So, I just overclocked my machine to improve game performance.

[Ladyhawk]

It's an older system and I can't afford to upgrade right now. A couple of years, I "pencil-tricked" an Athlon Thunderbird 1 GHz processor into thinking it had a FSB of 133. Just now, I overclocked it to 1.13.

So far, it's running fine, but I haven't put any undue stress on the processor.

What will happen when I finally run a game that requires a lot of CPU power?

[tridim]

1. Overclocking

is Overrated.

Not worth the risk IMO. My normally-clocked AthlonXP sometimes overheats on hot days.

[MadHound]

2. I hope that you have everything backed up,

'Cause it's gonna blow!

[Mojambo]

3. As long as you take steps to keep it cool you'll be fine

I know plenty of people who overclock quite successfully, but you might want to get some extra fans.

If it gets too hot, it's all over.

[Book Lover]

4. Keep it cool

and you should be OK. Crack the case, add another fan, get a hotsink, that kind of stuff...

[ReadTomPaine]

9. Your avatar is fantastic.

I wonder how many people on DU know about ... The Stig!

RTP

[Book Lover]

10. Why thank you

A few do, actually :-)

[Abelman]

5. Stick it in the fridge

That'll keep it cool.

[Speck Tater]

6. Other: The bits in the processor will collapse upon themselves

creating a mini-black hole. 7.6 microseconds later your entire box will disappear into the the event horizon, and in less than 12 minutes the whole of planet earth will be swallowed up by the ever-growing black hole.

It's the end of existence as we know it, and it's all your fault!

[politicat]

7. Before you do, put gel icepacks on the case; a fan wouldn't hurt.

Seriously. Keep it as cool as possible.

When I need my mac to do more than I'm comfortable doing, I put it on a gel ice pack before starting the process. It runs faster and better - provably.

Trick learned from Dean Heglund, of The X files and The Lone Gunmen.

[Az]

8. AMD has no built in heat responses

INTEL chips can power down when they detect the heat getting out of control. If an AMD chip even thinks about overheating its cooked.

Ever seen a chip burn out? It happens faster than you can imagine. One moment several hundred dollars worth of silicon and conduit. The next moment its a cheap peace of jewlry.

[Deja Q]

12. Not quite. My AMD and mobo have saved my bacon a few times...

I had put on the heatsink slightly askew on one occasion on one of my boxes. I'd set it to shut down at 70 degrees C.

It shut down without fail.

Another occasion, for another AMD PC, the cooling fan in the power supply died. Computer got VERY hot and shut down at 85 degrees, which was the minimal setting I could use.

I also forgot to plug back in my CPU's fan (Thermal Take Volcano 11 Xaser ed.) Once again, powr shutoff kicked in at 70 degrees.

As long as the AMD CPU has a built in heat sensor (T-breds and newer), there are no problems with overheating. Not for me. Thank goodness!

[Deja Q]

11. I've ran a Athlon 2100+ at 2700+ for 1.5 years now... no probs. BUT,

be sure you've got A+ cooling, RAM that handles the higher bus speed, and enough voltage (if needed) to support the CPU.

The 2100+ runs at 266MHz bus; I ramped it to 333MHz bus. Needed .5 volt gain but that was all. Runs as stable as me on lithium. O8)

DEFINITELY run a 48 hour stress test and make sure that overheating auto-shutdown protection is enabled. Google PRIME95.EXE (or just PRIME95). If it runs 48 hours with 0 errors, then everything is fine.

And NEVER upgrade a BIOS when the CPU is overclocked; always bring it back to specs first.

[Ladyhawk]

13. It didn't blow. :)

It helped, but not enough to risk replacing hardware. I have a big ol' honkin' heat sink and fan that handled the job just fine, but I have no desire to burn up the CPU for very little gain.

I've done overclocking in the past and mileage varies. Some of the Celeron chips overclocked beautifully, were stable and made a huge difference. Today's chips don't overclock nearly as well because they're already running at high, hot speeds.

I had the system backed up on two different hard drives just in case. I didn't really anticipate a huge problem. I've run the system a little hot before and just took it up one more level. Most likely the worst that would have happened was that I would have had to reset the CMOS manually.

I may look into getting a new CPU...probably they don't cost very much for this old motherboard. I can always use the 1GHz chip in another board when I'm building...dang, I wish my neck was better...