The first step to overclocking success is getting to know the features and capabilities of your motherboard. The easiest way to do this is to read the motherboard manual and see if the board supports overclocking, and if so, which method it employs. To make sure the feature list is up to date, check the manufacturer's website for any new manual or BIOS revisions. If in doubt, spend some time in some of the USENET overclocking newsgroups, or those areas specific to your motherboard manufacturer. Even reading a product review may shed some light on motherboard features you may be unfamiliar with. Here is a list of the basic motherboard features that need to be identified:

This feature allows the user to increase or decrease the FSB (front-side bus) speed from the CPU default. Many ABIT, ASUS and MSI motherboards offer FSB increases in 1 MHz increments, while standard boards may only offer a small selection of speeds. Some motherboards may not even allow any type of FSB tweaking, and even for those that do, the number of available FSB speeds can differ dramatically between models. The FSB speeds may be selectable through the system BIOS, or physical jumpers may need to be changed to enable the higher speeds. Some manufacturers, such as Gigabyte, offer a software overclocking program that allows FSB manipulation through Windows. If in doubt check the manufacturer's website for any specific software applications.