Do Real Men Need Instructions?

YES!

When I started overclocking I found many people (website owners and users
alike) who were technically informative, witty and personally courteous. My
recent post regarding slocket settings and BH6 mother board use garnered a
reply along the lines of “you got a brain tumor, man,” and I see that you
have received a reply from someone in a similar tone regarding this cooling
product.

Frankly in my opinion, this is crap. Of course, cooling kits (and anything
else) ought to come with instructions; in the engineering business we call it
documentation and if you think enough of your product to sell it to others
it’s reasonable that you would want them to use the product in a manner that
would provide their greatest success. After all, if your customers aren’t
successful with your product they’re not likely to come back and they are
likely to tell others of their bad experience. Do vendors care? If making
money is what they are about then I think they care and the good ones provide
instructions.

As for the “attitude posts” they are neither informative nor amusing and
generally waste bandwidth. There are websites that have plenty of attitude
while maintaining a level of relevance as well (HARD OCP comes to mind) and
that’s fine. It ain’t tasteful, but it is amusing (sometimes) and you’ll
find out in a hurry where things stand. But that’s clearly what you expect
from that site. You may not agree with Kyle Bennet’s style but it’s his
style and he’s got it down pat. Would-be pretenders to HARD OCP’s style
ought to go there to hone their skills and not waste overclockers.com time.
(My guess is that HARD OCP does not suffer fools kindly either, however.)
And that is really the point: your “style” can be whatever you want but
information is what we’re after here and if attitude is all you got then who
are you helping?

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I’ve been in the Building trades for my whole adult life. I’ve installed all kinds of specialty hardware on doors, desks, windows……you name it.

I can’t tell you how many times I’d have a guy on my crew that would incorrectly install a lockset or closer on a door. Not only did it not function as intended but they would blow a $1500.00-$5,000.00 piece of millwork,all for the sake of pride.

I’d ask about the instruction sheet and find it layin’ on the floor next to the butchered woodwork.

My dad, a carpenter also, used to tell me when I pulled that very stunt that it took a lot of money to print that instruction sheet out. Things get updated,changed and improved everyday. Hell, they got guys on salary to improve their products. Insructions are always good………Read ’em!

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People need instructions, until they are comfortable without them, but even then it does not hurt to read them. Dummies usually throw the instructions away first, dig them out of the trash later.

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I believe any good product should come with instructions or
explanations. How else does one learn and apply that knowledge?
I happen to know I’m not an average dumb Joe, but I’ve never gotten into
water cooling yet. It has been on my mind for the past few months
because I know my Celeron566 can hit over 1GHz, but it will need a
little better cooling than air.

If I got a watercooling kit with no instuctions, I’m sure I could
figure it out based on some of the articles I’ve read, but since I’m not
familiar with it — I’d like to at least have some guidelines on my
first attempt.

Here is a silly comparison. I needed to add some tile to my bathroom.
Now I know I needed to buy the tile, and somehow plop it on the wall.
But I got a little book on tiling, that mentioned the best way to do
it. It even mentioned that all I needed was a glass cutter ($1) and a
cheap pair of tile cutters ($3) to shorten some tiles if need be. I
could have learned this by trial and error, but why bother if someone
else has some better ideas or pointers!

I may not have the time to be a watercooling pioneer, but I wouldn’t
mind using the technology to help some of my hobbies and get some better
performance out my machine.

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Reading instructions can prevent someone to make the same stupid mistake a
“real man” already made. Not all of us can afford to be stupid enough to
misuse the first 3 peltiers.

Besides, if you think you’re better, you don’t
HAVE to follow instructions.

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No doubt only extreme overclockers should use water
cooling, but i personally think if that any average Joe
shouldn’t get water cooling just because they need
instructions then where did all the water cooling
overclockers come from?

We should in fact give
instructions whenever possible so as more pple will
empoly this method and hopefully more innovative ideas
will come out…..

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LOL! What a stubborn company! What they don’t seem to realize is that
many people buying water cooling/peltier kits today are doing this for
their first time! The “experienced user” builds their own solution,
often-times!

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That’s just plain nonsense…

In fact, my friend and I are trying to create a
watercooling kit that will be impossibly easy to set
up and requires no modification to your case. It
won’t be the highest performing solution, but it
should allow for decent overclocking… People should
be able to get decent performance without delving into
the nitty gritty details of computing.
(Editorial note: If and when we hear back, we’ll let you all know about this–Ed)

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The human race has differentiates itself from the rest of the world’s
species by passing down useful information through a stored medium,
which is far more efficient than relying on evolution to genetically
encode it.

Those who feel written documents (such are water cooling instructions)
are useless will most like turn up in this year’s Darwin Awards!

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Sounds to me like someone has forgotten the time when they didn’t know all there is to know about cooling.

If there are no instructions included with kits like this, where will people who are new to water cooling get their information? It’s not exactly clear-cut where to look for it on the net. It would take a while of browsing pages to glean enough info about water cooling to know what to do and what not to do.

If water cooling is going to go mainstream, it will need instructions included with the kits (and it is a good thing for it to go mainstream.. economy of scale comes into play).

Most people who used to be “Average Joes” are no longer such because they did things the wrong way first, broke some hardware, then looked around for the right way.

Wouldn’t it have been cheaper and less time consuming if they just knew the right way first? Without having to go look for it?

It may be true that real men don’t need instructions, but then real men make lots or mistakes. I would argue that after those mistakes, they are no better off than the guy who didn’t make any mistakes because he knew ahead of time what the mistakes were.

If instructions included with a water cooling kit could save even one cpu, aren’t they worth having?

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Where did this jerk get his initial info about OC, peltiers, etc.??

Nuff Said!!!

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Given this logic, no one should try to build water coolers, peltiers,
computers, etc. Before one knows how to do these types things, one must
learn how to do these things, which is a long way to say everone needs
instructions the first time. If society lived by that standard, we would
still be living in caves eating raw meat!

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Alpha gives a very detailed set of instructions that are mainly a set of
things to do to make performance better, like mounting to suck or blow and
how much thermal greese to use.

Contrary to how most heatsinks work, the
PEP66 works better the more greese you use because of the .1mm of space
between the heatsink and the core.

This is one instance where instructions
help out alot and tell you the best way to use the product. but overclockers
hideout most likely doesn’t do quite as much R&D as alpha does but it would
be helpful if OC hideout gave us some performance guidelines

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The attitude expressed by the quoted statement is, in my opinion, elitist.
I suspect that the writer meant well as a cautionary note to novices and
casual overclockers, if the latter actually exists. Improper use of
Peltiers or water cooling can seriously and permanently damage a computer
system and in some cases can actually pose the risk of personal injury. A
stern warning is necessary. However…

How can a company reasonably expect every single purchaser of a product to
know intuitively precisely how the product is to be installed and used?
What recourse does a customer have if something goes wrong? What recourse
does the company have if something goes wrong?

Of course this is totally unreasonable and is just asking for trouble.

Instructions are mandatory. Product operating conditions should also be
present. Product performance expectations within those parameters should be
present. Without these datum the end-user has no method of concluding
whether or not a product is performing correctly. This seems rather basic
to me.

It is not unreasonable for an intelligent individual who has never used a
Peltier, never used water cooling, or never even overclocked to be able to
walk through a set of complete and accurate instructions (ideally with at
least rudimentary background information and pointers to help) and safely
and successfully install and maintain a “extreme” cooling rig. No “dumbing
down” should be necessary.

Remember the very early days of computing? I do. I was there. Those of us
that had the knowledge coveted it. The attitude was that people who didn’t
already know, couldn’t. Wow. What a load of crap.

None of us, I presume, were born with genetic pre-knowledge of computers or
overclocking. We all had to learn somewhere. Knowledge is not
intelligence. A very few pioneers may have learned about it by doing. The
rest learned about it by some combination of asking questions, researching
and experimenting. Wouldn’t a compendium of overclocking and cooling
techniques be a far more efficient means of communicating this information?
You know, sort of like overclockers.com. Does the original writer object to
your site as well?

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Well, I’ve never installed a peltier or watercool, and the main reason
is because I wouldn’t know “exactly” what to do, and therefore pretty
afraid I’d screw something up with a processor I really can’t afford to
replace.

I would love instructions on exactly how to do a peltier or watercooler
for the simple reason that it would give me extra confidence if I was to
put one on myself. Because with those, you always hear about people who
put them on wrong and end up frying their processor. Because I would
REALLY like to do a peltier sometime soon, put I’m afraid of the
condensation, since people that know what they’re doing have had that
happen.

Anyway, yes you should have instructions and dumb it down. Sorry, I’m a
dumbass!

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Hell, yes, dumb it down, I can never get enough pictures of cooked CPUs,
and wet M-Bs!

_____________________________

He’s gotta be kidding.

I figure I’m a pretty smart guy, I’ve been playing with electronics for
quite a while and have a good understanding of how an electron spins… I’ve
also been working with computers for a long time now and know them inside
out.

Well, I started overclocking after spending about 6 months just reading
stuff about it. I wanted to make sure I understood what was at stake here
and what to expect. I see too many posts in newsgroups from people who just
got a new computer, upped the FSB and when it doesn’t work they just post
the problem in the belief someone can fix it. If they had read the forums
and news groups a bit more they wouldn’t be doing things so blindly.
Newsgroups and Forums provide “instructions”!

So, when it came time to knock things up a notch, I started looking at
Peltiers. I know all the theory about Peltiers and have for quite a while,
but actually using one, and on my precious cpu was a different story.

I read ALL the stuff I could find, even the detailed specs on the meclor
site, but still there was this little doubt thing sitting there. Rather than
risk building it from scratch, I decided to look for a kit. Tom Leufken to
the rescue. Basically, after setting up the kit and getting a good
understanding of how it all works I know have the knowledge and confidence
to build my own rigs from scratch.

So, instructions are pretty essential. Everyone has had them in some form or
another, either through being taught about it at school or by other people.
The concept of buying the stuff, plugging it all in and seeing what happens
without understanding it is what I consider to be dangerous. Kit’s are a
brilliant idea, but you still need to understand what you are playing with,
the kit just helps take away some of the doubt and mystery…

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Hey there, just thought I would give you the retailer’s viewpoint on the
instruction issue. Basically, everyone, at some point in time, will draw a
blank and need some assistance to finish a project with any more
complication than tying one’s shoes. Sorry, but everyone spaces their
years of experience sometime, and it is much nicer to have a printed
instruction sheet available than to have to wait for an email reply from a
manufacturer, or an overwhelmed and disgruntled retailer. Sometimes
something simple, like finding the hot/cold side of a peltier (they aint
marked) stumps even the most gifted overclockers.

Besides, on the job training is how all of us become such gods of
overclocking, no?

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Just 2 short months ago ( as the technology industry goes ) I was an average
Joe. I was running a P2 350 on an Abit BH6 with a pair of Voodoo 2 PCI SLI, a
pretty standard gaming setup.

In April I decided it was time to upgrade, I was leaning towards an
Athlon and a Geforce w/ the EPOX KXl33( best Athlon board at the time).
Then I saw an article at Threshes Firing Squad about overclocking the
new Celeron 2 566. Overclocking? HUH?

Well here I am, now , a ” Hardcore O/C er ” with a Watercooled-Peltier over
a Celeron 2 566 running at a sweet 935/110 @ 1.9 VDC.

This is strange indeed, coming from a guy who never even opened his
case to see what it all looked like. My wife doesn’t know what has
come over me.

My point is this, even an average Joe is a potential overclocker,
and if he gets into O/C, chances are soon after he may dive into
watercooling.

An increase in demand for watercooling products will
only improve this swiftly growing market. More demand for products
means better products, geared more for the beginner but there
will always be special equipment for the diehard types.

Enough things in our society are elitist, o/c and watercooling should
not be one of them. The statement about having to dumb down the use
of peltiers and watercooling for the lamen I am not sure I understand.
What is there to dumb down? I found that common sense worked perfectly
when I installed my setup. This really isnt rocket science, and it is all
about fun, right.

_____________________________

If your page is there not for reference
and information, what kind of publication is it? Do I have to think it´s only for showing
who´s the best over all the other mortals who don´t know anything about computers?
Well, enough demagogery. It could be a good idea to publish an article in
which you describe the process of making a peltier-water-cooled system step by step,
and leave it in your page for reference to anyone interested.

_____________________________

Overclocking is a noble art and I understand that a sense of superiority can be gained from being one of the elite few who don’t require instructions.

However, there is no need to banish the inexperienced and cautious by withholding the information they need to get them started.

I am sure it is a better thing to have an informed average Joe, rather than an ignorant one who gets his fingers burnt and never tries again.

You never know what imaginative ideas they may provide the OC’ing community if only they had been lead by the hand in the beginning.

_____________________________

I have been a computer tech for 12 years. Currently I keep 2500
computers of all types of make, model, platform, OS and vintage in a
school district up and going. I can config, fix and patch almost
anything together to get it to run.

Any time I deal with a technology NEW to ME for the first time or two
instructions are MANDATORY. Of course I would only refer to them if I
could not assemble it initially without them. ; }

_____________________________

I’m from Sri Lanka. I’d like to say that the comment made by that obnoxious person about “real men” not needing instructions is pure BS.

There are lots of serious overclockers in Sri Lanka, myself included, but most of us have never used, sometimes even seen a peltier based cooling setup on a PC. So if one of them didnt know how to assemble the kit would it make them less of a real man?

I think not. Kits contain parts which have to fitted in a proper way, and proper instructions and warnings about fitting a part should all be included with the package. I mean we *could* figure out how all the parts fit together and where they go..but can we be really sure?.

We buy our processor from our hard earned cash and we would like to be 101% sure of what we’re doing to it when attach a thrid party cooling device to it.

So i say yes, we do need instructions, for the simple fact that it would be beneficial to the customer, and the manufacturer too, because it will build up a strong customer base for them.

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And if that is his stance on this issue then what the hell was he doing reading the article? I’ll tell you why he was reading it. He doubted himself and needed advice!! Keep up the good work and great arcticles and don’t let jerks like that dissuade you from it. Otherwise, I would have never built my first computer. Everyone has to learn from somewhere and reading about it before hand is a hell of a lot better than trial and error!

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Email Ed


MAYBE!

Instructions for real men? I think instructions are essential, BUT if I were selling watercooled peltier rigs I think I would omit them also, to make the users educate themselves before use. Better yet, include a tutorial video that tells how/why it all works.

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Hmmm. In my opinion, yes, that is true. If you need instructions to assemble the watercooling stuff, maybe you shouldn’t be messing around with it. However, because it’s a product with parts made by another person, you might have no idea what some of the parts do. So, a product made by another person should ALWAYS include instructions. Plus, it helps avoid tech support. 😉

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NO!

If someone REALLY wants to get into water-cooling a processor with a
peltier/waterblock setup, they need to read ALOT before ever thinking about
doing it. There are quite a few risks to it, such as water leaks and
condensation damages.

I have been slowly acquiring parts for a
water-cooling system of my own, but before that I had been reading all sorts
of articles since the beginning of this last school year. If you need
instructions, you haven’t read NEARLY enough articles, nor thought about
what you really want your system to do.

I have been working on a system
design for several months now… a true o/c’er shouldn’t need instructions
or have the idea of “I’ll get a watercooler installed, then I’ll be cooler
than all my friends”. If they have that outlook, then they aren’t in it for
the right reasons.

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I have to agree with this statement.

I’m not that hardcore; I won’t touch water cooling (yet), and the most advanced cooling system is a Leufkens Alpha Peltier Kit…okay, the 72 watt model with a PEP66 and a Delta 38 CFM fan, but still 🙂

I know that for water cooling et al. you have to be highly skilled to even touch a system like this. I think that if you’re hardcore enough to get into water cooling you’re crazy enough to usually make your own, and that the succes of each setup is in its uniqueness.

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Perhaps overclockers could use a few tips to make things easier, or more friendly (pocket book, environmentally, or otherwise), or reviews of NEW concepts could be of good reference. Overclockers are of a tweaking nature, and so only a point in the right direction is needed. Not a by-the-book step-by-step letter of instruction.

I do feel, however, that if you need detailed instructions on implementing such a system, you probably don’t have the ingenuity to maintain such a system in the case of catastrophic failure.

If one needs convinced that a water cooled peltier system is in their best interest, then maybe they should retreat to the safety of their pre-made, non-overclocked Compaq and Gateway systems.

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Professionally assembled water cooling kits serve one, and only one purpose: to save the lazy OCers the hassle of assembling their own kit. They know how, they’re just too damned lazy to do it themselves. By sending instructions, OC’s Hideout opens themself to liability. Just sending parts with a “Do it yourself.” policy is much safer, and less time consuming for them. Granted, they should be more careful to include all the parts in their kits, but instructions should NOT be necessary on a high end water cooled peltier setup.

_____________________________

If your page is there not for reference
and information, what kind of publication is it? Do I have to think it´s only for showing
who´s the best over all the other mortals who don´t know anything about computers?
Well, enough demagogery. It could be a good idea to publish an article in
which you describe the process of making a peltier-water-cooled system step by step,
and leave it in your page for reference to anyone interested.

_____________________________

Overclocking is a noble art and I understand that a sense of superiority can be gained from being one of the elite few who don’t require instructions.

However, there is no need to banish the inexperienced and cautious by withholding the information they need to get them started.

I am sure it is a better thing to have an informed average Joe, rather than an ignorant one who gets his fingers burnt and never tries again.

You never know what imaginative ideas they may provide the OC’ing community if only they had been lead by the hand in the beginning.

_____________________________

I have been a computer tech for 12 years. Currently I keep 2500
computers of all types of make, model, platform, OS and vintage in a
school district up and going. I can config, fix and patch almost
anything together to get it to run.

Any time I deal with a technology NEW to ME for the first time or two
instructions are MANDATORY. Of course I would only refer to them if I
could not assemble it initially without them. ; }

_____________________________

I’m from Sri Lanka. I’d like to say that the comment made by that obnoxious person about “real men” not needing instructions is pure BS.

There are lots of serious overclockers in Sri Lanka, myself included, but most of us have never used, sometimes even seen a peltier based cooling setup on a PC. So if one of them didnt know how to assemble the kit would it make them less of a real man?

I think not. Kits contain parts which have to fitted in a proper way, and proper instructions and warnings about fitting a part should all be included with the package. I mean we *could* figure out how all the parts fit together and where they go..but can we be really sure?.

We buy our processor from our hard earned cash and we would like to be 101% sure of what we’re doing to it when attach a thrid party cooling device to it.

So i say yes, we do need instructions, for the simple fact that it would be beneficial to the customer, and the manufacturer too, because it will build up a strong customer base for them.

_____________________________

And if that is his stance on this issue then what the hell was he doing reading the article? I’ll tell you why he was reading it. He doubted himself and needed advice!! Keep up the good work and great arcticles and don’t let jerks like that dissuade you from it. Otherwise, I would have never built my first computer. Everyone has to learn from somewhere and reading about it before hand is a hell of a lot better than trial and error!

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And, it’s probably fitting to end with the subsequent comments of the person who started it.

“And someone who needs instructions should NOT being installing either
>peltiers or water cooling in their system.”

“How are you supposed to learn?”

Well, IMHO, if you have to ask, you’ll never know. I would suggest to
one that was interested taking a look at a LOT of websites like your own
before taking that step. www.benchtest.com is great link. He has perhaps
the best example of the condensation blues and goes in depth on how serious
one needs to be to ensure it is not a problem.

“If you need instructions, you should not even be THINKING about doing
>something >like this. Peltier and water cooling is not something that
>should be dumbed down for the average Joe.”

Why not?

It has little to do with “real men don’t need instructions” and more to
do with needing a much broader knowledge base. I don’t think one should
undertake the risk and cost of peltier and water cooling unless they
understand what is going on. I guess I see the sale of water cooling and
peltier products more on the lines of a convenience for those who already know
how to build one, but perhaps lack the resources or time to do it
themselves. For instance, I do not have a metal working drill press, and I
don’t have the time to find adapters, hosing, a nice resevoir box, etc.
It’s a lot more efficient for me to just buy a kit from someone who found a
good supply of materials in bulk that work well together. The extra cost
over the materials is well spent.

So basically, I think it is not a good idea to be using peltiers or
water cooling unless it is understood how to build one. A bit of a
conservative view? Possibly. But who you really recommend a water cooling
+ peltier kit to someone who didn’t know how to install it? Buying one is
not the best way to learn, even if it does include instructions. I think
some serious research is required before taking that step into the realm of
overclocking nutcase. After all, its not like the $100-160 spent on a
watercooler is ever going to repay itself by squeezing out more cycles from
a cheaper CPU.

It’s not an issue of testosterone, being a man, not asking for
directions or anything like that. It’s more like keeping lighters away from
kids. They’re going to burn themselves.

“Or should we try to spread the benefits around? ”

I guess I see it more like, should we really hand out flamethrowers to
people who don’t know how to use them? Just say “here’s the trigger, have
at it!” and expect them not to burn themselves? Drastic analogy I know, but
the point is the same.

Giving some people instructions is not going to make them understand the
principles of using water or peltier systems, nor really instill the correct
fear or reverence for them. If you TRULY want to get users up and running
with peltiers and water, a lot more instruction than a “Slot A into Tab B”
pamphlete is in order. And this information needs to be taught before the
product is bought and received.

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