I OC-ed my barton 2500+ 1.83ghz to 2.05ghz.

changed some FSB (multiplier unchanged) and vcore voltage.

tested it for 48 hours using OCCT, Super pi, prime95, etc.

even did benchmark with 3dmark2005, etc.

it's rock stable for years, well, 1 and a half years to be exact.

but recently, one of my ram died, memtest showed crap load of errors, so I junked it and bought new rams, problem solved.

........... and then.........

my newly formatted winXP system starts acting up, nothing serious like reboot or freeze or anything, but stuff like:

1. Browsers crashing, firefox and IE7, different modules crashing everytime, ask me to send report and sh*t, same old boring useless warning.

2. Add/remove program sub module crashes. Which mean I cant open add/remove program without it crashing.

3. Setup files and applications I downloaded that used to work now start giving me strange errors (ex: The file is corrupted, plz redownload and sh*t)

No, it's not viruses or spyware, I've checked VERY VERY thoroughly. (hijackthis, AVG, ada-ware, registry, everything)

It's a newly formatted system, keep that in mind, and I have not browse or downloaded much with it.

Thing is .........

I've switched it back to default clock now, and the problem seems to go away, time will tell .........

But my question is: Is it possible that a stable OC system start crapping out after some time have passed? Years perhaps?

I mean, running those "un-recommended" voltage and settings for so many years could "eat something up" in the circuitry or something.

I know the old saying: "an OC-ed system will have shorter life span" bla bla bla.

But is this true in my case?

Yes, this situation is normal where stressed parts get less efficient after some time.

In other names..your proc already pedih with the stress.And it cannot tahan so release the pain.Its normal though.

OC-ed system will have shorter life span if you don't know how to take care of it ...
Don't always stress over the safe temperature ..

aged parts particularly show dis kinda symptom,its like ur forcing an old man to do a young man's job

dis is scary..like amedion said..always stress within safe temp..but i dunno at what temp can be called safe..i heard someone said that max between 60-70(intel)..others said 55 is hot enuf..rite now i run my e6750 with 3.6ghz..temp at full load around 53-54..dun care about d max temp already

Its not just the temps, but even if you run on phase cooling with subzero temps, the extra voltage is going to shorten your procs lifespan.

i think its the RAM, diff. batches of got diff. ability in OC
its not the rig goin' crapping..

Its already more than 5 years overclock. Maybe got a little crapping.

its usual for component to degrade after subjected to high operating parameters.......

btw temperature usually is not the key factor since u being runnig the system for years

Cooler temperature helps with the life time too.

Owhhh...i think i better start counting my hardwares lifespan now...

is there any way to calculate lifespan?

I think there's no way even there's a way mostly lifespan of a hardware around 5-10 Years..MOSTLY..

maybe mobo caps.. coz old mobo not use solid type..
sometimes in the PSU.. slight voltage changes will damage other hardware..

time to change proc...yehaaaaaa

QX9770 anyone..

The heat might be the contributing factor I believe

but a 200mhz overclock. i dont see the point. if u oc, sure its for gaining noticeable performance boost/or better benchmarking scores.

in this case, u 'crap out' ur system for erm...0.001 second improvement in <insert application here>

look scary...i wish didnt happen to my e6750..hihi...
haiyoo..wanna downclock back laa like that..PLAY SAFE

my intel 1.8A system is coming to 6 years and it is still oc to 2.4ghz everyday running 24x7.

none of the problems as you stated occured.

so i guess it is intel chip last longer than amd chip due to engineering skill.

Other than wat they already said, a CPU OCed will last, as long as the voltage is not touched. After some time ,there is sumthing called electromigration, basically, a processor will start to fry after sum time. for you. By NE0CZ. Dont ever play with voltage, didnt mom tell you that voltages are dangerous, have you never read "DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!"? KURANG AJAR!

This post has been edited by ne0cz: May 10 2008, 10:23 PM

It's too early to conclude that your computer problems were caused by OC. A spoilt Hard Disk might give the above symptoms too.

Correct me if I am wrong, but normally OC a system will not cause one's system to die as early as 1.5 years. Some more what you did was just mild overclocking, nothing extreme.

This post has been edited by westley0214: May 12 2008, 11:36 PM

200 MHZ OC
i dun think that contributes a lot

most probably you need to re'OC your pc..you have different ram now, it might not perform and oc as well as your previous ram..so the previous setting is no more reliable, need to find another setting bro..

Watch ur PC. Remember to check volts

well i dont totally agree with neocz. there is of course a degradation to your solid state inside your processor but most of your processors under stringest testings before its sold in the market. And i dont really think TS oc voltage is high enough to promote electron migration with total effect. It can be other issues

I don't know. I dont play with voltage. And will never play with it.

bro theres nothing wrong playing with voltage as long you know where the limit is and u dont go overboard with it like some ppl

a1098113, that's not entirely true.
Even the slightest increase on voltage will degrade the processor. Although it takes time, it will degrade slowly.

As what my sifu told me:
Electromigration degrades the fine copper wires inside microprocessors
Even a normal processor running at it's normal voltage has a degree of electromigration, it's just that the degree is so small it's considered useless to count.

agree with shawty, even stock voltage there were electromigration... ur proc will die no matter if u OC or not in the long term... eg 10, 20 years... but i guess most of us who OC will change proc every 2-4 years... so its doesnt matter if u have mild OC... i have 2 amd proc now running as BT rig and home rig on stock which i have been oc it before when i was using it as main rig...

That's not my statement lah, still learning from my shifuu.

i heard tht few months ago from my electronics lecturer... but didnt go understand more... just rougly know wat electromigration is... the smaller the chip size go, eg 65nm, 45nm, the more electromigration occurs i think when oc'ed and applied higher voltages, if i not memorize wrongly... but i think company like intel will use better silicon and new technologies to overcome such problem..

This post has been edited by lichyetan: Jun 8 2008, 07:43 PM

hmm yeah, electron migration affects anything electronic.. just that at what degree of severity its at, depends on how much voltage ur going to pump into it. So for someone who does extreme overclocking over a period of time, his/her rate of em, would be higher than someone with a least amount of oc or none good stuff to learn more about shawts. I also need to learn more from my sifus too

That's true.
And sadly, that's the downside of having smaller die processors.

Right now, we're at 45nm, just imagine what would've happen when 32nm and even smaller dies were to be produced.

then the smaller the Vcore needed to pump for higher speeds... well, hmm, thats why i prefer 65nms.. 32nm procs dont even use FSB, they use QPI and hmm its a mod version of Hyper Transport.. no idea how we are going to overclock when they is no fsb to play with.

Shawts, looks like they saw what we ocers are doing with their procs, so they have locked all the goodies..

Nayy, when there's a will, there's a way.
When the time comes, there will be a way for us to overclock them for sure.

ElectroMigration is happening in my system now.
Normally i only need to use 1.3625Volts for my Q6600 B3 to run at 400 X 9.
Lately, the system is going through a lot of BSOD.
Had to increase the VCore from 1.3625Volts to 1.3655Volts to stabilize the system.

After increasing the VCore from 1.3625Volts to 1.3655Volts, no more BSOD.

Damn!
ElectroMigration is happening as we speak.
I'm telling people about ElectroMigration, Whereas it's happening in my own system.

LOL Wut?

It seems that E8400s can go far without voltage increase...I think it is better, hope nehalem can go even further....

1.83 - 2.00 ghz
i dun think you need to increase any voltage,

I think it's best is to OC only when you need it. Not like you gonna need it on the games since it relies a lot more on the GPU these days.

I also think this will increase the life time of your PC if you don't 24/7 with an overclocked PC.

Another factor is the electronic components will degrade overtime, not just the processor.

haha too bad for u guys.

my system is still good, except my old Gigabyte-965P-DS3 crap out after a year. i was running +0.3 vMCH and vFSB, 457MHz FSB @ 24/7

that experience a good indication for what other ppl stated about the electromigration and lifespan of an overclocked system.

so always spare some money on ur pocket after your system is 1 year old++

p/s: my P35-DS3 requires NO additional voltage for 450MHz++ FSB/MCH

This post has been edited by BlackThyra87: Jul 25 2008, 11:21 AM

coz your stock voltage on Vmch is already pumped to around 1.40+V... my ip35e defaults at 1.23V on Vmch..

It is not likely to be a CPU related, as normally the CPU is the most reliable part of the system.

Had a problem like this a couple of years back, have to throttle down OC until the system died one day. Root cause? Motherboard. At that time I changed the board to an Abit one and the CPU went flying again.

Especially motherboards manufactured before the dawn of the solid capacitor age. It could be any components on the board, actually, that is more likely that is unable to cope with the increased stressed of overclocking.

The number one suspect for flaky/failing system > 1 year is the motherboard. Just look at the number of chips, conductive pathways, passive components and solder joint on it. Anyone goes, thats it.

I think OC will makes writing errors right?

haha, normal lar, so long already.. the processor asking you to buy new cheaper and more powerful counterpart already...