Five insane upgrades that you should never do

Void Your Warranty!

Now you're at the point of no return. Place your processor on the sandpaper and gently guide it in long, straight strokes. Don't apply any pressure, and after 50 full strokes rotate the chip clockwise and repeat the process until you've completed a 360-degree rotation. Give both the sandpaper and the CPU a few blasts of compressed air, and then clean the heatspreader with a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol. Keep doing this until you've removed the nickel layer, then move on to the next-finer grit of sandpaper and start over. Do another 50 strokes in each direction, and so on.

Once you get to the 1000-grit sandpaper, your processor should be flat but not shiny. This matters because if you ruin your processor doing this trick, you'll be left with little more than an expensive keychain--and who wants a dull-looking keychain? Use the finer grits to obtain a reflective surface, cross your fingers, and then install the CPU in your system as you normally would. Don't forget the thermal paste!

By doing this mod, we were able to reduce the load temperatures on our Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor by 7 degrees Celsius, which will allow for some pretty hard-core overclocking, though not all gains will be that significant. If you're willing to roll the dice a second time, repeat the above process on your heat sink's base for an even better potential payout.

Push Your RAM to Its Limit

When it comes to overclocking, the processor and graphics card typically end up hogging the spotlight. Cooling manufacturers have crafted hundreds of different heat sinks designed to give obsessive PC enthusiasts an edge in pushing components well past their rated specs. Even case designers have jumped into the act, with special cooling ducts and other contraptions aimed at keeping the CPU and GPU chilly. That leaves RAM as the redheaded stepchild in the hardware family, but because we love all our components equally (and because we're just a little nuts), we're going to show you how to make those modules scream.

Enter the BIOS

You may be tempted to use a software-based overclocking utility to tinker with your system, but for hard-core tweakers the BIOS offers far greater control over a wider variety of settings. To get into your machine's BIOS, press the Delete key during the first seconds of boot-up. Depending on your motherboard or system vendor, you may be prompted to press a different key, such as F2 or Esc. Consult your manual if necessary, but you'll need to deduct 100 geek-cred points from your overall score.

Not all motherboard makers use the same type of BIOS, and even different models from the same vendor can vary. But one thing almost all have in common is that the overclocking settings, if offered, are typically clumped together under one menu. Look for labels such as MB Intelligent Tweaker (Gigabyte), Extreme Tweaker (Asus), Cell Menu (MSI), or other similar terms.

Eliminate Bottlenecks

As you increase your RAM's frequency, your CPU will ramp up in speed too. This can cause you to run into an overclocking wall prematurely, even though your RAM has room to spare. To prevent that from happening, locate the CPU Ratio Setting in your BIOS and drop your CPU's multiplier down at least two whole numbers, preferably as far as your motherboard allows. Using an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, dropping the multiplier down from x9 to x6 decreases the CPU's clock speed from 3.0 GHz to 2.0 GHz, giving you plenty of headroom to play with as your push your RAM to absurd heights.

Next you'll want to relax your memory timing. If the latency settings are grayed out, change the DRAM Timing Control (or other similarly labeled item) from Auto to Manual. For DDR2, loosen the CAS Latency Time (TCL), RAS to CAS Delay (TRCD), RAS Precharge (TRP), Precharge delay (TRAS), and Command Rate (CMD) to 6/6/6/18/2T respectively, and for DDR3 set the same settings to 10/10/10/28/2T. Refer to your motherboard manual if you can't find these settings in your BIOS, and deduct another 100 points from your geek-cred score.