can i overclock my Processor?

jwgeetar said:

hey all, i bought my last 2 PC's already built. on my new one here(see my sig) can i overclock it? been 5 years since i have done that....thx

Your question is kind of hard to answer for a number of reasons...

First off we would need to know exactly what it is you have??? In particular, the motherboard - make & model, what BIOS it has, as well as version number? What CPU you have – speed as well as part number and lot number. What type and brand of RAM you have, including timings and voltage rating? Video card - make and model? Power supply?

As you can see from the above, it is critical that you completely fill out your systems specs, as well as providing the addional info asked before we could even begin to anwser your question in a fruitful way.

Its one thing to say yeah you can overclock, it's another thing to provide you with the correct info to do so.

And then there are these questions...

What's you level of computer experience?
Have you ever overclocked before?
Do you know how to tweak a BIOS?
Do you feel comfortable making voltage adjustments within the BIOS?
Do you know what hardware you have?

Not trying to overwhelm, just giving you something to think about.

My two cents.

sygnus21 said:

First off we would need to know exactly what it is you have???

Yep, only 48 variations on the model number posted,

Product search results

Based on all of the HPs I see at work, I don't think there are enough accessible settings in an HP desktop to actually do any meaningful overclocking anyway. You need a BIOS with most of the tweakable settings like Vcore, RAM voltage, NB voltage, etc., available to do it properly.

Even then, the stock power supply will probably not be strong enough for the increased load from the o/c.

Overclocking is a complicated process to begin with, and trying to do it on a machine with a largely uncooperative BIOS isn't going to get you very far, and it just increases the risk of component failure.

My $.02

download this program from the makers of ccleaner, its called speccy and will give detailed info about your hardware like the processor and motherboard Speccy - System Information - Free Download

Since it's an OEM computer (HP), I can almost guarantee the Bios is locked and you will be unable to overclock it.