GLH........please read.......graphics card stuff

[Joe Forster/STA]

Even in the 486DX times, all kinds of CPU's were manufactured and the not-so-reliable ones were restamped to and sold at a lower clock speed or with some other restriction (in the particular case of the 486DX, the FPU was disabled). The stress is on not being reliable at the higher clock speed!

If you have a PC hardware shop - or know someone there - and you can pick out and test several CPU's (of the same nominal rating and, therefore, price) then, yes, overclocking may work. But, even then, you have to be careful about setting the FSB, PCI clock, voltages in the BIOS correctly and getting a powerful, good brand PSU and cooling system.

What does this boil down to? That newbies shouldn't overclock their stuff with some freely available software because it simply won't work. Not only it will burn out soon - perhaps, sooner than just half a year! - but it will work unreliably even during that short period of time. I don't think there's anything false in that statement...

[kosmiq]

Overclocking for me is and has always been to get into the subject, read and understand what it is all about. If someone does that and then tries very little can go wrong.

Whenever I order a CPU from the net I tell what series of CPU I want and the exact production number. Its a little special store here in sweden...
Most modern hardware will not fail due to overclocking. Settings a high voltage will give a high temp and thus autoshutdown the system. And anyone with heavy cooling that will manage to cool that already knows what it is all about.
I started with overclocking long before there were 100.000 guides on the net. Self-trained and has still never broken anything.

Lets say you buy a brand new A64 3500+, if it does not overclock well thats about it. It won't break, it won't die. Not now and not later. The only thing that has happened is that you know it can't manage higher speeds.
Still any overclocking is simple to do but you are taking the chances from it. But I still think that in todays modern world of PC's it is something very low-risk. Almost any P4 Northwood core will manage a 600Mhz overclock with standard cooling, very little voltage raising and almost no difference in temp.

[RincewindTheWiz]

Overclocking may not be as difficult or dangerous as most people think it is, but it still has consequences. If the only thing you'd do was changing the frequency/multiplier of say, a cpu, then the only danger would be a non booting pc if you go too far, which can be remedied by simply clearing the cmos settings. However, most overclockers drive up the voltages used to get higher stable speeds and this is when you get extra failures due to overheating and especially a shortened life expectancy for the cpu (due to increased electron migration).

I have encountered examples of people who overclocked their cpus for 2-3 years, and then had a boot failure. The thing is, even when clocked back to the original speed those cpus wouldn't boot anymore, but they would boot if you UNDERclocked them by enough difference. They were "worn out". So there IS a price to pay for overclocking, however since a cpu rapidly loses its value anyway (three years and even the most advanced system won't cut it for games anymore), it might not matter enough if you keep from the truly insane overclocks.

But if you don't feel comfortable overclocking, don't try it. There's no law that says you HAVE to do it

[kosmiq]

In my world there is a law that says "overclock or die"..... :P
But anyway maybe it is the time to stay on topic... GLH do your thing and answer those posts...