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Who here has dared to overclock a server?

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,225
126
Just wondering whom the daring are among us. Anyone overclocked a server? And kept their job afterwards?

Me, although I love overclocking, and I run 24/7 overclocks for my distributed-computing rigs, I still have issues with continous uptime past 1 month. Either I get a bluescreen or a reboot. (Remains to be see whether I will still have that problem, with my new 1200VA/720W AVR UPS unit. So far so good.)

So for my fileserver, and WHS boxes (yet to be built), I'm not going to overclock them. I want 100% continous 24/7 uptime on those boxes.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
126
None of ours have options in the BIOS to o/c and there's no way I'd try pulling chips and covering pads! It's bad enough to have a normal operation interrupt the server let alone to have another point of failure be added due to system instability! If speed is paramount we'd just factor in the cost on the build and be done with it.
 

PCTC2

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2007
3,892
33
91
Aigo BSEL-modded a LGA771 chip before. If I have a server, I want it 24/7/365 stable, minus software updates and such. If it's for personal use and you don't mind the risk of data corruption, it's fine, but for any commercial servers it's a big NO.
 

ajaidevsingh

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
563
0
0
I OCed a server well file server with the help of clock gen many years ago like in 04-05.

The server was a x86 based file server at the local office. The system used dual P3's and i think a Asus Mb the OC was fairly simple i went from 9xxMhz to 1 Ghz with a voltage increase and changing the fsb with the clock gen program. I think it could be done via the BIOS also but the system admin did not let me fiddle with the BIOS he just increased the voltage.
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
13,576
6
76
OCing a server is just asking to be fired... even if you do it perfectly, when some idiot breaks something he will blame the OC rather then taking the blame for it himself. And who do you think the bigwigs who know jack about PCs will fire?
 

Diogenes2

Platinum Member
Jul 26, 2001
2,151
0
0
What would you have to gain by OCing a server ? Wouldn't performance pretty much be limited by I/O - which gains little if any, by OCing ?
 

Gillbot

Lifer
Jan 11, 2001
28,830
17
81
Nothing at work, but anything in my personal collection is OC'ed if I can.
 

dbcooper1

Senior member
May 22, 2008
594
0
76
Originally posted by: Diogenes2
What would you have to gain by OCing a server ? Wouldn't performance pretty much be limited by I/O - which gains little if any, by OCing ?

Depends what kind of server it is.
 

ochadd

Senior member
May 27, 2004
408
0
76
I've done it during burn in on a couple file servers in the past. In a business environment drop the extra $200 for a clock increase if you need it. If your business can't afford an extra 500mhz worth of CPU you're in need of more than that.
 

Elias824

Golden Member
Mar 13, 2007
1,100
0
76
If im not mistaken wont most server boards block that sort of thing? I dont think ive ever looked into the bios for Ocing on my server here.
 

MarcVenice

Moderator Emeritus <br>
Apr 2, 2007
5,664
0
0
Originally posted by: PCTC2
Aigo BSEL-modded a LGA771 chip before. If I have a server, I want it 24/7/365 stable, minus software updates and such. If it's for personal use and you don't mind the risk of data corruption, it's fine, but for any commercial servers it's a big NO.

This.

Afaik it's the only way to OC a servercpu on a server motherboard.
 

imported_motodude

Senior member
Aug 3, 2004
344
0
76
My main rig atm is an Asus k8ndl with 2 opteron 275s oc'd to 2550MHz (stock is 2200), you can set fsb in bios but it won't boot over 215 so the rest has to be done in windows.

What sucks is 3 of the cores are stable at 3GHz+ while the one will fail Prime95 instantly at 2.8GHz.

 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
7
81
I've only overclocked personal servers. A memorable one was my bloodyfist.net web/email/quake3 server. It was an AMD K6-266 overclocked to 300MHz. Ran for years... then stopped working but we left it powered up because we couldn't be bothered to mess with it, LOL. :eek: Eventually (after around 4 years) we pulled it to find out what was wrong with it. HDD was dead and some fans were dead, but the rest of it was fine.

Currently I have a mobile P4 in a desktop board for a server. Chip is 1.5GHz, undervolted and overclocked to around 1.9GHz. It is my print/file/router/torrent/vent/whatever server. Built it around end of 2005.
 

ajaidevsingh

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
563
0
0
Is it just me or do u guys also think that old tech servers were simpler to OC like in my case than most of the new systems and sub systems now a days??