One last thing I recommend before leaving Windows and entering the BIOS is to jot down your stock settings on a piece of paper. You may or may not need them later, but unless you have these things memorized, which at this point you may not know your CPU voltage, knowing them may come in handy while you are in the BIOS, saving you the trouble of restarting your rig just to see them.

Stock FSB (the three digit number)-266
Multiplier -9
CPU Voltage-1.232v (very important to know this)
Memory Speed-DDR2-800


Boot up the rig, and start pressing the “delete” key once a second or so until the BIOS opens, or you get a message “entering setup”. Be aware that some motherboards require a different key. ASRock uses the “F2” key, this is usually mentioned on the POST splash screen. Once the BIOS opens, enter the “MIT Tweaker” menu. Set the CPU Clock Control to “enabled”. Now we're ready to start raising the FSB. Highlight the “CPU Clock Frequency” and press the “+” key. If you look towards the top of the screen, you'll see that the CPU Frequency has changed.

If you aren't familiar with BIOS, they generally are set up with similar functions in the same menu. Surf around your BIOS to familiarize yourself with its setup. Specifically, you want to know the location of FSB settings, memory settings, and voltage settings. Hopefully they are all in the same menu, but often you have to move around between two or three menus to find all of the relevant settings.


Another item I recommend you locate is the setting for Intel SpeedStep, also known as EIST, or Enhanced Intel SpeedStep. This is Intel's power saving setting, it causes the CPU multiplier to drop to 6 when the CPU is idle. It doesn't affect overclocking, but it makes it a pain to check the CPU speed in CPUZ. If your BIOS also has a setting for C1E, which will be located in the same menu as SpeedStep, disable it too. In this particular BIOS, these settings are in the “Advanced BIOS Features” menu. Asus motherboards often have these settings in the “CPU Configuration” menu. I also recommend disabling these functions when using benchmarking software.