Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC )

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: LTBH who wrote (1006)	6/2/1998 11:52:00 PM
From: LTBH	Read Replies (2) of 14778

Overclocking, Its Results, and System Buses In the last day or two someone asked about the damage that could be caused by overclocking. I actually typed in a post twice to have SI hang me up. Anyone notice SI being very sluggish at times? Anyway, I'll respond again now, although I may not remember all the questions that were also asked. I am currently typing this on an "old" 150 OC to 166. I have been OC since the days of Atari 400 and 800s in one manner or another. I OC the ISA bus (but not the CPU) in my 386 from its original 6 MHz to 10 MHz and achieved a very large increase in system thoughput. However, I do not recommend overclocking. I do not recommend OC if you are not HW inclined. Most folks want to drive a 300 to 400. If you must OC then do so modestly. A max of 25% and a recommended moderate 10% is better. There are two ways one overclocks. The first is by changing the multiplier. If the multiplier is changed then there is no effect on any of the buses (pentium and newer). The other way is to change the clock frequency. This will effect all the buses. The front bus (FB) is an INTERNAL data path between mem and CPU and runs at 100MHz in BX mobo. The PCI bus is an IO bus which runs at 33 MHz and 66 MHz in the near future (all new IO then). The ISA bus is a legacy IO bus originally speced at 6 MHz and later upgraded to 8 MHz. Lastly theres the Intel marketing gimmic that requires users to buy bigger faster CPUs. Its called the AGP. The AGP sideband/sidebus is an internal bus between the mem and this vid card slot. The use of this slot offloads the mem requirement from the vid card (making the card cheaper) to the mobo and in so doing greatly increases the processor load. This bus runs at 66 MHz, 112 and 166 MHz depending on the mobo/chip set. Since the HD plugs into a PCI slot, whether you have a 100MHz FB or not bears no relationship to the HD. What can happened if you OC: You can't boot HD corrupts files The CPU fries The HD heads crash The mobo tantalium caps ignite burning the mobo and any RAM or cards near them The electrical fire causes toxic gases to be released The fire goes unnoticed too long and involves the work space Most common problem is the HD or vid card won't work. If its the HD then you have boot problems worst case and data corruption best case. I have had HD problems when initially checking out an OC setup for the first time. I have never fried anything. But it can and does happen. I have seen production HW with tantalium caps where the caps burnt up or exploded. I have had failure analysis run on same and stopped production use since the product was extremely high reliability equipment. (In this case OC wasn't the root cause, nor was equipment OC but temperature was involved) Bottom line. When I assemble my new PII system later this month, I won't be overclocking. The major advantage of OC is NOT because the CPU is running faster but because the IO bus is running faster. However todays PCI bus and associated IO usually don't OC very well and you can't OC just the bus anymore, its all or nothing. The other major increase comes from mem running faster. However the change in architecture in the PII decouples any advantage here. So why decrease the life of your components from heat and electrical overstress? Networm

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next