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AMD Stops Overclockers Dream Motherboard
nerdusa writes: "The Overclocking Community got a decidedly unwelcome jolt with news today on THG that shipping versions of the TBird and Duron will be clock locked and that the Asus A7V is shipping without multiplier unlocking switches. United Overclockers, which had been eulogizing AMD for its recent poliicies, is "saddened" at having to eat its words. Overclockers are used to having their dreams dashed by reality, but this is a particularly cruel blow."
overclocking systems and selling them as the faster system. I would not be happy to find out that that 800mhz system I just bought was an overclocked 500mhz system.
I don't think there is a way to do it.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
This is a bit of a rant beyond the AMD thingie, so bear with me.
There's a trend running through the industry. When linux programmers write *free* drivers for new hardware, oftentimes the manufacturer is very reluctant to support the OS. Sometimes the developers have to struggle to wrench out closed specs to write the drivers, and still the corporation sees it fit to at best ignore it. Oh, and by the way, this results in more of their products being sold.
Enthusiasts are the forerunners to new technology. Generally they are the first to embrace it and forecast where the industry is going. At the very least, they provide valuable feedback. Yet for some reason, the history of the computer industry has seen established companies simply ignore enthusiasts. This goes for mainframe makers who ignored the PC, *nix vendors which dismissed linux as a toy, and MS which dissed the internet as a useless fad. It may also be that the music industry is on this track by opposing mp3 fans instead of seeing where they are headed.
As a larger trend, when companies which started out in the garage lose touch with their roots and ignore enthusiasts, it might mean they crumble under their own weight. But in specific cases, I simply fail to understand why companies don't support them. For instance, linux today has millions of users, and yet when I go to logitech's page to see if their cordless mouse works with linux, there is NO info on it at all. I have to dredge thru deja.com to see if anyone has posted it. Why? Does logitech not see the benefit of spending a few thousand $ to hire someone to update their web site with info about linux? Or even if drivers are needed, can't they hire a couple of guys to write them? Even if a small fraction of the linux base buys their mice, they have made a good profit.
What am I missing here?
w/m
Underclocking is the art of running a modern high speed processor far below it's rated clock speed. As an example I have a AMD Athlon 800 MHz processor running at an amazing 200 MHz*. My goal to run it at 4.77 MHz so I can actually win at all those video games I have. By the way, OS is Windows 2000 which runs great at 200 MHz I can't wait to try it at 4.77 MHz. *I have a resistor on top to add additional heat so the processor doesn't get to cold.
Why don't guys like Intel and AMD put a teenie weanie bit of PROM in their chips (like they had for the serial number) that gets burned with the bus speed/multiplier? Then software (like the BIOS) could read this back when it does its usual CPUID trick and verify that the chip was running in spec.
;) and innocents wouldn't get burned by dodgy resellers.
The BIOS (and/or OS) could report that the system was being over/under clocked. The OCers would love this (especially if it came up in large red and orange letters
This strikes me as being pretty easy to implement particularly if you consider that Intel has already done this with its CPU serial number.