P4 Vaporized

Kllrnohj · ☢ PH34R |\/|3 (Posts: 8196)

its STILL not a P4 Very Happy

thats a funny vid tho, but i've seen it before - rather old tho

(for those that didn't pick up on it...it wasn't an overclock the blew it, but a small explosive that blew it Laughing

)

Kllrnohj · ☢ PH34R |\/|3 (Posts: 8196)

actually, overclocking (theoretically) won't harm the CPU at all. You can overclock a 1ghz P3 to 100000ghz and have no harm come to the CPU itself. The computer won't boot however, but the hardware will still physically be OK. (again, that is purely theoreticall - if you are stupid enough to try that and you break shit, don't come crying to me)

The danger comes when increasing the voltage. The harder you push your CPU, the less and less stable it will become. This is overcome by increasing the voltage (vcore - in that vid they had it at 4.0+ - which is impossible. An athlon XP will die at ~2.0v with anything less than sub zero cooling - the default vcore for an AXP is 1.65v if i remember right, with newer P4's and A64's slightly lower than that). The increase in voltage also won't necessarily endanger your CPU (assuming you don't go insane with it - 1.8v is pushing it, yet still somewhat safe, for an AthlonXP).

The actual danger to an overclock comes in the form of heat. More volts = more heat. Heat = bad. HOWEVER, your CPU will become unstable and crash loooong before it hits the danger zone. (officially, the P4 and AXP's max temps are somewhere in the 80C range - it will definitely crash before it hits 70C - more realistically, however, a CPU should never be exposed to heat beyond 65C) For comparison, the average temp for my comp (athlon XP 2500, currently at stock speed/voltage, 2x 120mm fans in my case, with a fairly high-end heatsink/fan unit on the CPU) runs at about 45C idle, 48C load. Expect an OEM computer (ie. dell, gateway, compaq) to be closer to 53C-57C.

For those who don't do celcius, 50C = 122F and 55C = 140F

You'll never see a CPU core melt and/or explode (without some insane modifications, of course Laughing

), maybe smoke/smell some, but it'll usually die before even that happens Wink

AANNNDDD for those who care, the CPU is far from the hottest part in a computer Very Happy

Early P4 Prescott mobo's actually reached temperatures exceeding 180F in NORMAL operation in open air! (usually, the MOSFETS get very hot as well, and are one of, if not the, hottest part in a computer)

Kllrnohj · ☢ PH34R |\/|3 (Posts: 8196)

the MOSFETS are the main thing that deals with power on the mobo Wink

(and if you look at your mobo - or any mobo - you'll notice very, very few MOSFETS get 'sinked, and basically nothing else on the mobo, aside from the northbridge, will have a heatsink on it)