Overclocking XPS 420

Hi zrock_87, Found this on YouTube for you HERE. Not for the faint hearted.

buddy, I see that but I have no intention of going berserk with the whole overclocking thing and then using q6600 for grilling bbq.  I only wanna overclock a little bit which stays stable on STOCK COOLING.  I was just asking if software would be ok and not messing up other components if you know what i mean.  

Thanks for the vid, I already saw it but way too fussy and not to mention "risky".

Such a small bump in speed would only be noticed in benchmarks, and then not alot of increase in performance.

Hello zrock_87, There are ways to overclock the Q6600 CPU.

The way many do this is a hardware modification. While it appears to be reasonably easy to do, I would not recommed it at all.

If it fails, so does the Q6600, and maybe even the motherboard and memory, and who knows what else.

By overclocking the Q6600 to the 1333 mhz clock speed, you could also install 1066 mhz memory, instead of the maximum 800 mhz memory

But by the time you do all this, for a little more money you could just upgrade to a newer system with the specifications that would be more to your likeing.

Just some thoughts.

I see what are you saying but I dont plan on doing any of that.  I would just like to bump up the cpu speed only by .1 or .2ghz stable.  I was just wondering if it would be safe to do it by the software.  Thats it.  Thanks.

not to mention "risky".

Not to mention impossible with the Dell bios.

I've not heard of Clockgen being able to work with the 420 ( does on some 410 mb's ).

The other option is the pin mod that many here have done

http://www.flickr.com/photos/osunick/2474963684/

The stock Dell cooler has proven to be satisfactory for this.

I see what are you saying.  But, Dell should really consider unlocking the bios because once you buy it its yours you know and Dell really shouldnt "control" us like that especially the xps desktops.  Thanks for the help guys, I'll just stick with the stock speed.

Hello zrock_87, I understand your point. I believe the decision by Dell to "lock" the XPS 420 BIOS is more of a marketing strategy than anything else.

If the end user could manipulate the BIOS settings and get the results as their higher end systems, that would cut back on the higher end system sales.

I don't necessarily fault them for this, and I may be wrong about this as well.

Just some thoughts.

I see what are you saying.  But, Dell should really consider unlocking the bios because once you buy it its yours you know and Dell really shouldnt "control" us like that especially the xps desktops.  Thanks for the help guys, I'll just stick with the stock speed.  :emotion-6:

I'll just stay with stock speeds to avoid any warranty issues.  I'm coming from Alienware so, its a big change for me.  Its not like that I overclocked my Alienware but q6600 on the other hand is a good chip for overclocking.

But, this is so ludicrious lol.  Its not like that you are getting xps 420 for $500 either.  XPS users in my opinion should be allowed to overclock but it doesnt matter what I or anybody says for that matter because DELL care$ about monie$.  :emotion-1:

When i responded before I hadnt read about the bsel mod or the tape mod.  So what you are saying that the dell cooling is adequate for like 3.0ghz but is it really worth voiding your warranty lol.  Very risky to get a little bit of performance increase lol.  :)

So what about the pinmod.  Would that mess up the ram as well?  Thanks.

Yes it would. Since you would be running the CPU at 1333 mhz instead of the original 1066 mhz, and the BIOS has the CPU/Ram ratio, the memory would be overclocked as well to 1066 mhz.

Your normal 667 mhz or 800 mhz simply would fail to run at the newly created memory speed.

Hope this is not too confusing, and helps.

[quote user="zrock_87"]So what about the pinmod.  Would that mess up the ram as well?  Thanks.

Yes it would. Since you would be running the CPU at 1333 mhz instead of the original 1066 mhz, and the BIOS has the CPU/Ram ratio, the memory would be overclocked as well to 1066 mhz.

Your normal 667 mhz or 800 mhz simply would fail to run at the newly created memory speed.

Hope this is not too confusing, and helps.

[/quote]

If that was the case the pin mod would not work and in fact it does. It does not affect the external bus it trick the processor into thinking the bus is higher.