Have you ever damaged a CPU from overclocking

Have you damaged a CPU from overclocking

  • Yes

  • No

  • Don't overclock


Results are only viewable after voting.

lavaheadache

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2005
6,893
14
81
I've been beating the piss out of cpu's for a solid 20 years. Haven't managed to kill one yet.
 

scannall

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2012
1,946
1,638
136
I did damage a motherboard though, changing the clock crystal on an old 386 system. I think I was going from 20 Mhz to 25.
 

nwo

Platinum Member
Jun 21, 2005
2,309
0
71
I managed to brick an i5 4670k about 6 months ago. If I remember correctly, I was trying to use ASUS AISuite extreme OC. Even after resetting the CMOS, I could not get the PC to boot up. Exchanged it with an i7 4770k and everything else was intact.
 

Tweakin

Platinum Member
Feb 7, 2000
2,532
0
71
I did damage a motherboard though, changing the clock crystal on an old 386 system. I think I was going from 20 Mhz to 25.

Funny, I killed a couple of 486 boards trying to do the same when I was in the Navy!!!
 

DeathReborn

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 2005
2,746
741
136
I killed a AMD K7-700Mhz (Pluto) using a GFD pushing it to 1.1GHz, it was my 2nd chip which I was ocing for my brother so I had to buy him another and settled at 1GHz on it. The motherboard & 2nd CPU worked flawlessly for nearly 2 years before I built him another system.

I also killed a Opteron 180 but it was an accident, forgot to connect the power to the pump in the water cooler after a PSU upgrade and cooked the chip, again the board took to a new chip just fine.
 

yhelothar

Lifer
Dec 11, 2002
18,408
39
91
I managed to brick an i5 4670k about 6 months ago. If I remember correctly, I was trying to use ASUS AISuite extreme OC. Even after resetting the CMOS, I could not get the PC to boot up. Exchanged it with an i7 4770k and everything else was intact.

What kind of OC settings did you use? Voltage?
 

ipown1337

Member
Feb 12, 2013
70
1
71
A long time ago when i was unexperienced I had an unstable Athlon XP 2100 +. I noticed that higher voltages made it stable, after running at ??? voltage for about a year it fried. I also had an e6300 that i oc'd to 3.2 GHz, after about 2 years max over clock at the same voltage was 3.0 GHz.
 

PliotronX

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
8,883
107
106
I attribute my never so much as having a degrading CPU to looking around for average top voltages and heat levels. I've also never damaged a CPU taking the noobshield off. GPU's on the other hand...
 

rgallant

Golden Member
Apr 14, 2007
1,361
11
81
voted no
I search the net well before buying the chip for the avg. oc at a sane voltage ,
test the chip to see if it is avg. or better and never try for the crashing max.
-say the ib I have now , I could run it on 4 cores at 4.9 , but I run it at 3.5 to 4.6 until I feel I need it faster to over come a bottle neck.
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
6,300
23
81
Never killed a CPU but did have an EVGA motherboard croak when I switched from an i3 dual to an i5 quad. Heavy OC on the i3, i5 was stable at stock, tried a very light OC and it just quit working. Wouldn't post again after that even with the i3. Was most unhappy...
 

Morbus

Senior member
Apr 10, 2009
998
0
0
I managed to boot to windows and run a few tests stable on my old E6550 @ 3.2GHz, while pushing my ram, other than that it would crash (two of the DIMMs are 333MHz stock...). That was my most aggressive overclock, but it was on the stock cooler, so I downed it to 2.8GHz. The CPU is 2.33GHz stock, and it doesn't even break a sweat in 2.8GHz, it's like it's made to be there, I simply upped the FSB to 400MHz and off it goes, merrily along.

Fantastic thing.
 

nwo

Platinum Member
Jun 21, 2005
2,309
0
71
What kind of OC settings did you use? Voltage?

I'm not sure about the voltage since it was an Auto OC and I didn't get a chance to look at it. But when it booted into windows it showed up as 4.5 or 4.6GHz and several moments later the PC shut down and I couldn't get it to boot up even after resetting the CMOS.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
0
76
I have degraded a CPUs maximum overclock, I have blown multiple motherboards but I have never actually made a CPU fail from overclocking.
 

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
16,250
3,845
75
No, and I tried to OC a Cyrix once. (It just didn't boot. Reset the jumper setting and it came back fine.)
 

Tristor

Senior member
Jul 25, 2007
314
0
71
I've never killed a CPU unintentionally while overclocking. I do not count the several AMD CPUs I intentionally fried when I no longer wanted them just to see it happen (all of which ended up being jewelry of some sort afterwards). I have killed a motherboard before though (the VRMs went) during my first sub-ambient cooling overclock.
 

IGemini

Platinum Member
Nov 5, 2010
2,473
2
81
I haven't directly killed a CPU that way.

However, I sold a friend my Conroe E6600 and it spent its life overclocked from 2.4 to 3GHz. After six years of constant use the logic core ultimately decided that 13 wasn't a prime number anymore. Who knows if the OC contributed.
 

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
32,237
53
91
Killed an old Via Cyrix cpu. Had the jumpers set for a pentium (which was around 3v I believe) and the cyrix only used like 1.5v. Filled the room with smoke. System still posted after that but was completely unstable. I think I killed the onboard cache.
 

richaron

Golden Member
Mar 27, 2012
1,357
329
136
AMD K6-2 450 & XP 1900+. No Idea of the settings, but nubbery came into it.

Tasted like burning.
 

FalseChristian

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2002
3,322
0
71
Fried a Core2Duo E8400 at 3.6GHz after only 1 year. The worst CPU I've ever had. My current i5 2500K has purred along at 4.5GHz for 2 1/2 years now perfectly. The best CPU I've ever had. Go figure.
 

mcginnis

Member
Dec 30, 2012
27
0
0
Never killed a cpu. I think if you take your time you won't really run into too many issues unless you go ridiculously high.