Help!, unlocking motherboard!

xpuresdr · 27 Dec 2011 at 22:05

hey, I really want to overclock my i3 550 3.2Ghz to around 4Ghz maybe more, i went into the bios of my motherboard and i cant change any settings! there is no option to enable overclocking!
anyway guys looked all over my motherboard this is all the writing i could find
MS-7658 N1996 (im guessing its quite an old motherboard as it came with my pc that i have built up over the years.)
please help me get my bios unlocked so i can overclock my cpu.

if there is no possible way of overclocking with this motherboard i may resort to buying the MSI Z68A-G43-G3 Intel Z68 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-198-MS
any other suggestions are welcome!
thank you.

vanandjuanunited · 27 Dec 2011 at 22:07

Where did you buy it from?
It may not allow oc'ing if it was part of a pre assembled bundle ie Acer etc

xpuresdr · 27 Dec 2011 at 22:09

got the pre built pc from pc world, it is a medion. the only thing left in it that is from the pc is the motherboard, iv replaced everything els - even the case :S.

vanandjuanunited · 27 Dec 2011 at 22:12

Doubt you will be able to do much with it then. Its tied down for a reason. Ie stop people playing. Unless you can find a suitable bios you are out of luck.

xpuresdr · 27 Dec 2011 at 22:14

Oh well i will just find a way to grab my hands on saidd motherboard above.
thanks anyway.

thingemajib · 27 Dec 2011 at 22:46

nooooo - that motherboard you listed is socket 1155, and your i3 is 1156. It wont fit!

you want a P55 or H55 chipset board

xpuresdr · 27 Dec 2011 at 23:07

thanks for the info, might of saved me from wasting £100 there :S, got any suggestions on motherboards that are good for overclocking, support my processor and is able to switch to the i7 in the future?.

thingemajib · 27 Dec 2011 at 23:14

socket 1156 and P55 are EOL now, they were quite short lived. As for boards, i dont really know, there was a particular Asus model that was popular - perhaps ask for a spec me in general hardware.

as for upgrades the best 1156 cpus were the core i7 8xx series, but they weren't that popular, and quite pricey. The most popular cpus were the i5 750/760 and still offer a pretty good bang for buck upgrade.

it might be best holding off with monies and going for an i5-2500k and z68 board all in one go. Much more performance for actually not that more in overall net cost.