CPU overheats too badly, then you basically fry the whole thing. Fortunately, they make a number of aftermarket cooling systems for desktops, including watercooling systems for keeping the heat of the CPU down.

Thanks for some info, I know how overclocking kinda works, i used to water cool game consoles so im 100% with that. I know you should'nt overclock a laptop, netbook ect. But i dont have a home desk top in my room yet. And this netbook is kinda slow. Will a RAM upgrade speed the system up? I do also wish to learn how to overclock effectively.

Its getting almost cliche for this to be said, but stick a SSD in it. It will feel so much faster. Also more ram will help too.

Well, trying to overclock a netbook won't do anything but significantly reduce the life of it. A RAM upgrade would probably help a lot. The only thing you need to do is see how much RAM you have, and how much you can actually install. Some netbooks only have one DIMM slot, while others have two. Some mobos and CPUs have a faily low limit of how much can be used. I also think Windows 7 starter can only use 2GB of RAM.

Thanks for the help guys, its running windows 7 Extreme Edition R1 32 bit, the mobo only has 1 slot for RAM so i take it, it would could manage 2Gb? Cheers for the help again guys.

According to Intel, it can handle 2 GB. It also says that the RAM as to be DDR2-667.

Intel® Atom

Cheers! My current is DDR3 1024MB

DDR2 PC2-6400 (800Mhz) is the top Ram supported by all your kit, I can't help but ask how you got DDR3 to work ?

Hi, I have an MSI Wind netbook and the manufacturer has built in 3 levels of overclock in the bios that you activate via a hotkey, none of which it guarantee's to work .

I have successfully used up to level 2, if I remember correctly I gained approx 15%

However I never really noticed a difference in performance using it as intended ie: A NETBOOK lol .

I'm also lucky in that the MSI supports 2GB ram . But as previous posters have said ssd is biggest improvement after ram.

A ram upgrade tutorial for aspire one How to upgrade an Acer Aspire One netbook's memory ? reghardware

You will also find some on youtube .

Hope this helps

Nightreaper.