overclocking for long peroids of time

[overclucker]

i hear overclocking for long peroids of time (days and maybe weeks) it can cause your OS to become more and more unstable, evently a bluescreen if you do a moderate to high overclock, this is true?

thanks,
austin

[Know Nuttin]

it's only true if your system is unstable all the time, or your components are not adequately cooled.

I've had stuff overclocked for years and there hasn't been any issues with them. Keeping them adequately cooled and not pushing them with insane amounts of voltage will keep your components relatively safe and you should be fine.

Yes, the lifespan of components does go down but the general concensus is that those that overclock know this and are willing to swap their stuff at least every few years, if not sooner than that.

[batboy]

Back in the days before we could lock the PCI bus, if you were running way out of spec you would indeed have gradual data corruption and evenually trash the Windows registry. Nowadays, with PCI locked to default 33 MHz, you should not have a problem as long as you are running rock stable and cool.

[overclucker]

what about running a LGA 550 3.4 prescott at 4.2? would that be consided a big overclock?

[Lancelot]

To me any OC is 'big' when it's timely tested and dual-prime95-, 3Dgaming- and memtest86-stable. That way it will also never trash your Windows. i.e. when I need to make a ghost or drive-image I don't want to go into BIOS and lower stuff. My OC has to be 100% reliable...

[Know Nuttin]

what about running a LGA 550 3.4 prescott at 4.2? would that be consided a big overclock?

It's a fair jump, considering that Intel has not released anything past 3.8. Generally speaking, if you take a CPU that is not the fastest that the company releases, and exceed their fastest by a good 10-20%, then it's a big overclock, imo. If intel could just release a 4+GHZ processor with ease and in quantity, they would.

It also depends on how hot the CPU gets and how much voltage you are feeding it to get to 4.2ghz.

Do not forget about your ram or motherboard. You are almost guaranteed to be overclocking them as well, and they will need cooling.

[deathman20]

That is a nice OC. As for running long periods of time, an OC is only as good as the components you put into it.

1 System I have up, its a 533Mhz Celeron @ 850, shes been up and running now well since it was first mentioned about them being good OC's (just a few years hehe). I use to run that thing quiet a bit when I had it, and when I went to college it was on 24/7 when I had her at my place. Now my girl has it, running as is running on the original Windows XP install that I got when it was first released. For the past 3 years its been running nearly 24/5 (exception is weekends) without issues.

As long as you keep it as cool as possible, and do basic maintence on it, you should see it lasting a long time, unless theres a fault somewhere in the hardware.

[Sentential]

Personally speaking at the rate most spyware goes on the internet I usually end up reformatting LONG before I blow out my OS from an overclock. Just make sure everything is properly cooled and your RAM is stable in memtest86 and you will be just fine

[overclucker]

yeah last time i got the 4.2 overclock it was around 60c idle and 70c load i ordered a zalman 7700cu all copper so lets hope it cools better

[mjdart]

I bump my P4 550 3.4 up to 3.995 but only while gaming or benching. uGuru from my ABIT mobo automatically oc's my system when ever I launch a game or benchmark which I've preset in uGURU. Otherwise my system reverts back to a more modest 3.6 OC. Very handy :thup:

[Sentential]

What do you mean? Most liekly you are refering to Powerstrip which is an Intel feature and not Abit

[aaronrkelly]

What do you mean? Most liekly you are refering to Powerstrip which is an Intel feature and not Abit

http://www.abit-usa.com/technology/uguru.php

He is referring to uGuru - the ABIT technology that does exactly what he is talking about. Kinda handy.....

[oRIDDLERo]

To me any OC is 'big' when it's timely tested and dual-prime95-, 3Dgaming- and memtest86-stable. That way it will also never trash your Windows. i.e. when I need to make a ghost or drive-image I don't want to go into BIOS and lower stuff. My OC has to be 100% reliable...

There is fewer and fewer of us left friend. People these days don’t dual prime or really stress their overclocks. Anyone who cares can tell by looking a quick look at their task manger that even a single P95 is not enough stress for today’s hyper threaded CPU's. But it seems more and more people only care only about is their high clocks for bragging rights. I won’t even boot into windows without passing memtest86 for a full pass, then when I do it is st8 to dual p95 for me. I must admit tho I do get the chuckles when I see people posting things like:

http://katalinmorocza.com/images/other/lol.jpg

As if a single p95 for 2o mins means end all stability… I have seen one prime error out of a dual prime run after 8 hours of dual stability. But like others had said around here stability is in the eye of the beholder :P

/end-thread-hijack

As for the topic at hand Ive been overclocking since the PII first dropped and each system once tested to stability has served at the overclocked speed for up to 2 years (that’s when I normally upgrade) with no problems whatsoever. IMO if the temps are where they need to be is there and not a insane Vcore set It will last as long as you want to use it (Id guess 5 years or so)

[Know Nuttin]

There is fewer and fewer of us left friend. People these days don’t dual prime or really stress their overclocks. Anyone who cares can tell by looking a quick look at their task manger that even a single P95 is not enough stress for today’s hyper threaded CPU's. But it seems more and more people only care only about is their high clocks for bragging rights. I won’t even boot into windows without passing memtest86 for a full pass, then when I do it is st8 to dual p95 for me. I must admit tho I do get the chuckles when I see people posting things like:

http://katalinmorocza.com/images/other/lol.jpg

As if a single p95 for 2o mins means end all stability… I have seen one prime error out of a dual prime run after 8 hours of dual stability. But like others had said around here stability is in the eye of the beholder :P


Agreed. I need at least 12+ hours of Prime95, dual instances, and another 15-20 hours of Memtest before I figure i'm stable.