system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is overclocking and how does it help/hurt your computer?
gpt
A computer program is basically a step-by-step recipe for your processor to follow.  However, there are many different parts of a processor, and many of them have to work together for the program to correctly execute.  Therefore, everything in your computer has to be synchronized, so that you don't accidentally start the next step in the recipe before the previous one is finished.

The way this is achieved in a computer is through something called a **clock signal**.  This is basically an electronic oscillator that sends out a regular pulse.  Each individual pulse signals to the rest of the computer that it is time to move on to the next step.

So now we get to overclocking.  Usually, on a retail computer, the clock timing is very conservative.  This basically means that the clock cycle is longer than it needs to be, just to make sure that all of the parts have the time they need to finish their instructions before moving on to the next step.  So often, you can just make the clock cycle shorter, which will make your computer run correspondingly faster because it spends less time waiting.

However, if you keep pushing the clock cycle shorter and shorter, eventually there won't be enough time for the computer to finish its instructions before the next cycle starts.  This is when you will start getting errors.  There is a way around this, however.

It turns out that increasing the voltage that your computer runs at will also increase the speed that the components in your CPU executes instructions.  So if you want to push your computer even further, you can crank up the operating voltage, and continue to decrease the clock cycle time.  However, increasing the voltage also means that your computer will be outputting more heat, so if you're severely overclocking a computer, you will probably need to find a better way of cooling it.

So the advantages of overclocking are basically that it makes your computer faster, without changing the hardware at all.  The disadvantages are that you can start getting errors if you're setting your clock cycle too fast, and that if you're running it at a higher voltage, your computer will run hotter, which could lead to a shorter lifetime for your computer.