is this something that a noobie like myself can do? is there any sort of comprehensive guide/writeup out there?

 

?

 

eh... it can be trickey. You might be able to get a little bit more out of it... but not a ton without some good knowledge and some money.

 

just go right into your BIOS and change all those little numbers to bigger numbers h:

 

Spend the money and get a faster processor/RAM. Its cheaper going faster than it is to fry everything and rebuild it.

 

i'm not going for a huge leap in performance. i have a p4 2.4ghz and i'd be very happy for 2.8 or 2.6.

 

Then get a new processor, besides that small of a jump from 2.4 to 2.6 isn't gonna make it or break it.

 

bet you wont notice the difference in speed

 

i use it a lot for vid encoding, so proc speeds are very proportionate to encoding time. so a 10%-15% faster proc means about 10-15% time saved

 

easiest thing to do is to go into your BIOS and increase the FSB by 5-10mhz and see if windows will boot and then use it like that for a day and see how well things work. maybe the next day bump it another 5mhz.

If you don't know how to get into the BIOS... it's probably just as well left alone. Kinda like, if you don't know how to open your hood, you shouldn't be installing CAM Gears.