3. "Jane, stop this crazy thing!"

So, now that we've got a bootable rig, how do you get under the hood to start goofing around? You'll need to pay attention when you hit the power button (and RTFM), because the way to your computer's heart is through it's stomach keyboard. You'll need to press one of the Function keys, or Delete, or whatever your manufacturer prescribes to get into the BIOS. Often, this is depicted on your POST (power on self-test) screen as "Press [whatever] to enter Setup."

At this point, in large, friendly DOS-style lettering, you'll see your BIOS. Get your hand off the mouse, chief, we're in Keyboard-Only Land.

4. "It's not stupid; it's advanced."

There are a lot of things to play with in here, from power management to fan and hard drive speed & noise controls, but we're going to go rampaging straight for the tweakers' paradise of CPU and RAM optimization, which typically lurks in the "Advanced" or "Frequency" sub-sections -- usually, going into both areas will give you the best results. The specific names of these sections differ among manufacturers (of course), but they tend towards "Boring and Obvious" as far as naming conventions.

Going into the CPU configuration, there are three primary things we're looking to play with -- the FSB, the multiplier, and the voltage. The FSB and multiplier govern how fast you're going to push the CPU, and the voltage adjustments are how you get it there (or, for folks building silent systems for something like HTPC duty, under-clocking/under-volting to lower the heat generated to employ quieter cooling solutions).

Again with the warnings: Pushing too much juice to your CPU and/or memory can seriously damage them, especially without adequate cooling. Do so at your own risk, etc, etc, etc.

Hand-in-hand with the FSB is what ratio of that speed you're going to have your memory operating. In a perfect world, we'd be able to jack up the FSB as far as we want, lowering the multiplier to keep the CPU from committing thermal seppukku as need be, and keep a 1:1 ratio throughout. Also, BI wants a million dollars and a pony. This runs up against the harsh world of reality in three ways:

1. Your motherboard's chipset can't cope with infinitely increasing frequencies (depending on chipset, voltage tolerances, cooling, and luck, this varies; most quality units can get up above 400MHz, and some over 500MHz)
2. Your CPU can't scale its FSB infinitely
3. Your memory will scream uncle at some point

Taking all those factors into consideration, there's a balancing act that needs to be done to squeeze the best mix of FSB, overall clockspeed, and memory performance out of any given mix of components. There's a lot of trial and error that goes into this, and the errors usually result in a system that resolutely refuses to turn on (which is much better than having small, expensive bits of silicon explode). You will get very, very familiar with the CMOS reset procedure of your motherboard as you push the edge of the capabilities of your system.