whats overclocking?

[rs owner]

I have no idea what overclocking is can anybody tell me?  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

[Jonathan Fu]

[color=\"#000066\"][font=\"Verdana\"]Hello,

Overclocking is, from Wiki is

Overclocking is the process of forcing a computer component to run at a higher clock rate than designed or designated by the manufacturer.

Overclocking is usually practiced by PC enthusiasts in order to increase the performance of their computers. Some hardware enthusiasts purchase low-end computer components which they then overclock, thereby attaining performance of a high-end system, while others will overclock high-end components, attaining levels of performance that surpass the peformance of the newest generation of computer hardware.

[/font][/b][/color]

-Jonathan Fu http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'B)\' />

[rs owner]

Oh wow that seems nice is there any side-effects, I mean is there any problem at all in doing that?

[bobloblaw]

yes.  it decreases the life of the hardware.

[rs owner]

Oh, thats not good is it now.

[Josetann]

Yeah, it might decrease the life of your processor from 20 years down to 15 years, or even 10 years.  It's all relative.

If you take baby steps, you should be able to eek out a little more performance without any side effects whatsoever.  If you go all out and bump the voltage to crazy levels and really push it, you could burn up more than just the processor.  Also, most motherboards let you set the fsb separate from the rest of the components (forgive me, I can't remember the term right off).  Basically, on an old motherboard if you ran at anything other than 66, 100, or 133MHz, you'd be running everything out of spec (ram, pci bus and thus hard drive, all your cards...etc.).  Most now will let you play with the fsb separately, so everything else stays within spec (except maybe ram, but you can bump its speed down no problem).

Ok, short version, play it safe, do it gently, and you'll be fine.  You won't get a huge overclock like many, but you also won't have to worry about your PC blowing up (well, you won't have to worry as much).  Also, if you have an oem PC, i.e. Dell, Compaq, HP, etc., then you're outta luck.  They lock down the bios so you can't overclock.  May be ways around it, but probably not worth it.

[rs owner]

Thank you for the summary ######, just one more thing is the overclocking process done with software of hardware, I mean do you use a device or program?

[supraskater]

[quote name=\'######\' post=\'102564\' date=\'Mar 30 2006, 12:01 AM\']Yeah, it might decrease the life of your processor from 20 years down to 15 years, or even 10 years.  It's all relative.

If you take baby steps, you should be able to eek out a little more performance without any side effects whatsoever.  If you go all out and bump the voltage to crazy levels and really push it, you could burn up more than just the processor.  Also, most motherboards let you set the fsb separate from the rest of the components (forgive me, I can't remember the term right off).  Basically, on an old motherboard if you ran at anything other than 66, 100, or 133MHz, you'd be running everything out of spec (ram, pci bus and thus hard drive, all your cards...etc.).  Most now will let you play with the fsb separately, so everything else stays within spec (except maybe ram, but you can bump its speed down no problem).

Ok, short version, play it safe, do it gently, and you'll be fine.  You won't get a huge overclock like many, but you also won't have to worry about your PC blowing up (well, you won't have to worry as much).  Also, if you have an oem PC, i.e. Dell, Compaq, HP, etc., then you're outta luck.  They lock down the bios so you can't overclock.  May be ways around it, but probably not worth it.[/quote]
so your basicly saying only the "custom built" computers can be overclocked?  Cause I have a HP

[Beomagi]

you can overclock from software, using tools like clockgen, riva tuner(videocards) etc. or from the bios

If you have an hp, then while it's possible to find a clockgen that works, your board isn't going to be designed the way an enthusiast board is designed - you'd lack voltage increments, fsb increments, the power phase to the chip wont be as overdone as say, a DFI or ABIT board.

As for decreasing the life - it depends on the manner of the overclock (as J0etann outlined), and the processor.

e.g. The athlon xp-m. These were desktop bartons retested at lower voltages to see if they'd work. You could take one of these and jsut increase the fsb from 266MHz to 400MHz, drop the multiplier to 2/3 it's value, and set the voltage to that of the desktop counterpart, and it would run almost guaranteed. You wont be decreasing the lifetime compared to the other desktop chips because it was designed to handle that voltage, only tested to run with less. after that keep in creasing the multiplier, and you'd get anywhere from 2.3 to 2.7GHz on the old athlon-xp core. Not bad at all for back then

e.g.2 The 2.4C northwood. If a company has as easy time making chips, they wont sell all at just high speed. They'd lose out on either low end if it's too costly, or high end if it's too cheap. So intel for a while underclocked their chips. 2.4C northwood pentium 4s would easily run at 3.0 to 3.2 GHz without any voltage increase. Keep in mind, these chips are TESTED and set; they're designed to run at these speeds. But either one test failed, or they had a glut of high speed chips and had to make up bottom.

e.g.3 The pentium-m/celeron-m on desktop. Intels hottest chip - surprised? There's a difference between power and temperature. The prescott runs at about 60-70C tops (safely) but produces up to 130W. Old pentium-m's were designed to run even at 100C, but produced only 30W. Why was it hotter? It was designed to handle being in a crappy environment - a laptop. Not much cooling. Oh the pentium 4 on your lap can cause burns - because the heat energy given off is sooo much, but the "hot" pentium-m on your lap barely made you sweat. When desktop boards were available, overclockers put desktop heatsinks on these, letting them safely pump voltages through it and overclock them without worry on shortened lifespans.

e.g.4 This is BAD

The newcastle 130nm line doesn't like to be overclocked. The voltage isnt correct but i was still pushing 1.6+ which is scary. Only did that once, but if i had run this chip for a long time, then that would have burnt up easy http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

[kusiobache]

[quote name=\'######\' post=\'102564\' date=\'Mar 30 2006, 12:01 AM\']Yeah, it might decrease the life of your processor from 20 years down to 15 years, or even 10 years.  It's all relative.

If you take baby steps, you should be able to eek out a little more performance without any side effects whatsoever.  If you go all out and bump the voltage to crazy levels and really push it, you could burn up more than just the processor.  Also, most motherboards let you set the fsb separate from the rest of the components (forgive me, I can't remember the term right off).  Basically, on an old motherboard if you ran at anything other than 66, 100, or 133MHz, you'd be running everything out of spec (ram, pci bus and thus hard drive, all your cards...etc.).  Most now will let you play with the fsb separately, so everything else stays within spec (except maybe ram, but you can bump its speed down no problem).

Ok, short version, play it safe, do it gently, and you'll be fine.  You won't get a huge overclock like many, but you also won't have to worry about your PC blowing up (well, you won't have to worry as much).  Also, if you have an oem PC, i.e. Dell, Compaq, HP, etc., then you're outta luck.  They lock down the bios so you can't overclock.  May be ways around it, but probably not worth it.[/quote]
wrong there in the last 2 sentences, they lock down on them, and they can tell if its messed up byoverclocking, but i got a dell and i overclocked it. its been 3 years smooth, running amazingly, and i got around it.(btw never open up a dell 2 see whats inside if ur curious. they ahve a red button in there and if tis opened the button pops out and then if u send it in 2 the factory popped out theyw otn do anything. maybe not for all dells but it is for mine and my friends)

[muhahaha]

[quote name=\'Beomagi\' post=\'118725\' date=\'May 9 2006, 03:00 PM\']you can overclock from software, using tools like clockgen, riva tuner(videocards) etc. or from the bios

If you have an hp, then while it's possible to find a clockgen that works, your board isn't going to be designed the way an enthusiast board is designed - you'd lack voltage increments, fsb increments, the power phase to the chip wont be as overdone as say, a DFI or ABIT board.

As for decreasing the life - it depends on the manner of the overclock (as J0etann outlined), and the processor.

e.g. The athlon xp-m. These were desktop bartons retested at lower voltages to see if they'd work. You could take one of these and jsut increase the fsb from 266MHz to 400MHz, drop the multiplier to 2/3 it's value, and set the voltage to that of the desktop counterpart, and it would run almost guaranteed. You wont be decreasing the lifetime compared to the other desktop chips because it was designed to handle that voltage, only tested to run with less. after that keep in creasing the multiplier, and you'd get anywhere from 2.3 to 2.7GHz on the old athlon-xp core. Not bad at all for back then

e.g.2 The 2.4C northwood. If a company has as easy time making chips, they wont sell all at just high speed. They'd lose out on either low end if it's too costly, or high end if it's too cheap. So intel for a while underclocked their chips. 2.4C northwood pentium 4s would easily run at 3.0 to 3.2 GHz without any voltage increase. Keep in mind, these chips are TESTED and set; they're designed to run at these speeds. But either one test failed, or they had a glut of high speed chips and had to make up bottom.

e.g.3 The pentium-m/celeron-m on desktop. Intels hottest chip - surprised? There's a difference between power and temperature. The prescott runs at about 60-70C tops (safely) but produces up to 130W. Old pentium-m's were designed to run even at 100C, but produced only 30W. Why was it hotter? It was designed to handle being in a crappy environment - a laptop. Not much cooling. Oh the pentium 4 on your lap can cause burns - because the heat energy given off is sooo much, but the "hot" pentium-m on your lap barely made you sweat. When desktop boards were available, overclockers put desktop heatsinks on these, letting them safely pump voltages through it and overclock them without worry on shortened lifespans.

e.g.4 This is BAD

The newcastle 130nm line doesn't like to be overclocked. The voltage isnt correct but i was still pushing 1.6+ which is scary. Only did that once, but if i had run this chip for a long time, then that would have burnt up easy http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />[/quote]
Possible slight understatement  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

[brent]

wow i just learned alot

[WannabeHacker]

http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' /> Sorry for asking a stupid question, but what is clockgen?

[New Era]

Should i overclock my 3.4ghz computer? I'm a bit worried because the last time i attempted overclocking my 1.7ghz blew up. -.-

[White Fire]

wow lots of reading thx for info

[kingikz1001]

ill advise not to overclock tooo risky

[Tat]

I wouldnt overclock unless your hella good with computers and know what your cpu's limits are

[D rock]

ok another thing on how it may decrease the life of your pc by making the capacitors leak out the fluid inside them, thus making your motherboard useless.

[scaminisbadd]

im confused

[Holy Man]

You comp can over heat and some parts can melt and bust, or smoke and catch fire. You can used a liquid cooling system (insted of that annoying fan.) www.howstuffworks.com has a good article on liquid cooled comps.