Note: This text is intended to be funny, at least to some people. Following the below instructions will result in grave personal injury and a dead computer.
Not exactly overclock savvy are we? Here's the deal!
ISA runs at 8 MHz, PCI (Portable C++ Interpreter) at 33 MHz, AGP at 66 MHz. What does this mean? It means you need to run your ISA bus at approx. 33 MHz to get it to run correctly with a PCI device. So what I'm gonna tell you to do is simple. You've only got a 386, so you've only got ISA slots, right? So what you'll need to do is take a soldering iron and replace the clock signal generating crystal with one that's faster.
How do you do that?
Simple, go out and buy an Intel 440BX-based motherboard. These motherboards run at either 66 MHz or 100 MHz. Find the northbridge chip (it should be under a green heatsink) and remove it. Now find a chip of roughly the same size on the 386 motherboard replace it with the 440BX northbridge chip. This should speed your system from 20 MHz to 100 MHz. Now your ISA bus is running at 40 MHz! Now go the rest of the way. Flash your BIOS to the latest version. This will let you get the FSB (Fourier Series Broadside) up to 133 Mhz!
Now your ISA slots are running at a stomping 54 MHz!
Well within the AGP specs! Now insert your AGP graphics card into the ISA slot. Doesn't fit does it? Of course not. Remember the 440BX board? It has an AGP slot. Remove it and solder it onto the 386 board in place of one of the ISA slots (which you just removed with a pair of pliers and a claw hammer). Now fire up your computer! Doesn't work, does it? Of course not, AGP cards draw too much power for your power supply. You'll need to take your power cord and strip the end to expose the three wires. Now throw away your cheap PSU and drop 120 volts of AC current directly onto the motherboard power connectors. I gurantee you'll be shocked with the performance of your computer!
But how long will the motherboard last for under these conditions?
Wow, you really are ignorant of overclocking lore. Motherboards are designed to last for about 10 years. That's a long time. Overclocking will reduce the life span of your board by about 50%. So if your board was built in 1994, overclocking will cause it to fail in 1999. Since it's already 2000, that would entail a temporal anomaly.
This may cause your motherboard to achieve infinite negative mass and destroy the earth.
However, proper cooling will prevent this. I suggest water cooling. After completing the abovementioned upgrade, take your computer and plunge it into a bathtup full of ice cold water. Be sure that:
1) The computer is still plugged in (it's amazing how many newbies forget this)
2) That you are gripping it with both hands, and ..
3) That your feet are properly grounded (wear a grounding strap around your ankle for best results).
This will keep your system running fine until sometime in 2004 - assuming you keep adding ice to the water.
I (the poster) am not the original author of this text - nor do I believe the person I got it from was. The whereabouts of the original are unknown (probably some forum somewhere).