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Overclocking is a Counterculture
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.
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...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
That just made me chuckle.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
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.)
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
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
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.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
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.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
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.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
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)
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
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.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
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
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
The guys who overclock are compensating for small penises.
No wonder I underclock my processor...
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
>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
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 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...
/. regularly run articles about news items that are inspired by things already mentioned in /. articles a year before??
ArsTechnica covered this in May, 28, 1999...
The actual Mineral Oil cooling rig page.
What I want to know is: Will
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
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.
:) It's a much more believable policy for a company that wants o make money.
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.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
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??
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
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
...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
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
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
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
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.
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.
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!
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
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
g .stanford.edu/~parkb/av/bose-faq-1.0.html+ bose+faq
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www-bigban
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
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
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 article).
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Of course overclocking is counter-culture, in the "yeah, screw the MAN!" sense.
.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.
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
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...
- tred
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 very careful about it, only OCing in situations that will give me significantly better performance and price without sacrificing stability. (dual celery 366@550!)
... 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.
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.
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?
- bridgette
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.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
:)
Funny, damn funny (for some reason - call me twisted!)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
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?
- Have a picture
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.
/. Even the secrecy of the Manhattan Project didn't stop the scientists involved from getting credit for their work.
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
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!"
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."
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? =)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
They rock for 4.1 speaker setup for under 300 bucks =).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
......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?
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
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.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
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)
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
- 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!
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
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.
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
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
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
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
You are such a cowardly little child. I hope puberty isn't too bad for you (zit wise that is)
Grow up!
no sig.
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.
no sig.
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...
:wq
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 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???!?"
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
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.
Working for the (other) man
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"...
My karma is in a nose dive
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 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.
--www.mp3.com/kruhft--
'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.
-
air and light and time and space
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
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
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!
This space for rent.
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 ^_^
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^