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Hardware

Overclocking is a Counterculture 162

Posted by CmdrTaco from the when-will-it-be-represented-on-The-Real-World? dept.
dayeight sent us an article at ZD Australia which talks about overclocking as a counter-culture. There are of course so many subsets of the generic (and overused) 'Geek' term, but this is definitely one of the cool ones. It's also an easy one for the mainstream world to understand since they are already quite familiar with the automotive gearhead culture that has existed for decades.
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Overclocking is a Counterculture

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  • Detuned CPUs? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This too has it's parallel in the automotive world. Just as CPU makers ship chips that are set to run well below their true top speed, automakers sell cars with 'detuned' engines, intentionally limited to well below their maximum horsepower.

    It's a well known unwritten rule of GM that in any given model year, no production car is allowed to have a faster reported 0-60 time than the best production Corvette model. If this means detuning the Firebird/Camaro that uses the same engine as the 'vette, so be it.

    Does this sound like any chip maker we know?

  • Speaking of Doom, the way I used to get a performance boost running Doom, back in the day, was that the ISA clock rate on my 486 motherboard was set to be a ratio of the CPU clock rate, rather than having a separate crystal.

    So my ISA bus was set to clock at 11.xx MHz instead of the ~8 MHz ISA cards are designed for. This could result in flaky system performance with the wrong card plugged in, but it worked for me, and made my ol' 486 somewhat more zippy (about a 50% I/O bandwidth boost).

    For that matter, people used to pop out their 8088 processor and replace it with a NEC V-20 chip. And supercooled '286 processors could go up to 25 MHz and beyond.
  • Trust me, if only one company in the US made resistors, you would see them suing people for filing them down. :) The current market has this overall sense that whatever the big companies want, they get. So we have this DVD thing, only blessed companies can make a player, and you can only watch your country's movies. All software EULAs are terribly overridden with "If you do anything but what this company says you will die!" So it's only natural Intel joins in and says, "You will pay what I want you to pay for what speed I decide you should have." The sad thing is most mopes just allow it. There is no huge outcry that things you buy are actually yours to do with what you want.

    The thing with automobiles is they were invented long before this mindset came into play, back in the day when buying something meant it was yours. But, when some new type of car is invented, a flying one maybe, you can rest assured opening the hood will cause several black helicopters to pull up beside you and shoot you down. All they would have to do is say out one oriface, "It's for your own safety. We can't have these crackpots souping up their Carplanes. They'll run into you and kill you! Oh and take your Carplane to an authorized dealer every 2 days for proper tuneup." (Threaten, demonize, destroy.)

    So, once you askew your mindset to this way of thinking, of course it is "ripping off" Intel. Intel is this innocent, benevolent computer maker. They just want to earn an honest buck. When you go buy that Celeron/300 and run it at 500, Intel loses bazillions. If you keep it up they will go out of business. Then we will not have ANY computers. How would you like that, huh? (Oh yes, going to the furthest extreme is also a useful argument for your side.)
  • Well, seeing as technical stuff with computers are pretty much a male thing, of course they overclock them. But don't get me wrong, women have their competitive side as well. You have people like Julia Childs or Martha Stewart finding new ways to make me a better pie, or make some ornament out of pine cones, dirt and a pretty piece of lace. If Martha can IPO from that, you could too.
  • Back in those days, motherboards only had the two jumpers for multiplier settings. Then you had to go and wire a couple pins under the cpu socket to activate the third set and get multipliers up to like 7. 83.3 * 3.5 was the limit those motherboard makers put on the boards.

    These kids nowadays, lemme tell ya. They just go into their fancy, schmancy BIOS and select a new setting from a purty menu. It's just not right, I tell ya. It's just not right...

  • Ah yes, the general public. These are the same people that heard for six straight months that the Columbine kids played Doom. Therefore, overclocking leads to Doom, Doom leads to killing classmates. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm gonna have to write a letter to my congressman to have this stopped. It's killing our children!
  • I've overclocked my CPU. Now how do I get the FPS from vim? I can already see an improvement in the speed in which I program things.
  • ... as a hobby, and I agree with you. It is a matter of pride.

    But it's also, for a lot of programmers (such as myself) a way of getting *outside* the box, yet still applying similar modes of thought.

    Designing a desk or shelf system, or working out how to scale a particular design to your own environment, then going ahead and building it out of wood with your own tools is a form of 'programming' - at least, similar faculties are being applied.

    And in my case, I find it to be extremely rewarding to kick back in the wood shop after a long night of cutting and carving, and seeing the results of my handiwork in front of me. It's 2am, I could've been coding, but I've been applying similar modes of operation and I've got something that is *tangible*, that I can show my non-computer-literate friends (who "get it" with my wood working more so than they do with my software), and that is instantly usable.

    Perhaps a similar situation is occuring with the overclockers of the world - it is a way to apply the same sorts of thought modes to a realworld situation and achieve a tangible product.

    BTW, for any burned-out programmer types out there, I really can't recommend getting into carpentry or metalwork strongly enough. After a week of code grind, it's really quite relieving to hack around in the workshop over the weekend, design and build a bunch of furniture. Very refreshing way of preparing yourself for another week of code burn...

  • On that topic, I was at the tire shop the other day, and looking at one of the hot rod magazines there. They had a picture of a Fiat 500 with a small-block Chevy engine.

    That just made me chuckle.

    New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

    /bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Re:Tweaks & Geeks (Score:3)

    by rotenberry ( 3487 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:57AM (#1134309)
    Just two quick comments:

    Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, the cost in real dollars of a beat up but running car around 1960 was about the same as a new motherbaord + CPU + memory is now, i.e., cheap enough to be a hobby. And you get something useful when you are done.

    In addition, working on a car was (and is) a learning experience, as is putting together your own computer system. (You get dirtier working on a car, however.)
  • ...several black helicopters...


    No, just ordinary black flying cars (maybe vans) ;)

  • of course, at a certain point be prepared to say hello to Mr. Bernoulli.
  • I love overclocking. It's a way of getting that little bit of extra control and tweaking that says "Any monkey can assemble a PC. But mine is better!" Plus, it's fun to do the work, relatively harmless, and a nice way to get better acquainted with the hardware.

    My best overclocking results: I bought an Athlon 600, and with a liberal application of thermal grease, a soldering iron, and a really swank fan, got a 750 out of it, stable as a rock. For about an extra $10 (the difference in price between a really good heatsink/fan and a cruddy one) and some time, I got a chip that (at the time) cost about $300 more.

    But my favorite all-time overclocking hack was upgrading my old PowerBook 3400c from 240 MHz to 270. That surgery was nasty - but not as bad as putting a bigger hard drive in my iBook...

    - -Josh Turiel
  • most geeks overclock their hardware for improved performance, and like anything else will boast about their computers. Atleast the younger geeks will. Either way, I suspect it's purely an issue of performance. The fact that over 90% of geeks are male may have something to do with the idea that it's a "male" subculture.

    One thing is for certain: most computer users don't do it - only gamers and geeks.

  • Well, I just took a new job in a new city, so I'm living in a rental house until I can find one of my own. My woodworking shop is all tucked away in a 10'X 12' storage shed in the back yard.

    Can't wait to get my shop back. There's just something extremely relaxing about working at the lathe - the snick-snick-snick sound a well sharpened gouge makes produces as much satisfaction (for me) as routing out that intermittent bug that affects only that ONE user. (Smells better, too!)

    How 'bout it, Rob? Seems like a good idea for a poll to me.
  • However, by drastically reducing the need to go to virtual memory, things in general will run quite a bit faster--sometimes up to 50%. There's good reason for this: processing data in RAM is a lot faster than waiting for part of the information to be read off the virtual memory file on the hard drive. For business applications, this is real critical.

    Besides, if you're running an image processing program, you want as much as 256 MB of RAM to process large-format 24-bit or 32-bit color images, even if you have a Pentium III or Athlon CPU. For image processing, a 650 MHz or faster CPU is a real good idea.
  • I've seen some of those oversized Socket 370 heatsink/fan units. Small they're not (they're often over 30 mm in height).

    A few suggestions though: 1) make sure the heatsink have plenty of fins to dissipate the heat; 2) make sure the fan uses a high-quality ball-bearing design, otherwise it will fail fairly quickly; and 3) it's a good idea to use thermal grease if you're using a Celeron 366A-533A with its PPGA design for overclocking, otherwise it won't be neccessary because the FC-PGA design of the Celeron 566-600 allows the CPU circuitry "carrier" to directly contact the heatsink/fan unit.
  • I have news for you. The Slot A Athlon CPU's run VERY hot even with a decent heatsink/fan unit. That's why Athlon systems frequently have at least three fan systems inside (one for the CPU, the power supply fan, and a secondary case cooling fan). You should see the heatsink/fan units for Athlon CPU's--BIG mothers with seriously large heatsink fins. Small wonder why I have some concerns about overclocking Athlon CPU's. The Pentium IIIE in their Slot 1 and FC-PGA designs tend to run a bit cooler, so you there is less need for oversized heatsink/fan units--just make sure the fan(s) have a high-quality bearing so it lasts a long time in normal use.
  • This is why I still have some serious concerns about overclocking Athlon CPU's. Given they run quite hot, if the CPU cooler unit has fan problems, unless you connected the fan power cable to the motherboard and enabled overheat sensing in the BIOS setup, a fan failure may be a prelude to a pretty expensive CPU thermal failure. I think I'll wait until the "Thunderbird" CPU with its "Socket A" design instead. (smile)

  • Overclocking downside (Score:3)

    by RayChuang ( 10181 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:20AM (#1134319)
    My big complaint about overclocking CPU's is that while you can get better heatsink/fan units with thermal glue to better dissipate the heat when you overclock the CPU, what happens if the fan dies? This could result in a Chernobyl-like meltdown of the CPU, and you'll be out US$65 to US$200 for a lower-speed overclocked CPU that is now useless. This is especially true of the AMD Athlon CPU, because the Athlon CPU runs quite hot even when NOT overclocked.

    Besides, a more efficient method to get more speed is to get as much RAM as you can afford and get a faster hard drive. I usually recommend around 128 to 192 MB of system RAM, because then you don't have to use the hard drive so much as virtual memory, which speeds things up quite a lot.
  • This in itself is a form of fetish: needing to have the latest-and-greatest just because something new is out.

    Yeah. Because obviously there is no increased value in having a faster processor. Imagine you go to the grocery store and there is a package of grits for $2.50, and another for $2.35 that has a two for one deal going on. If I buy the better value (more utility for my money) is it a fetish, or just smart?

    For the record I am running a celeron 300A overclocked to 450. Rock solid, and a great deal at the time at US$200 for chip & mobo. If it were purely a fetish thing I would probably be using an Athlon 850 or something

  • The guys who overclock are compensating for small penises.

    No wonder I underclock my processor...

  • >what happens if the fan dies?

    Well, unless you happen to notice via thermal monitoring utilities that the CPU is running much hotter than normal, you'll probably kill the chip.

    However, you also shoot your own argument in the foot right here:

    >Athlon CPU runs quite hot even when NOT overclocked.

    So do Celerons, P2s, and P3s. If the fan dies or falls off or otherwises stops providing air circulation around my CPU, it will make no difference if my system is overclocked or not. Without cooling, the chip will die. Period. The only difference between my CPU's death at 300 vs 450 is that it will take a little longer to cook itself at 300.

    -LjM
  • "My big complaint about overclocking CPU's is that while you can get better heatsink/fan units with thermal glue to better dissipate the heat when you overclock the CPU, what happens if the fan dies? This could result in a Chernobyl-like meltdown of the CPU, and you'll be out US$65 to US$200 for a lower-speed overclocked CPU that is now useless..."

    What if the fan dies? No problem, get another fan. $10-20 for a fan and heatsink. Modern motherboards (Even the cheap $70 board I use) are equipped with a 3-pin fan header which, besides supplying your fan with power, also returns information on the fan's speed. In the event of a failure, the motherboard can sound an alarm and/or throttle back the CPU. Note that older fans that connect through a four-pin connector to the power supply do not support this feature.

    As for "thermal glue", I'm guessing you mean the thermal epoxy or thermal adhesive pads (such as the glue used on some of Intel's Overdrive chips) which permanently attach the fan. Those sort of attachements are rarely found on DIY machines--Overclockers typically use bare CPUs, with (non-adhesive) thermal grease between the CPU and heatsink.
  • All you do is move a couple jumpers!

    Not anymore, at least with the newer CPUs. For instance, overclocking an AMD Athlon requires cracking open the protective cartridge (which is not meant to be removable), and then either doing some soldering work or using a "Goldfingers" device to override the CPU module's bus frequency multiplier locks.

    As for systems that are not meant to overclock--sometimes yields have been so good Intel and AMD have had had to ship some high-speed chips to fill contracts for lower speed units. For instance, crack open the cases of certain batches of 500mhz Athlons and you'll find chips stamped with the 650mhz code.

    There are actually sites out there like this [mist.co.uk] giving listings of what's really inside--what fab it was made at, the process type, the production date, etc. Some sites may even be tables listing the overclocking potentials for different batches of the same CPU.
  • This is such OLD NEWS...

    ArsTechnica covered this in May, 28, 1999...

    The actual Mineral Oil cooling rig [accsdata.com] page.

    What I want to know is: Will /. regularly run articles about news items that are inspired by things already mentioned in /. articles [slashdot.org] a year before??
  • Right. Setting up the car with a more aggressive chip or rigging it for NOx is not 'approved'. The reasons are safety and pollution (and the implicit "we're in charge" statement from the gov). But it's not due to the fact that you might break your car in the process of modifying it.

    Would the auto-maker object? Well, except in an effort to look got for the government? I don't think so. They'd be glad to see you roast your engine - so you could buy another.

    By that same token, Intel ought to make overclocking easy, and double the labeled speed rating should be an encouraged Holy Grail.

    If you toast it, you'll replace it. :) It's a much more believable policy for a company that wants o make money.

  • The Celerons, the DVDs, the Hot-Rods! Oh my! (Score:3)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:24AM (#1134327) Homepage
    Completely agreed.

    But, software licensing has set a nasty precedent. The DVD (DeCSS) fiasco has called the bluff of hardware 'ownership' , and been slapped down for it. We buy the disc, but we apparently only LICENSE THE RIGHT (or privilege if you ask the RIAA) to use the content.

    How long before Intel and AMD ( and other hackable hardware manufacturers (Ford??) ) try to LICENSE USAGE RIGHTS to hardware over which THEY retain OWNERSHIP.

    Can you imagine having to SIGN A EULA for your next car??? This seems to be where things are going - unless technically minded, prestigious people fire back at the media, and reduce overclocking to what it is... Putting bigger pipes on your hot-rod.

    That's all we're doing after all. We're replacing plugs with Platinum tipped ones, putting in after-market filters and hoses and wires.

    I don't hear Ford bitching about people tweaking their cars. In fact, a heavily modified hot-rod is sweet to the manufacturer. It shows that it's owner is PASSIONATE about what it can do; not that it's owner considers the COTS version inadequate.

    Cripes! Why don't people understand this??

  • Didn't you know? The guys who overclock are compensating for small penises. Er, um, not that I overclock or anything, it's just a guess or something...

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Counterculture? (Score:5)

    by orpheus ( 14534 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @01:39PM (#1134329)
    let's get this straight...

    ...swimmers may shave their bodies (or heads) to cut down on resistance.
    ...cyclists walk around town wearing clothes that could have gotten them arrested in Alabama not so long ago (helmets that look like dinosaur skulls, shorts that let you count pubic hairs, and colors that blind drivers is you whiz by them in traffic on a sunny day).
    ...physics-impaired yuppies frequent oxygen bars, and guzzled bermuda grass smart drinks (yeah, catch their pick-up lines if you want to see how well *that* works)
    ...the average american drinks more beers on a single weekend than s/he reads books in a year
    ...if my brain were on, I could come up with far more diverse and colorful examples...

    ... and *I'm* counterculture for changing a few BIOS settings and using a non-factory cooler on my PC?

    doodz... in ten years, they'll look back, and we'll be pop culture. In fifty we'll be the culture, while those other freakazoids will just be considered 'fellow riders' on the subway

    ... and *I'm* part of a counter culture

    __________

  • Second, my car is a lame-o Geo Prism - only a moron would try to "turbo-charge" it.

    I take offense! I drive a "lame-o Geo Prism" (which is mostly a Corrola is disguise) and I think it would be outrageously funny to "turbo-charge" it. :)

  • I overclock because I refuse to pay the premium for the Newest CPU On the Block
    This in itself is a form of fetish: needing to have the latest-and-greatest just because something new is out. Just wait, and it'll get cheaper.

    Pope
  • But you are using as intended.
    The 600Mhz rating is a rating that says 'With X cooling and Y voltage, this chip will function within normal parameters at 600Mhz'. If you go and change the environment the chip is used in, they simply can't guarantee anything.
  • Okay. Look at it this way.
    1) I buy a celeron
    2) I overclock
    3) It gets coked
    4) I go back to the store and say 'this chip worked for an hour and now it's dead'
    5) The store takes it back, and sends it back to their supplier as DOA.

    They don't say 'prove you didn't break it yourself'. If they did, the answer would be 'prove I DID break it'. You can't, they can't, so you get a new chip.
    Granted this is dishonest, and I have never done this.. however.. it's true.

    Also.. as for 'voiding' the warranty.. I don't believe that my celeron process had any 'warranty' terms that described exactly in what manner it was to be used...
  • Good points.
    As for your first point, them not liking it when poeple return melted chips, that all makes sense, but have they ever actually stated this, or are you just assuming? I would guess the number of 'melted' chips they receive, compared to the number sold is miniscule, so small a number that they don't even care. What they DO care about is having their market hurt.

    As for small PC makers selling computers.. I am divided.

    As a PC maker, if I build a 'PC'with a celeron 300A and overclock it to 450, and sell you a '450 Mhz intel based system', what have you to complain about? Nothing. You got what you thought you were getting, an intel based system running at 450Mhz. Now, if you asked me if it included a 450Mhz Celeron, I might be lying if I told you it did, as the common assumption is that I mean a process that is *rated* at 450Mhz, not simply running at 450 Mhz.

    The point is, if you are joe average, and want a '450 Mhz Celeron' computer, then who cares if it's overclocked? You *DID* get what you paid for.
    On the other hand, if you are a geek, and want a computer that uses intel's 450Mhz rated Celerons, then you got ripped off. It's all in the details.
  • Whether or not it's a crime really depends on how they are describing their computers.
    If they claim it's got an intel Pentium II processor, and that it runs at 500Mhz... then they aren't ripping you off if it happens to be a 333 overclocked to 500Mhz. You bought a working computer that runs as specified.

    If they claim it uses a Pentium II 500 as a processor, but really it's a 333 overclocked, then they are ripping you off.

  • People's perception of overclockers. (Score:5)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:58AM (#1134336)
    I find it strange, the way people look at overclockers, and the way the media treats them.

    It's not that they are 'ripping off' Intel, or AMD. it's not doing something 'wrong', and it's not doing something 'illegal'.

    Let's look at something like a resistor. A plain, old resistor. You can pay one price for a pack of resistors with a specified tolerance of 15%, a slightly higher price for 5%, an even higher price for 1%. Now, it is not uncommon for a hobbyist to simply take some cheap 15% bags, find ones that are over tolerance, and file them down to increase ristance, providing a very accurate match to whatever they are building. In short, they 'hacked' the resistor. Nobody would accuse them of 'ripping off' the company that made the resistor. What you are paying for, when you buy that expensive bag of 1% devices, is the fact that they are guaranteed to work to within 1% of the specified speed.

    This is very similar to what happens when Intel sells a chip. When they sell a chip rated 500Mhz, they are in no way saying you are not allowed to run it faster, they are saying that they guarantee it will work at 500Mhz. So, if you are a manufacturer, and you want a 500Mhz chip for your computer, you buy a chip that's guaranteed to work at 500Mhz, right?

    To put it a different way, a 500Mhz Pentium-III is guaranteed to run at 500Mhz under specified conditions: A certain voltage, a certain shape of clock signal, a certain amount of heat dissipation (cooling), etc.
    It shoudl be obvious then, that this rating of 500Mhz only applies as long as the other conditions are met. IF you change those conditions, the rating is meaningless.

    So if you cool your chip with some extra fans, effectively doubling the cooling, it can probably run faster.
  • Hell, with modern cars, you gotta be able to overclock your car, too.

    Why, when I supercharged the boxster, the fly-by-wire controls were undersampling at a paltry 60Hz, so I overclocked the Motronic. That pup's cranked up to 87.5Hz. A real driver can feel the difference in responsiveness.

    Then there's the traction control. When you're cornering at 25 MPH over stock capability, you need the active suspension and tracking controls to be just that smidge faster. So I overclocked the suspension subcomputer from 40kHz to 50kHz, just to get that extra edge.

    Of course, with all this improved speed and handling, I need the Antilock Brakes to be smarter. I upgraded them to 16 M of memory (for performance history checking), and upped the skid detection frequency to 36 Hz.

    This is all pretty kRad and all. So I put on fat headers, a mega tail pipe, and a dual-GPS navigation assistance system. It's PHAT!

    Now, if I could just debug the device drivers (/dev/car), I'd port it to Linux, 'cause these BSoDs (Blue Skids of Death) are drivin' me nuts!

  • If you want clarity you shouldn't get Bose speakers (especially the Sat systems). Here is a link to the Bose FAQ. Sorry about the google cache link but I think the old one is down

    http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www-bigbang .stanford.edu/~parkb/av/bose-faq-1.0.html+ bose+faq

    Some quick points about the Sat systems:
    1) Since the Sats have only one speaker element that is to big to form defined high end sounds and to small to produce any real bass. All you get is a muddled midrange sound.
    2) The "Bass box" or whatever the hell they call it is NOT a subwoofer. It contains a couple of 5.5" drivers. Nothing big enough to move any sort of air around.

    Again FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT BY BOSE SPEAKERS!

    Bose is the MS of audio equipment. All marketing and no substance

    <Hoping that at least one person sees this post so I didn't sacrifice my Karma for nothing>

    Pete
  • so what do these "overclockers" do with their machines after they're done voiding their warranties?

    "Games like 'Doom' are popular."

    Ok...
    I wonder exactly how many FPS you can get with a dual ClereonII 633 oc'd to 1ghz (see this [hardocp.com] article).
  • And you scrape your knuckles. I rebuilt a car over spring break once in college, and had the joy of having parts scattered all over the living room and working with my arms above me in the depths of the car for hours a day for a few days...

    Not to say there aren't nasty things waiting to hurt you inside a computer case, from loose voltage to sharp things that seek to lacerate you as you try and wind a ribbon cable to that impossibly cramped fourth device or try and inster/remove stubborn cards. Still, I'd say I prefer working on computers over cars.
  • This is a really interesting thread, as I have actually thought about getting into woodworking for a long time now - I live in a townhome though and so don't have much space.

    I wish more than anything I could build my own computer desk as I have a lot of ideas and pretty much everything out there seems not very well thought out, or at least not thought out by people who would use the things a lot.

    This subject makes me wonder about how many other programmers out there have a latent interest in woodworking, or other things - it seems like that would make an interesting poll. If you could choose another hobby besides computers to spend time on, what would it be? Family doesn't count as it's not (or at least shouldn't be!) a hobby.
  • I have an intel venus and an intel providence p-pro motherbaords, both have undocumented jumper settings that allow you to go to 233 by upping the modifier. my p-pro 180's have no problem running at 233.

    The best place I've found for finding undocumented overclock information is...
    well damn.
    tom's hardware used to have an overclock survey started back in the days of the p-pro, in the comments section people would list the jumpers to get the undocumented multipliers and bus speeds. After some fruitless searching it appears he has dropped this section. i sure hope i wrote down the setting for my boards.

    In general, check the jumper settings for the various bus speeds and multipliers. If there are any possible settings that aren't documented, try 'em out
  • my first overclock was a 386
    I had a 16mhz 386 in an intel inboard card(that I got as part of a trade deal for a car I had replaced the engine in). the inboard was for upgrading an XT to a 386, but I was sporting a 286-12 at the time which made the card useless
    Got a good deal for a 386-25 motherboard, as far as I knew the motherboard was fixed-frequency. Pulled the chip off the card and dropped it in. Ran fine for 3 years until I upgraded to a 486. Percentage-wise it was a better overclock then my cel300a that's been running perfectly at 450 since I bought it.

    And it ran doom fairly well too....
  • This was on ArsTechinca a couple days ago, I know that it is possible that the submitting user didn't see it there, but I see lots of stories on /. where the commentary could have been listed almost verbataim from another compilation site.

    This isn't the story approver's problem, but I see lots of sites give /. props when the run with a story seen first on /., but I never see [the submitters on] slashdot give a shout to people that they steal leads from. Granted all the story ideas can't be stolen, but lots are.

    -sb
  • Of course overclocking is counter-culture, in the "yeah, screw the MAN!" sense.

    In recent years, especially, as companies such as Intel have taken high-yield chips (remember the Pentium-233 MMX?) and sold the EXACT same chip at different speeds (and different prices) to maximize their shipping/production efficiency. With these developments, overclocking has moved away from the "squeeze every last ounce of performance out of your hardware" philosophy to the "gee, let's get what we paid for" philosophy.
    Overclocking is no longer the exclusive realm of geeks demanding that last .01% performance boost, but is now people just trying to get the most bang for your buck. You take a 200 Mhz chip, and run it at 233. By doing this, you're not pushing the hardware beyond its design capabilities, you're just being smart.

  • Misrepresentation of Overclockers (Score:4)

    by tred ( 29362 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:43AM (#1134346)
    As a long term avid overclocker, one-time writer for an overclocking site, and op in efnets biggest overclocking channel #celeron, I figured I'd give my opinion on something here on /. for once.

    This article portrays overclockers as not only people trying to steal from Intel and other computer manufacturers, but as people who only do it to get the higher number. I quote, "And what do overclockers do with these faster computers? Not much, actually. The most popular application involves running a measuring program that proves exactly how much faster the overclocked chip is running. Overclockers make printouts of these speed readings and send them to each other." This is just prue ignorance. Yes bragging about it is fun, but that is by no means the main reason for overclocking. Ask any overclocker what they do most on their computer and I bet every one would tell you that it's play games. We don't make them faster just for shits and giggles. It's about getting enough frames per second in Quake 3 to be able to run it at 1600x1200 with all the pretty features turned on. It's about making your games look and work better - and I resent them reducing it to a form of compensation (as the hot rod makers often are accused of)...

    Sure, they do touch on gaming a little bit. "Games like "Doom" also are popular. Overclockers who play them say the faster chips help them outlast their competitors" If they were going to write only one sentence about how it improves performance, they could at least get their facts right. Computers are about 8x faster than when Doom was first released (MHz-wise at least) - 'nuff said. Regardless, the article was exactly what I expected. The part at the end about discovering his computer working faster since it was probably ~8 cooler was kind of funny, but I suppose they're just trying to explain the concept to the ignorant masses (a group of people that they should probably be included in). I think I just expected more from an article about computers that is only available on computers...

  • Dual fans... at least one will still work...
    I've got daul fan heatsinks on both of my C300A @450 . They really run nice in SMP mode after you do the BR# mod.

    Yes, use heat sink compound, it's much better than those pads that come standard on heatsinks. If you are a real fanatic, you use some abrasive between the processor and heatsink and grind down all the high spots. the thinner the grease, the better the heat flow. I went from 42C to 35C by removing the pad and grinding the celeron flat and using thermal grease.
  • I overclocked my Mac, I have a G3 300 that runs 366 with a 1.5:1 L2. I also put a ultri-wide SCSI card in and a 7200RPM drive, I also replace the cheesy apple 4x cd with a 32X Plextor Ultra SCSI.
    What do I use it for, websurfing and some image processing. Oh, it's a Powercomputing machine I bought years ago, it is within 20% of the latest iMac or G3 box in terms of performance.
    I also 'over clocked' my jetskis, my PC, my robot, etc... it's fun. I dont have any need to 'compensate' for some personal shortcoming, I just like to hack. The Celeron hack was a lot of fun, i spend about 3 hours with a loupe on, working with tweezers and a micro-tip soldering iron, it was lots of fun. Sure, I can afford a coupld of Coppermines, based on what I earn, I lost money on the time spent on the C300A's, but the exercise of skill and the results were worth it.
    Hell, I pulled two 8ns L2 cache chips off a G3 card and replaced them with the latest Moto late-write SRAMS so I could go from 150MHZ L2 to 250 on one board. (I got paid to do that one though...)
  • it spins the fan at 500krpm for about 10 seconds

    I hope not - if this is a 3" diameter fan, this means that the tips would be doing a bit over mach 5 :)

    BTW if you put a tuned pipe on your cpu cooling exhaust headers you can get another 20mhz out of it.

  • Re:People's perception of overclockers. (Score:3)

    by rcw-work ( 30090 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:30AM (#1134350)
    They are absolutely made off the same die - this is how people were getting their P166MMX's to run at 250mhz and often 291mhz at the time. The 166's, 200's, and 233's all came off the same line, they would all run at 233 fine, 95% would run at 250 (you also had to have a motherboard and cards that would handle 83.3mhz bus, rarer in the pentium days), and a few would go up to 83.3*3.5.

    Shortly after this, Intel started multiplier-locking their cpu's, which while not eliminating overclocking, definately made it harder (you had to start being picky about what chip you started with, a celeron 400 didn't have much overclock potential but a 366 did, etc).

  • As someone who (until last week) worked in the semiconductor test industry (Teradyne, as a matter of fact - woohoo on the options I will no longer get), I sometimes wonder why people even want to overclock in the first place.

    The testers that companies like Teradyne/LTX/Agilent/Schlumberger(sp?) create don't just test devices for a pass or a fail; they determine how well a device responded to the tests. All the devices that come from the fab are, true enough, the same. But not all of them can be clocked at the maximum speeds. Semiconductor testers "bin" the devices based on the test results. Some chips pass the 800MHz test; some fail but pass the 750MHz test; and so on.

    Apparently, most people think that these companies falsely label some chips at higher speeds and some at lower speeds, just to make money off of the faster chips. That's not true (not always, at least). The reason why faster chips are far more expensive is because of yield - there aren't nearly as many devices that pass the highest level of testing (unless they make a ton of the devices). It is true, that sometimes, to meet demands, they do label faster chips as slower, but that's extremely rare, mainly because there is always plenty of demand for the faster chips, at any cost it seems.

    So if you do overclock, you are making your system less reliable and less stable. You are putting your data at risk. And so on. Of course chip manufacturers don't want you to overclock - because if they encouraged it, the typical setup, say of Windoze on an x86, will be even less stable than it already is. And with the software as fickle as it is, we don't want any extra grievance from the hardware as well.

    Overclockers live an illusion - just because your machine will boot and run doesn't mean that everything is working properly. If you do overclock, don't push others to do it - it's just not right. Someone once told me to figure out why something is the way it is before you go about trying to revolutionize everything. Go fig.

  • i am a female. i overclock.

    my work computer, where i have a need for stability and reliability (and where I have someone else who can afford to buy me top of the line equipment) is not overclocked.

    my home computer is overclocked. i find it challenging to coax more speed out of something I bought at 1/4 the price of its big brother.

  • I OC. (Score:3)

    by bridgette ( 35800 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @11:46AM (#1134353)
    I am very careful about it, only OCing in situations that will give me significantly better performance and price without sacrificing stability. (dual celery 366@550!)

    If you research your project well, you can build a great machine at a great price. And you can design your system to emphasize your needs.

    There probably aren't a lot of female over clockers simply because there aren't a lot of female geeks (or Quake players). I think that there will be more non-geeks doing the over-clocking thing in the future, since more non-geeks have computers and end up doing the maintenance (I even coached my mom, over the phone, while upgrading her modem!)

    DYI computer modifications will be much more common than car hot-rodding since building your own pc consists of so many small, common and accessble steps. Most computer owners will at some point be encouraged to install their own memory upgrade or a second disk drive or a new modem etc. ... after doing those things enough, you know about everything but installing the motherboard. And computer work dosn't have the same space and tool requirements of auto mechanics.

    I do wonder about the correlation of gender and hobby choices. I know a lot of guys who tinker with cars or build things out of wood or brew beer and I know a lot of chicks who love to sew or throw pots or do beadwork or make candles. But why does it work out that way? Even with very non-traditional people who don't easily fit into perscribed gener roles?
  • Of course, you'd have to put in the second third and fourth cylinders... last time I looked under the hood of one of those little things, it only had one ;-)

  • query... (Score:1)

    by tjn ( 39760 )
    What board do you use?

    I have a PPro 200mhz system that can't be overclocked... aparently if you baught one late and the board guys knew there wouldn't be a faster one out there, they didn't put enough jumpers on the board to let you play that game. I've been looking for a "Socket 8" board that'll let me clock it up, but have been unsuccessful.

    A 200 mhz chip running cool at 200 mhz seems like such a waste!

  • "No highs... No lows... It must be Bose."
  • When I first saw this, I thought the guy was a nut - however, similar oil is used to cool transformers and Tesla coils (which are transformers, too)...

    Lapping, contrary to the article, isn't as hard as it sounds - many sites give info on this. I still think it is extreme to lap a processor and heatsink, since the thermal paste should fill in the gaps. It is conceivable that one could penetrate the cover on a normal processor by lapping it, but I think if that happens, you are overdoing it.

    Most extreme overclockers stick with a water cooling solution or a combo water-cooled/TEC (thermoelectric cooler - ya know, a peltier) system to cool. Some don't like TEC's alone - failure of the TEC could be catastrophic. With a combo water cooling solution, it isn't a problem, provided the water continues to circulate.

    I feel kinda left out - my current systems are maxed out (I have older systems), with the fastest processors on them, and I can't clock higher. Not that it matters much to me, but one area that I am going toward is overclocking my video card.

    I have a Hercules Voodoo Rush card, and I found these small fans and heatsinks that will fit on the chips perfectly, with a little work. Should be fun!
  • I am a coder myself, but I like woodworking a lot (though my skills are rusty - haven't did much since HS, since it is hard fitting a well equipped woodshop into an apartment, short of buying a Shopsmith Mark V).

    I tend to break out a soldering iron and/or a Dremel before a saw, nowadays (though I have been known to use a jigsaw on a computer case - don't ask). Building that piece of custom hardware lets me slow down from coding (though I got a 486 MP3 player shoehorned into a MacIIsi box, which I then had to do some custom coding for the LCD - ack!).

    I don't think I could ever burn out on code - maybe if all I did was for my job, but nothing beats doing it at home - a small game here, a new app there - I can't imagine NOT doing it...
  • Your comment reminded me of woodworking. When my GF asked me (after watching an episode of the New Yankee Workshop) why, after spending all the money for the wood and time to build something, which would cost you as much as if you had bought it, and sometimes more - why would you do it?

    I told her the same thing - it is the pride of knowing you did it, that you have something no one else has, and that you built it with your own two hands.

  • LOL! (Score:2)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 )
    :)

    Funny, damn funny (for some reason - call me twisted!)...
  • my dad used to tweak with his motorcycle when he was my age. He'd make adjustments, tweak the engine etc.

    Now I overclock my computer, upgrade, etc.

    A motorcylce is used for transportation and recreation.

    A computer is used for transportation, recreation, communication, programming, music, video, etc.

    My toy is much much more powerful than my Dad's if you understand information theory.
  • You sure as hell do. I've got an OC'd celeron (366->550), and my compile times have been cut nearly in half. When you're talking an improvemnet of 20 minutes compile to 10 minutes compile time, that's nothing to laugh at. I get far more programming done in an evening than if I hadn't OC'd my celeron... have fun dongoodman
  • Ford may like people who are passionate about their cars, but that may not be true of all auto-makers. Look at the Honda vs. honda.net battle:

    Honda Not Fond of Honda.net [wired.com]

    Although it is counterintuitive to say that this is about more than money, I think it is. I think it is also about power, and about the people who have it keeping it from the people who don't. People have pointed out that a Sony Playstation emulator would help Sony gain profits, but Sony won't make one or let anyone else do so if they can help it. At some point you have to think that these people are building themselves up by thinking, "Hey! I'm the head of mulitnational_x, I can spit on my consumers and they have to pretend they like it... heh-heh-heh"

    At least, that's the way I look at them...

  • Yup, this post was definity off-topic. Heaven forbid that someone should reply to a troll asking how he can aviod seeing the troll without waiting for a discussion explicity meant for this kind of discussion. I mean, come on people!

    Ok, Mr AC: The first thing you can do is set your threshold at 0, this will filter out most blatent trolls while letting most legit comments thru. Of course, your personal -1 is a testament to when this won't work, but hey, it is a start. The second thing you can do is to simply not read the comments and recognize that September isn't over and it isn't going to end anytime soon. (Huh?) [tuxedo.org]

  • What about us UNDERCLOCKERS? (Score:5)

    by grytpype ( 53367 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @11:36AM (#1134365) Homepage
    I have an AMD K2 233 that I have to run at 200 to keep my system from crashing. Am I part of some counterculture too?
  • Why do I overclock? Because I'm a human, and humans have this very useful innate desire to improve their surroundings. Think of where we'd be without it.

    I know I take a risk when overclocking. That's the whole point--to find out how much risk for how much reward. I know my machine can crash horribly, so I've written tools (`cpuburn`) to test for stability. Yes, Intel has better tools, but they won't give them out without NDA, while my project is GPL.

    It all boils down to not taking manufacturers at their word. While they can have more sophisticated testers, they will never test exactly my setup. So I have to test it. Then why should I not push it `til it fails the tests?

    I take mfr specs as a recommendation, or at most, a guarantee. But I don't need to accept it. OTOH, I have no right to foist my choice on others [remarking]. That's fraud. And so is trying to return damaged components.
  • I didn't say what the motivation was for striving to improve things. Sometimes it might be for others, but mostly it's for one's self. But that doesn't matter, because humanity gains even if the inventor is only interested in personal gain.

    People are showoffs. They get personal rewards from doing better than others. From women who might work at better makeup or dresses to Marie Curie who discovered Radium. Or Bill Gates who created GW-BASIC. To the posters here on /. Even the secrecy of the Manhattan Project didn't stop the scientists involved from getting credit for their work.

    And merely showingoff by [posting in alt.comp.hardware.overclocking] helps others [overclockers]. They see that something might be possible. And that is the most important spur to development. The Russians had a much easier time of developing the A bomb because the already knew it was possible [and spying].

    This is one reason that IP laws are so dangerous. They encourage development by giving exclusive property rights to the first developer. But these same property rights impede widespread implementation [progress] because the owner wants royalties. Ben Franklin didn't patent his stove for just this reason.

    A balance must be struck, and I'm afraid the IP owners are too influential in at least two of the three branches of govt. Oddly, those are the elected ones!
  • I see much effort into making overclocking seem like it requires skillz. No. This is one of those endeavors where some people want to be honored as 3/_33t, but it's just dumb. In the best case it's "Look at me! Look at how much faster Word runs on my overclocked Celeron 500 as compared to the original 433!" In worst it's "Take that Intel! I disagree with your corporate monopoly, so I'm gonna fry your lousy Pentium II and then I'm gonna buy a Pentium III to replace it!"
  • That depends entirely on how you do it. There's the relatively safe method of paying for a company to overclock the chip for you. I bought an Athlon 500 from a company called Step Thermodynamics along with one of their cooling setups(A large heatsink and three small cooling fans.). This chip has a lifetime warranty through the company(It's been around a few years now.) and it's guaranteed to run at 700 and a high probability of going a higher. This, including shipping cost me about $100 less than a true Athlon 700 did at the time. Currently my new system has run at 770 for around 1100 hours cranking out 82 Seti@home units and crashes maybe 2 or 3 times a week and those are almost always directly attributable to something I did.

  • Counterculture? Ppfffffftttthhh!!!

    The human desire to make things go better, further, faster is nothing new. In fact, it probably goes back to the stone age. This is one of the most celebrated acts of society! Look at the Indy 500, the America's Cup, or any class of land or air speed records.

    A direct correlation to overclocking certainly goes back at least as far as the inductrial revolution when the items that came off the assembly line left room for improvement. People have been hot-rodding and racing automobiles and motorcycles as long as they have existed. Hotrodding is as much a paer of popular culture as apple pie and, um, Chevrolet.

    Maybe there was a time when overclocking was a black art, requiring the use of a soldering iron and magic crystals (yes, I overclocked my Apple ][ some 15-odd years ago) but now days it is as simple as going into the BIOS and tweaking a few parameters. Heck, they are practically documented in some of the owner's manuals now.

    -p. "Yeah, but these go to eleven."

  • OC won't be mainstream (Score:3)

    by My Third Account ( 78496 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:01AM (#1134382)
    Overclocking is one of the few "geek" pasttimes (actually a rather new one) that will not trickle out into the mainstream as other techs like MP3 have. The car analogy is always a good one, and just as only talented mechanics dare try improving their cars through dangerous methods like NO2, only hadrware geeks that build their own machines will change jumpers, add absurd cooling, and even cut and solder to crank out an extra 20% speed.

    Of course, the mainstream will always pay others to do it for them, but the mainstream connection will be kept to a minimum because they don't actually DO it..

    It's reassuring, in a way, that overclockers can be assured of strictly non-mainstream fellows among their ranks.
  • Guys like to do that stuff :). Make their cars faster and better. Make their home theaters better. Why not computers' overclocking? =)
  • They rock for 4.1 speaker setup for under 300 bucks =).

  • ......skateboarding, no wait, that was then, I'm old.

    ......punk rock, Hmmmm, not anymore, damn Green Day.

    ......raving, I saw my boss at one.

    ......slashdot, damn ac's.

    ......someone help?

  • I don't understand why so many people make a big deal about overclocking. All you do is move a couple jumpers! When I wanted to overclock my Pentium Pro 200 to 233, I just looked up the bus frequency multiplier in the manual and set three jumpers accordingly.

    And then there are the people who complain when Intel prevents people from overclocking various chips. First off, modern CPU's are much more complex than 10 years ago, and they can be more sensitive to overclocking.

    Second, my car is a lame-o Geo Prism - only a moron would try to "turbo-charge" it. Some systems just weren't meant to be overclocked, and there's nothing wrong with that.

  • I overclock because I refuse to pay the premium for the Newest CPU On the Block. ie the 200% markup on CPU price that lasts for the first four months of its life. My twin 366Mhz-running-at-550Mhz Celeron's aren't there for hotrod horsepower, they're there because they cost significantly less than a single slowest-model PIII (ie 230 UKP for them and the motherboard)

    • Games like "Doom" also are popular. Overclockers who play them say the faster chips help them outlast their competitors. "If you don't care a lot about getting killed, you're probably not going to care a lot about overclocking," said Alex Ross, creator of SharkyExtreme, a Web site devoted to hardware.
    Doom?!? Who wrote this article, Colonel "The-only-game-I've-ever-heard-of-is-Doom" Grossman?

    What are these people overclocking, 386's?

    Hasn't the author of this article ever heard of Doom2?

    Jeez! Get with the times!

  • Other copies of the story. (Score:3)

    by AllynKC ( 88909 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:42AM (#1134394)
    Actually, that's ZD-AU's copy of ZD-USA's copy of the Wall Street Journals story from the 10th.

    For those who have trouble reaching the site, here's the ZDnet-USA copy of the story [zdnet.com].
  • It's a matter of degree. Some of us do strange and unusual things (supercooled mineral baths, et al). That's way too much trouble for me, because my main box needs to uproot every weekend and I really don't want weird substances dripping all over my carpet, or my car.

    For someone who doesn't want to get crazy, a simple software program to increase the frequency of the video card and refresh rate (such as Powerstrip) might be all you want. Call it the equivalent of putting Premium in the tank instead of Regular in the car metaphor. :-)

    Me? I fall in between. I cleaned up the wiring rat's nest in my case with some cable loam, installed a couple of extra fans to take out the heat generated by the OC'd processor and video card. *shrug*

    Reliability? My box has run at 24% above the rated speed on the processor almost 24/7, cracking distributed.net keys, for 8 months straight, with only the standard Win9x-induced reboots necessary.

    Feel free to contact me (doing the obvious to my address) to discuss things further. See also: Pride In Ownership. :-)

    Rafe

    V^^^^V
  • They're trying to do this already, you might say.

    Think about it: the original Pentiums, P2's, and their AMD counterparts were neither bus or multiplier-locked. You could clock them to whatever they would take if you didn't mind fiddling with the jumpers for an afternoon.

    Then Intel decided it didn't like us getting more than we paid for so easily. Entrez-vouz the P3 and multiplier locking. Yes, you can jack with the FSB, but you're screwed to the wall with that 4. 4.5, 5, or whatever clock-lock Intel built in unless you lucked into getting an "engineering" sample that didn't have this "feature."

    The Athlon can be twiddled in both directions by means of a GFD/GFA, but that's one more item to include, and there's no guarantee that they'll remain so friendly to hobbyists and the like. *sigh*

    As for the pride/perception the manufacturer has for their OC'd product, it might be a combination of shame and greed - we know they downgrade some chips, and when we get their full potential back out of them, we've essentially bilked them of a couple hundred dollars' profit that they'd have made if we'd bought the "officially" faster chip.

    "Binning" is a necessary evil for Intel & AMD - not everyone wants to pony up for an 850MHz chip, and by detuning it to 600, they'll reach more customers. They have learned to accept, grudgingly, that some of us will get those back up where they belong before even booting that processor the first time out of the box.

    As evidence, I point you to Kyle @ HardOCP [hardocp.com] who got a Cel-II 633 to run at 1011MHz yesterday. The lucky bastage. ;-)

    Rafe

    V^^^^V

  • Tweaks & Geeks (Score:5)

    by Raffy ( 89138 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:45AM (#1134402) Homepage Journal
    While the article on the whole was a tad banal and vacuous, one of the metaphors seemed very apt:

    Instead of spending our weekends in the driveway or garage under the hood of our primary mode of transport, we spend time optimizing the drivers or cooling arrangements on our primary mode of communication.

    Is it "Hot-rodding"? I sometimes feel like it could be. . . the Frankensteinian monster I spend 16 hours a day with may not have bolts on its neck, but it roars, moans, and has the odd edge in need of a dremel touch-up.

    I think it's a simple matter of pride of ownership. "When I bought this, it was able to do X. Because I put my time and brain and some elbow grease into it, it can do X+n, and my X+n is different from everybody else's, because I did it with my own two hands."

    I overclock, and I can't honestly say when or if I will stop. It's not the fastest rig on the world (though it might be king of the office extracurricular LAN), but it could be.

    Rafe

    V^^^^V
  • I think the reason there are less female computer geeks has to do with the responses the of the other male teenagers to your post. Clearly young males are threatened by smart geeky women. They somehow find people such as yourself as threatening to them such that they resort to recess taunting tactics (we don't stop for girls!, repeat). I can't imagine how I would feel if I posted a message on a largely female occupied message board and started receiving replys asking how much sperm I can produce in a day or asking me if I eat pussy....unbelievable.

    I hope you continue to post here and ignore these little boys.

    To the childish AC's posting here...grow the fuck up and try to say something usefull for once you fucking cowards!!! Yes COWARDS!!
  • You are such a cowardly little child. I hope puberty isn't too bad for you (zit wise that is)

    Grow up!
  • Ahhh, you have reached enlightenment and graduated to trolldom. What has actually happened is that you have shut youself off from real (verbal) intercourse and created a little playground for yourself. You are recreating your childhood experiences only now you are playing the role of the playground bully. I wouldn't be surprised if you were one of the people complaining about how bad it was when you were a kid.

    Cycle of abuse!

    Just wait till your kids are reported to the pinkertons.

  • People that overclock their CPU's to this degree remind me of the kids that take their Honda Civics, and do ungodly things to the engines. Things that would make a sane mechanic piss himself. If these people could put short, fat, knobby tires on their CPU's, they would. There is just something inherent in american culture to take something, and install some gadgets to try and make it better/faster/etc. Some people won't spend 40K on a 'vette, they'll pay 15K for a civic, then spend god knows how much in engine mods to try and boost its performance. Some people get a sense of pride by getting hardware to do things it wasnt designed to do, but I wonder how often that pride evaporates in a cloud of smoke. Literally...
  • And what do overclockers do with these faster computers? Not much, actually. The most popular application involves running a measuring program that proves exactly how much faster the overclocked chip is running. Overclockers make printouts of these speed readings and send them to each other

    Indeed, just like hot rodders or even third graders (My dad's stronger than yours. No he's not, MY dad is stronger than yours! Is not! Is too! Oh yeah, well he could life our house with one hand to clean the house! Oh yeah? well, my dad could...)

  • I remember being asked... why on Earth did I want my own web site? I didn't get paid for it or anything. Why did I modify the desktop, why did I fine tune my operating system and not just go with the default settings?

    I couldn't answer the question right out of the box, and in a way, I felt that it was a) because I can, and b) because I felt that I had to. None of which carries a lot of weight when arguing with "do what you need to do to get money". Hell, why am I into photography? Actually, the same person asked me that, too. And yes, she was a woman.

    Over and over again, I have seen media (and others) mention that the major difference between guys and girls with computers, is that guys fiddle with them and do all kinds of unnecessary things with them, while women just want them to WORK. And if they work - don't touch. They do the job quite well, thank you very much.

    But what is being lost in this entire debate is the fact that by tinkering with your computer, your car, your camera, or even just writing, you are effectively training yourself, increasing your skillset, and you essentially become more valuable, because you understand more.

    This has the short term effect of your own satisfaction of having accomplished something and learned something that few others know, which certainly should boost your self image, and it has the long term effect of higher salaries and a healthier retirement.

    Now, why is this so hard to understand, that everybody just shake their heads and say "but why???!?"

  • Many industrial PCs are underclocked by the manufacturer, to widen the allowed temperature range, reduce heat output, and increase reliability.
  • Games like "Doom" also are popular.

    Doom being the breakthrough first person shooter which set the benchmark and all 1st person shooters haven't really innovated much apart from cosmetically and tweaking AI.

    Yeah, and I know Wolfensheim (sp?) 3D came first, but it was not the genre defining game that doom was.

  • Is this something to do with male competitiveness? Wanting the best and fastest? Is this like having the most powerful and fastest car?

    I think the apparent lack of female overclockers has more to do with the relative low number of women "geeks." After all, there are all X-Chromosome gear/motor-heads out there. Hopefully, as the number of women that choose computers as a hobby increase, we'll see some Overclocker Chicks. Or would that be "Over-chicks", or how about "Uber-chicks"...

  • Re:Overclocking, schmoverclocking... (Score:3)

    by tbarjoe ( 149963 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:00AM (#1134434)
    Best quote ever...

    Games like "Doom" also are popular. Overclockers who play them say the faster chips help them outlast their competitors. "If you don't care a lot about getting killed, you're probably not going to care a lot about overclocking," said Alex Ross, creator of SharkyExtreme, a Web site devoted to hardware.

    Yeah man I was playing Doom last night on my Celeron II o'c to a gigahertz, and my half a gig of ram, oh yeah I just got a pre-release of a 64MB ge-force card, and DAMN that game rocks. Frekin' Cyber-deamon is hard though...

  • ... being a high school student in one of the biggest high schools in my state... I am in the middle of the "geek" populus at my school. How I see it, is in my programming class, almost everyone has their chips overclocked: it's like if you don't, then "why are you in an AP programming class?." This set of "geeks" are the same guys who are big "warez kiddies" (for lack of a better name) and tell me "oh....you have a Mac...sorry. Yeah, Half-Life is awesome...Mac's suck...." etc...
    bascially, they are real assholes that are full of themselves just because they have overclocked chips. They (all males) talk about their clock speeds at least twice a day "Yeah... Celron 300 clocked up to 550" and so on... it's like their penis length or something. These kids know how to run an FTP client, use Napster, and maybe frequent IRC. That's all. Oh, and they are geniuses, cause they are in a High School AP class (yeah right)

    now, myself and a couple of friends are not as inclined to do such a thing. Why? Well... I am happy with the speed of my processor. I do a lot of intense graphic work, and I dont thing I would really gain that much from upgrading my chip (fyi, G3 400). The other two of my friends are into a lot of web development and theme making Linux themes, and programming type-things...and they really have no need either.

    I am not really trying to prove anyone wrong, but you cant really say that it is a sub/counter culture. My high school is full of these people. People on the football team. I cannot consider that sub/counter culture. I think classifications like this are a little too vague.. but trends will be trends I guess, even if that is overclocking...

    djsw
  • I was talking from a hypothetical perspective of a company or it's legal representatives. If the rationale that viewing DVD's on a non-authorized player is wrong, then how long is it until your hardware modifications are deemed non-authorized usage? We already saw something like this with the iOpener fiasco. It used to be that buying something and listening/viewing it in any way was legal. Now it's not.

    I was merely speculating on the possible expansion of that into the hardware domain. By overclocking your chip, they are losing money from you not buying the more expensive faster processer (with a possible loss in stability). By viewing your DVD on a non-authorized player, someone has circumvented the licencing of the DVD group, causing them to lose money. As long as a company is losing money, they will try to stop it.

  • Mineral Oil.. (Score:3)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:51AM (#1134445) Homepage Journal
    'After some research, Caward hit on the idea of a mineral-oil bath for motherboards. Mineral oil doesn't conduct electricity, and so he rounded up several cases. "People were asking me what I was going to do with all of it," he recalls. "It's normally used as a laxative."'

    Wow.

    This is the first I've heard of this- lube up your PC to go faster..

    Change the oil every 30,000 Mhz.
    -

  • what is counterculture? (Score:5)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @12:34PM (#1134447) Homepage
    Ever notice that media are always pushing people into little groups, referring to them as 'counter-culture'? What IS counterculture?

    Is there is some kind of mysterious "mainstream culture" that I missed the boat on? What do people in the "mainstream culture" do? Nothing? It seems to me that one would have to live a bleak existence to NOT be in a so called 'counterculture'!

    Its all relatively stupid... every damn person on this earth can be shoved into a 'counter-culture' based on their passionate interests...

    I overclock machines... what are you trying to tell me?

    I think I'm pretty damn normal!
    --cr@ckwhore

  • Linux on board? (Score:3)

    by kickabear ( 173514 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:36AM (#1134453) Homepage
    Can anyone help me get Linux installed on the On-Board Diagnostic Computer in my 1996 Chevy S-10? I'm having some problems getting LILO to recongize the GM partition on the built-in EPROMs. Thanks!
  • Maybe I am speaking too much from my own standpoint, but it always seemed to me that overclocking is an all-male arena. It feels like only men are into turboboosting their puters. Is this something to do with male competitiveness? Wanting the best and fastest? Is this like having the most powerful and fastest car?

    I personally have zero want to make a copper-top processor. I like a fast computer, but I like to have a stable machine moreso. Overclocking is always a bundle of problems in the machines I have seen.

    So, am I alone out there? I ask other females out there to tell if they overclock. I imagine they are out there, but I bet there aren't many.

    Comments?

    <3 Kat ^_^

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