I know this has probably been answered before but I cant find it. is ok to leave the system overclocked as long as there is good cooling or will it cause faster wear on the motherboard and cpu?
As long as you have proper cooling, I see why not? I have a feeling you're using software overclocks? deltatux
Actually any type of overclock will wear down the CPU/Motherboard/RAM. That's why I always leave Cn'Q on (AMD's version of SpeedStep). It helps save power and doesn't run it on overclock the whole time. However, with sufficient cooling, your system would most likely die well after you replace it with something better. deltatux
It will wear out your hardware and saying "its got good cooling" is not enough perfect your overclock make sure you can get the lowest volts with maximum stability
Depends on how often you normally upgrade your computer. most OC'ers usually upgrade every 1 to 2 years anyways, but if you need it to last longer i'd be weary of doing much oc'ing. for me, i usually have problems with OC's wearing out my mobo first. i'm lucky to get more than a year out of em but i'm no pro oc'er either.
right now I can get 3.5ghz with voltage of around 1.40-1.45,and temp never goes above 60c, will this be ok for the lifespan system running about 8 hours everyday?
Ok, here is what's up. Over-clocking a processor is running it faster than it is supposed to run. Common logic dictates that it will wear out faster than at stock speed, even with good cooling. Think of it like this, take a car. If you drive it normally, the motor should last 100,000 miles or longer before requiring a rebuild. If you take you same car to the race track every weekend, you will end up rebuilding your engine within a year. There is also charts that exist to show longevity VS heat for electronic components. It basically shows the hotter they are/run, the shorter the life. So, can a factory clocked cpu fail before someone else's over-clocked one, yes. Is it far more likely that the over-clocked unit will fail first.
however cars have moving parts, objects without moving parts should not have physical wear. at least not the same way. Hot electron bombardment, Thermal stress. Electrostatic discharge, Power spikes, Oxidation are all the ways a CPU can degrade. its likely at mobo, psu..etc would go first, when capacitors, diodes..etc are involved, they usually fail quick. but technicaly Hard drives have the highest failure rate in a computer. CPU's will generally last long enough to become obsolete. there are still plenty of electronics from pinball machines to Pentium 1 cpu's that still run like new today. I have an old Miday mini-arcade game from 1978, its galaxian and still runs.
Sure it will not last longer than at stock speed but it shouldn't be a dramatic difference if it's running at reasonable temps and a low volltage. I'm using a power saving utility that came with my mboard which is useful.
i had a Pentium 4 1.6Ghz Northwood CPU overclocked to 2.4Ghz for pretty close to as long as i've had it and nothing seemed to go bad. even sold it on eBay.... and that person said it was running great. That was after i had not been using it for MONTHS.
I always leave my CPU overclocked. My video card on the other hand I have it downclocked on startup. I only set it to overclocked when Im about to play or else the fan would bother me.
I have always left my system on stock speeds unless there was a game that really needed me to push and overclock the components to get the adequate fps. From experience, i had an old 9800pro that died relatively quick after 2 years simply because it was always overclocked at its limits with my pc being on 24/7. Maybe if you turn off your computer at nights and when your not home it shouldn't be that bad
I have always OC'ed my systems over the years and have it was well worth the effort....But on the other hand I buy hardware with good warranties and most of all plenty of power and lots of cooling....like they say buy a 300dollar chip and turn it into a 1000 dollar chip...hummm
