Hack 22 Which System Boards Are Hackable?

Read the box and online reviews to determine if your system board might accommodate hacking the system and CPU clock speeds.

Determining if a system board is hackable—that is, whether it supports overclocking of the CPU—is not obvious. Here are some clues to the hackability of a specific board.

• Most boards for do-it-yourself system builders, also known as "white box" or generic products, support customizable CPU clock values.

• Check the technical specs for support for a range of CPU types and speeds, such as those indicating "AMD Athlon Thunderbird through Athlon XP CPUs," or "1.8-3.3 GHz" speeds. Motherboards thus labeled often provide the ability to change system speed settings.

• An Award BIOS is usually a good bet. Most Award BIOS versions implemented by system board vendors provide some parameters to control CPU and bus speeds.

• Look for a system board that includes jumpers or switches with obvious marking as to CPU clock frequencies and CPU clock-multiplier settings.

• If the motherboard instruction manual mentions selectable CPU clock settings, multiplier values, and/or different Front Side Bus (FSB) frequencies, it's somewhat hackable.

Check the usual sources for information about the hackability of various system board products:

• Ask another "PC junkie" for recommendations.

• Search Google for "overclock" and your motherboard model.

• Browse through overclockers.com, motherboards.org, sysopt.com, tweaktown.com, ocia.net, anandtech.com, pcguide.com, and similar web sites for reviews and "case studies" of overclocking experiments and successes.

As you review various system boards, look for examples of and references to additional cooling with larger heat sinks and fans, especially the space around the CPU socket to accommodate a large heat sink. Many articles will also indicate if a larger power supply is required or recommended to run the board, an overclocked CPU, and any additional fans you may be adding to the system.