electronic components improve with age

[theMan]

My last build, an A64 3200+ winchester (2.0ghz), built in early 2005 has been relegated mostly to internet surfing. About a year ago, i had returned everything to stock settings (after I had been running it at 2.7ghz for the years before that). Anyways, the other day, i decided I wanted to overclock this thing a little, just for old times sake. I decided just to do a pretty mild overclock of 2400mhz from 2000mhz. (this was an amazing chip). Anyway, i quickly decided to screw that, and see how high this baby could go. after cleaning the 20lbs of dust out of the case and heatsink (thermalright xp90), I was ready to go (didn't re-seat the hsf or anything).

with my previous overclock, back in 2005, i was able to get 2700mhz, prime95 stable for 12 hours. so this time, i carefully pushed it to 2700mhz, with a vcore of 1.525. prime stable for 12 hours once again, temps around 45C load. I pushed up the fsb frequency higher, 2800. prime stable for 12 hours again, still with 1.525V. then 2850. prime stable 12 hours. finally I pushed it to 2.9ghz, fails p95 after 30 mins. up the vcore to 1.55V, 12hours stable. this is amazing. 2.9ghz on an A64 3200+ with only 1.55V on air...

this just makes me wonder, did my components age like a fine wine? how was I able to squeeze so much more out of the chip than I could 4.5 years ago? anyway, it was great fun. right now, i'm stuck on a laptop for school, and i've really missed overclocking and tinkering. it just goes to show you don't need the latest and greatest to have a bit of fun with a pc.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I should try that with my x2 3800. I've had it running at 2.6ghz since i got it in '05.

 

[theMan]

i can't believe how out of the loop i am. X2's were in 2005? holy crap, i remember when those things coming out like it was yesterday. right now its all this Core this Core that i don't know what the hell is going on.... i feel old.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

its ok im stuck on an opteron 170 which sits between the 3800 and 4400.

i shouuld try ocing again. i found my stable settings in may 2006 during finals and i havent changed them since...

i think components do get better over time though.

i OCed my athlon 1100 system like 3 years after i first did it and I seemed to get a lot better results... maybe my technique was better but i swear my results were far more impressive the 2nd time.

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99
I should try that with my x2 3800. I've had it running at 2.6ghz since i got it in '05.

For my constantly running o/c's, I've generally had to reduce speeds over time if anything, as instability often creeps in.

Could be lack of o/c skillz, but in any case its probably my general trend.

 

[Crono]

Originally posted by: theman
i can't believe how out of the loop i am. X2's were in 2005? holy crap, i remember when those things coming out like it was yesterday. right now its all this Core this Core that i don't know what the hell is going on.... i feel old.

X2's were a good value, considering how long (relatively speaking) they've held up so well. Still using a X2 4000+, the only thing that hasn't been able to run well on my PC is GTA4. Everything else runs pretty smoothly.

 

[spidey07]

Less sunspot activity? Being serious.

Radiation can cause bit error events.

 

[Ika]

Everything I've heard about Athon A64s and X2s were that they degraded over time (especially the single-core folks; a lot of them were having to drop back on their overclocks three-four years later). Maybe this is a temp thing?

 

[Special K]

All semiconductor devices degrade over time due to effects such as electromigration, hot carrier injection, NBTI, and other effects. Theoretically it would take years for these effects to have a measurable impact on performance, although overclocking would obviously speed this up.