Should I overclock my CPU?

Overall, i would say no. you have what appears to me to be a very capable rig with lots of power. Your X2 3800+ an excellent processor that should give you all the power you need at stock speeds. However, should you decide you do need to overclock your processor, i would recommend liquid cooling simply on the basis on where you live. Hot/humid climates do NOT agree with overclocking (I know, I tried it on my Athlon 64 3800 Venice in Houston with a zalman fatality and still came up with hugely high temps). Zalman makes some of the best cooling solutions out there and I would recommend buying a water system from them. overall they are easy to install and maintain. Hope this helps!

I highly doubt you could do anything with that computer besides throwing it away. If it's a brand name computer like HP, Dell, Sony etc. They usually lock the features in the BIOS making you unable to adjust any frequencies or voltages. You're computer is so out dated. Only 512mb of ddr2 ram, small hdd, old CPU and Motherboard, probably integrated graphics. I'm guessing that this computer is well over 3 years old. Time to upgrade. Even if you COULD overclock it wouldn't do much for you. Any more questions? Glad to help.

Why would you want to overclock this thing? Overclocking voids any warranty and if you overclock too much without adequate protection, boom, you have to buy a new CPU and those things are not cheap. I am all for tweaking a system, but my motto is, "Don't tempt fate by intentionally voiding your own warranties." Beside, this things sounds like a speed deamon already, 3800+ dual core! You have a jet and wand something faster!!

You don't have to overclock your processor. Do you have a reason for it? My 3500+ still doesn't need overclocking with the latest games.

If you're going to overclock, make sure you're running enough cooling... a monster heatsink-fan setup will keep you cool. A ThermalRight XP-120 is the best out there, I settled for a Zalman 7700CU because the XP-120 wouldn't fit on my motherboard. Both your processor and motherboard lend themselves well to overclocking.

As far as temperature goes, with a decent cooling solution, keeping it under 70 Degrees Celsius (158 degrees farenheit) will keep your processor from dying, but I recommend keeping it well under that for longevity (I run at about 40 degrees celsius (104 degrees farenheit) under full load). Generally, when overclocking, you step it until your computer freezes or shuts off under full load for a day or two, then you step it back a bit to a safe point.

Overclocking is like "Tuning" a Honda 2.0 litre. Sure it will go 20mph faster, but the money is better spent on a larger engine.

The money you blow on an exotic cooling solution is about the same as plunking down the cash for an Athlon 64 X2 4200+

X2 3800+ are great for overclocking I got mine to 2.52 ghz. On stock heatsink and fan, with artic silver 5 instead of the shipped stuff my idle temps are 39C and load temps with prime95 max out around 52C nothing to bad though they could be a little lower my room is usually relatively hot. Would definetly recommend a better cooler though not sure it is necessary to go water cooling.

I did top mine out at 2.61 or some such but felt that the heat vs improvement wasn't worth it.

I don't think that the money you would have to spend to get an adequate cooling system would be worth the small increase in performance that you could get. Overclocking puts you at risk of overheating and irrepairably damaging your board.

I don't recommend overclocking, especially if your computer has to work in a hot and humid environment.

Is 2 billion cycles a second not fast enough for you???? I would not even consider doing it especially if it hard for you to get them. Why risk it for just a nanosecond faster speed?

overclock it and put a cooling system that uses an integrated device that uses liquid coolant............like car coolant only for cpu. tried it and my cpu NEVER gets hot.................speed as a rocket

Simple , use an aircon. and put it beside or near ur pc .