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My friend PowerStrip
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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Crono on Sun Apr 4th at 11:34pm 2004

I never said drastically underclock your hardware (which is how it get's damaged).

However, you should be aware that items come underclocked, such as processors. Depending on what board and such you're using. Most processors, when you install them are running at about 1ghz, when they're anywhere from 1.4 - 2.0 ghz processors. You have to manually set them, and that is 'overclocking'. But by the time any of these effects would do anything you'd most likely have new hardware, it usually takes years for degrading of this magnitude to occur.

I don't mean stop posting, I meant that you shouldn't state your opinion as fact, which you do oh so often [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Wild Card on Sun Apr 4th at 11:36pm 2004

? posted by Crono
I never said drastically underclock your hardware (which is how it get's damaged).

You mean overclock

[addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Apr 4th at 11:41pm 2004

? posted by Wild Card
? posted by Crono
I never said drastically underclock your hardware (which is how it get's damaged).

You mean overclock

no WC he said under

and crono, if my opinion sounds to you as if i said fact.. we have a chaotic future you and i... jeff is just now learning the nuances of my wording.

when i post a fact, i will say the word FACT, otherwise, its opinion.. this advice will save you many ulcers when swapping posts counts with me

[addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Wild Card on Sun Apr 4th at 11:43pm 2004

I dont get it. How does underclocking something damage it? [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Crono on Sun Apr 4th at 11:57pm 2004

The only way I can see underclocking really damage anything is if the processor or piece of hardware isn't a multiple of the other hardware. In specifics, if the processor is not a multiple of the bus speed, some major issues can occur.

The same sort of issue can occur with Overclocking, however, if everything syncs up you really only have to worry about cooling. Hardware not being cooled well enough is how things fry and get damaged.
Other then all that, there's really nothing to worry about (however, finding the right clock value is the tough part ). [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by scary_jeff on Mon Apr 5th at 12:08am 2004

If you run something outside of spec, you shorten it's lifespan, because the higher speed means more heat (whether you cool it more or not, internal temperature will be higher), because a higher frequency of operation consumes more power. Underclocking won't damage your PC at all. People do this in some cases where they want to use a passive heatsink, and it's perfectly fine.

? quote:
It's not as if you're overloading the connections.


That is exactly what you are doing! The reason people can overclock is because they only actually make a couple different processor lines. When a wafer of cores is finished, they test each one to see how fast it can go while staying within set heat/voltage limits, then badge them up accordingly. If you buy a 2.6GHz processor, it could have been made right next to and in the exact same way as a 3GHz one, but Intel just decided that the one you bought should only be used at 2.6 (or whatever). This may not be because it didn't meet the 3ghz requirements either, if they have a good process going, then most of the cores made may be able to run at the higher speeds, so they have to sell a perfectly good part that would be able to run at 3GHz as a 2.6 (say). This may not seem to make any business sense at first, but it does. Anyway, the result is that you buy your 2.6, and can run it at 3, while staying within spec - if you run over the spec, you are overloading the transistor junctions, which may cause current to leak through them, which will eventually (still after a long time) break them (independant of cooling).

? quote:
Most processors, when you install them are running at about 1ghz, when they're anywhere from 1.4 - 2.0 ghz processors.


Umm... what? If you buy a P4 2.8, and put it in a compatible motherboard, it runs at 2.8. There's no speedstep on desktops (yet).


Back to the original topic, why use powerstrip when you can just use the overclocking utility that comes in the drivers?



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Wild Card on Mon Apr 5th at 12:09am 2004

Are you saying my clock values are wrong? [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by scary_jeff on Mon Apr 5th at 12:11am 2004

umm... I don't think so. The frequencies you gave for your card seem perfectly reasonable to me.



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Orpheus on Mon Apr 5th at 12:14am 2004

*marks day on calendar*

you know jeff, you almost agree'd with me.. i am flabbergasted

anywhos.. try omegacorner.com

[addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Crono on Mon Apr 5th at 12:27am 2004

Oh, God here we go again.

I'm well aware of the life span issue, what I was saying is that its a small factor. By saying Overloading the connections I mean frying, as in, immediatly NOTICABLY damaged. Which it isn't, unless you astronaumically overclock things.

Also, every processor I've installed that was over 1ghz required overclocking to run at the proper frequency and speed. However, I only experienced this with Athlons, and the only reason I can think of is that AMD complient boards are backwards compatable.

Anyway, whatever, I believe WC has his stuff running at the speed he wants ... come to think of it ... wasn't it WC's thread that we argued in last time? .... *glares at WildCard*

I'm starting to see a patern that I don't like here. : [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by scary_jeff on Mon Apr 5th at 12:33am 2004

Well if you say you are well aware of the lifespan issue, why argue with Orph when he says overclocking ages the processor faster? Surely he only said exactly what you have just said you are aware of, only for some reason you argued with him? Yes, you put 'not as much as you say', but.. he didn't say how much, he only said it will age faster, which is usually true... hardly worth arguing over



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Orpheus on Mon Apr 5th at 12:37am 2004

/me slips jeff a fiver [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Crono on Mon Apr 5th at 12:43am 2004

Right, except, his insinuation was that it damages the piece of hardware rapidly. Here let me find it ...

"the gain (for the normal user, excluding drastic measures like water-cooling) is not worth the damage, be it minor damage as you obviously imply, or more stressful damage."

This is not true, it IS worth it. It'd be cheaper to overclock a video card now and then buy another in a year or two instead of buying a new video card which can do what your card can do now with overclocking. That would mean without overclocking you'd buy 3 video cards (over a certain span) instead of 2.

But, I mostly got an impression that that was what he was talking about. Sorry, if you think I acted 'pre-maturly'. Does that make sense? I was commenting on what he, seemed, to mean, rather then what he literally said. I'm pretty sure Orph, in some way, understood that based on reading his resulting posts.

Anyway, it's a moot point because the damage that occurs isn't enough for someone to have a hissy fit over, especially if they only based their opinion of the hardware on performance. I'm can almost guarentee they'd be onto a new system by the time their old 'aging' hardware stopped working. That was my whole point I suppose. [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Orpheus on Mon Apr 5th at 12:51am 2004

ok, let me try to elaborate a smidgen..

i have, for a few minutes overclocked two cards, on two separate occasions.

neither gave me a noticeable boost, granted, they were both rather cheap cards, but understand, me being poor, they are still valuable to me.

the gain, was not worth the possibility of even one single day of not being able to use them.. as with my luck, they would conk out, during the time of year when i could not afford to replace them.

poor people, value each day with their hardware, this old 450 i am on now, has a voodoo banshee driving its video.. bought it when it was the biggest kid on the block, still works... granted, its only task is internet explorer, but it works.

and no, it wasn't this card that i overclocked..

i hope, that shines some light on the subject, at least in so far as when i said, the gain isn't worth it.

[addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by mazemaster on Mon Apr 5th at 1:02am 2004

A processr's lifespan (even with overclocking) is such that when it dies you ought to have bought a new one already.




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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by fishy on Mon Apr 5th at 1:07am 2004

? posted by Wild Card

PowerStrip, for those who dont know, is a nice utility which allows you to overclock your video card.

So I gave PowerStrip a go. It has 2 sliders to control GPU and memory clocks. The standard timings are:

GPU= 249Mhz
mem= 333Mhz

this sounds very much like something i tried just over a month ago. all except the standard timings.

the software i was using determined that my clock speeds were ;

GPU 450Mhz

mem 850 Mhz

i suppose, with hindsight, it would have been better to check this. bah, i didn't even see any noticable difference before it died. so there ended a Gforce4 Ti 4600, that wasn't even a year old

the strange thing is, that the replacement card has those exact same timings, and believe me, thats the timings the f**kers gonna keep.

my advice on overclocking?

don't do it unless you know what your doing, and whats at stake.





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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Orpheus on Mon Apr 5th at 1:14am 2004

? posted by mazemaster
A processr's lifespan (even with overclocking) is such that when it dies you ought to have bought a new one already.

sadly, even though i agree 100%, "ought to" and "able to" are seldom coexistent

[addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Wild Card on Mon Apr 5th at 1:32am 2004

? posted by Crono
Anyway, whatever, I believe WC has his stuff running at the speed he wants ... come to think of it ... wasn't it WC's thread that we argued in last time? .... *glares at WildCard*

I'm starting to see a patern that I don't like here. :

*slips Orph a 10*

[addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by Crono on Mon Apr 5th at 1:44am 2004

Usually if your your video card dies it either

A) fryed by touching something else.
B) Simply couldn't handle the voltage you set.
C) the Fan died, thus there is no cooling (this happened to me on a video card that wasn't overclocked and now the 3d registers are fried or something to that effect).
D) A connection has been physically broken somehow.

All in all there's many many things that can kill any hardware, static is another one ... simply having your computer sit on the ground is a risk fact that you seldom think of, this is usually taken care of with the metal in the case though.

Just because you can't afford another video card ... ever isn't a reason to accept limits. What if it works well for many years? What if it dies anyway because it has shoddy soldering?

You can't control any of this, and the real fact is, if you want to get really technical, the gold material used for the pins and other connections, all the soldering, gets 'damaged' just by being used in general, so to be, no offense, anal retentive, and say that slightly overclocking something isn't worth it isn't really true.

Right now, I have my GeForce4 running at about the same performance as a some of the early FX cards. The only difference being that my card doesn't have as many pixel shaders. Anyway, the only time you notice overclocking really is in games and such, so bah. [addsig]



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 Re: My friend PowerStrip
Posted by scary_jeff on Mon Apr 5th at 8:41am 2004

? quote:
say that slightly overclocking something isn't worth it isn't really true. Right now, I have my GeForce4 running at about the same performance as a some of the early FX cards. The only difference being that my card doesn't have as many pixel shaders.


Well you obviously aren't only 'slightly' overclocking are you. Slightly overclocking is a complete waste of time. If you overclock your CPU by 50MHz, you haven't acheived anything, and if in the unlikley event that you do fry your CPU doing so, you may not get a replacement, because they are able to tell if something died due to overclocking. The only worthwhile overclocks are the big ones, e.g. P42.4 overclock to 3GHz, Celeron 300 to 450, etc. That way, you are getting almost exactly the faster CPU, for a much lower price. If you go from 2.4 to 2.45, this is a pointless overclock. 'But you can never have too many MHz' - fine, but is it really worth the risk, however small, of frying your CPU, when all you are going to get out of it is an extra 2%?

You forgot the graphics card dying because despite the fan not breaking, it got too hot. And "B) Simply couldn't handle the voltage you set" - typically this is not adjustable with out soldering extra components onto the board.




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