first time overclocking

[Ihatewalmart]

Can it really ruin the computer?

My specs are:

asus p4s800d-x,
2gb of ram,
300gb hard drive,
intel pentium 4 2.8GHz,
xfx geforce 6600 256mb,
3 really good fans on a controller.


I want to overclock my graphics card but don't know what program to use!!!

 

[TheMajor]

Yes, you can kill your computer.
Try RivaTuner for the graphics card.

 

[Ihatewalmart]

will it kill my computer if i only overclock the graphics card?

Can you stop overclocking once you start?

 

[TheMajor]

You basicaly set your parts to a higher speed. If you set them to high it can be damaging.
You should increase the clock speed of your graphics card by a few MHz, then run some demanding application like 3DMark or a heavy game for some time, then set it a bit higher and try again. If you get artifacts, strange colors or anything else, set the speed a bit slower. You can stop at any time and reset default settings.

Overclocking the graphics card shouldn't affect other parts, but anything can happen.

 

[Ihatewalmart]

thanx

 

[Ihatewalmart]

I can't tell a difference.

Do I have to restart to see a difference?

 

[Ihatewalmart]

how long would you give it to see if my computer will die?

 

[TheMajor]

If it doesn't die instantly it probably won't die at all.
Just make sure you aren't getting any weird artifacts in demanding games/3D applications.
After installing RivaTuner and enabling driver based overclocking you can overclock right away.

If you don't see any difference it's probably not worth overclocking for the application you are testing/benchmarking, or you didn't overclock it far enough.