newbie with a64 2800 and neo platinum. help

[JamesH1985]

hey, first off i wanna say great forum, this is my first time here and i love it. I have been reading alot on here and i have a couple questions before i overclock

i have this system that i have to put together (waiting for my video card to arrive)

athlon 64 2800
msi k8n neo platinum
512 corsair value select ddr 400
ATI 9600XT all in wonder

my questions are:
1. I am new to overclocking, what settings do i mess with in the bios of the neo board, i cant afford to burn the cpu or board so what should set and to how much, i dont mind taking baby steps to get where my system can handle it (any help with this would be great, like i said i am new so when i am setting the volts i dont know how much to set, and for what)

2. What fan should i buy to cool my a64 2800 chip, i dont wanna spend more than 35 bucks. should i buy a vga fan too, i heard it gets hot

3. Is a heat spreader necessary for my 1 stick of memory

4. Should i get a sata hard drive, i have a 7200 maxtor 250gig hd, i can sell it to a friend for 130, do i buy 1 or 2 SATA harddrives?

thank you for reading.
james

[JamesH1985]

is this the wrong forum or something?

[Geforce4ti4200]

your a64 should come with stock heatsink/fan. use that. I got 2.2GHz stable at 1.7v on mine and it only runs lukewarm too, I can hold my finger indefinately. also you got some great ram, I have the same ram at 248fsb and counting. to overclock, just increase your fsb. I hope you hit at least 240x9=2.16GHz with your ram in sync

[Reflex1]

welcome

1. This question is too general ...u shud do some research b4 asking the question "how do i overclock"
2. if ur refering to a cooler ...the thermalrights are good.
3. what memory do u have? ...since i doubt u overclock heavily and pump a lot of volts into them, u dont need it.
4. sell the 250gb and buy 2xSATA HDD's (of the same type) and put them in RAID 0 (ur msi k8n neo supports this).