newbi OC Question

[Rich85]

Hello Anandtech as you can see by my posts i am a total newbie to this forum ... but i signed on to seek some advice...

I have been browsing this forum for a little while now and have found out some very much needed info on OCing .. but there is one question that i have to ask...

When overclocking to find what is your max OC, if you push your CPU to much and the heat becomes very high, will this inturn then blow up your CPU or does it have a function where it will just turn off at temps that are to high (in particually the AMD 3500+ Winchester)?

i ask this because i have seen a video of an OC on a INTEL and a AMD where the heatsink is taken off during a game, and the INTEL just shuts down where as the AMD just overheats and blows up.. bearing in mind this was a barton CPU if i remember correctly .. but i have tried to find some info on this and can not .. so i would be very appreciative if anyone can shed some light on this.

many thanks

 

[Jeff7181]

That video from Tom's Hardware is pretty old... the Athlon-64's are supposed to have the same type of thermal protection as Pentium 4's. I don't know anyone who's tested it in quite the same way... but you don't have to worry much about your Winchester overheating unless the fan stops or the heatsink falls off due to improper installation.

 

[sundev]

Most likely scenario is that your system just won't boot if you set the OC too high. If your heatsink/fan are installed properly, you should have nothing to worry about.

I think I know the video you're talking about, I thought it was a K6-2, but I could be wrong.

 

[mickles]

It was a Duron if I remember correctly.

 

[sundev]

I think you might be right mickles... regardless, it was awesome.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I agree with whats been said, your not going to blow anything up. I've overclock AMD's for a long time now and 90% of the time when you go to far the system hangs or reboots, and you just lower your settings and try again. Ocassionally something on the hard drive or bios will get corrupted, and you have to repair or reinstall windows or clear the CMOS. In the worst case scenario something gets corrupted in the boot sector of the hard drive and you have to reformat (only happen a couple of time to me, in 5+ years of overclocking) But its always a good idea to keep all you important data backed up on disc or tape, especially if your overclocking.