Part 1: What is "overclocking"? "Overclocking" is simply making your CPU (Central Processing Unit) process information faster. How does this work? Well, basically, by re-arranging special things called "jumpers" which are located to the right of your CPU, you can adjust the speed that the CPU runs at. I'm sure your asking yourself "Well, if I can make the CPU go faster...why doesn't Apple just sell the computers with the chips set at their maximum speed?" The answer to this is: Apple sells the chips at different speeds because their are many different uses for a computer. For the people that just use them for word processing and some light graphics work, they would only need about 300MHz, which isn't all that fast a speed compared to what these chips are capable of. Then there are the people that like to surf the net, do some video gaming, work with graphics and maybe even do some video work. A good speed for that is somewhere around the 400MHz mark. Finally, there are the group of people that do major graphics and video work, heavy, heavy gaming and other things that demand wicked speed. They are the people who would need state-of-the-art speed...500MHz. However, no matter how fast these chips are set to run at, they are still all the same chip except for one factor: quality. The quality of a 300MHz chip differs incredibly from the 500MHz chip. When these chips are made, they are put through a series of tests. First they test the chip at 300MHz. If it works, they test it at 350MHz. If it works, they test it at 400MHz. If the chip doesn't work while running at 400MHz, it is classified as a 350MHz chip. But sometimes, they use a really good-quality chip (like a 500MHz chip) at a slower speed (maybe 350MHz) because that is what was needed at the time. So they had an excellent chip, but didn't use it to its full extent because they were in the process of building a slower machine. So one day, Joe walks into a store and buys a 350MHz G3, because he only does a little graphics work and word processing for his business. Takes it home, hooks it up, and is very pleased with its performance. But oh-no! Joe got fired from his job the next day! Luckily, the day after, he finds a great new job doing video editing and beta-testing great new games. But Joe runs into a problem...his computer is no longer fast enough for him. Now Joe has two options. Sell it for about 2/3rds of the price even though its only a day old, or he could open that baby up and overclock it. What Joe doesn't know is, is that he bought the computer Apple shipped out as a 350MHz machine but can really run at 500MHz! So he decides, "Ah, screw the warranty, Apple makes good stuff...nothin' will break." So he opens up the computer in less than 2 seconds (thank god for that easy-access panel!) and rips off the "warranty void" sticker. He then carefully pulls off the jumper cap and pulls out his bag of spare jumpers. He sticks a jumper here and another over there and ta-da, he's finished. Closes that baby up again and presses the power button. "Wow," Joe thinks to himself, "it sure is startin' up faster than usual!" When it finishes booting up, he opens up the Apple System Profiler and almost faints. Joe sure got lucky with the spots he chose to put those SCSI ID jumpers. His "350MHz" G3 now runs at a whopping 500Mhz!! If he had bought a 500MHz machine at the store, it would have cost him an extra 2K, at least! So basically, Joe just got a 500MHz computer from Apple for about half-price!!! And guess what...you can too!