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Overclocking and Webcam Hacks

February 8, 2008 at 9:18 pm · in Media Blog · Comments

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See? We get some excellent topics and conversations going when I open up the phone lines. Mbonzo had a question about overclocking! He’s a long-time chatter, and has sent in top five lists before, as well.

The question is that he has a new system and old overclocking equipment. He’s having trouble getting it to stabilize. My first suggestion was to cool it… he says he is water cooling it. I told him to get colder water and had to laugh. If it’s pushed to the limit, even with a super-cooled system… something is going to be unstable. He’s bringing the system to its knees. Someone in the chat room suggested trying Cryo-Cool, which I imagine is even colder than water. There’s not much more he can do, honestly, other than to cool it even more.

Mbonzo also had another question. He’s thinking of going with Dual monitors… and wonders how much of his power supply will be sucked up. Those won’t eat up as much as the video card itself will, which he indicates is a GeForce 8800.

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Do You Have any Thoughts?

Tim Staffen - February 8, 2008 @ 10:37 pm

Dear Chris,

I have been watching a lot of your youtube videos and you have asked for feedback on what people are doing re: the move to Vista. I and many of my friends have had similar issues as what you’ve experienced. Everyone has migrated back to XP due to being faced with hardware driver issues. I actually experimented with Linux (KUBUNTU) using the KDE desktop. It works great for me because 99% of my use is internet, fax, email, (Open) Office, picture and photo editing, and music (it works with my iPod!). So far I have loved it, but I would agree that it it is not for everyone. It is pretty easy to use if you stick with the apps I list, and best of all, my scanner works. I decided to go “open source” because I just got so frustrated with the loss of control I felt with Vista.

Later,

Tim S.

MikeB - February 8, 2008 @ 11:57 pm

Mbonzo said it’s unstable, does he mean it’s running hot? He could try increasing the voltage and see if that helps; he’s going to want to use very low increments.

SoftThunder - February 9, 2008 @ 12:19 am

Yeah, I’ve overclocked my system to 3.2Ghz from a 2.66 E6750, and it went quite well. I’m using an Arctic Cooling Air Cooler and its stable.
You could have told him other things too, such as various CPUs overclock differently. For example, the higher Core 2 Quads don’t overclock as far as the lower Core 2 Quads and Core 2 Duo. So he could have gotten another lower clocked CPU if he wanted to return it.
Another thing he could have done is not overclock so high. It might seem obvious, but some CPUs just can’t go as high as you want them to. If its at 3.6Ghz, running on a good water cooler, and its still not stable, then there isn’t anything else you can do without spending ridiculous amounts of money (phase cooling anyone?). So just lower it to a stable clock and live with it.
Love your vids, Chris!

Plantersclock - February 9, 2008 @ 12:28 am

He should use mineral oil because its cool to be able to say you have ur computer submerged in a liquid and having it able to function :)

MrFabulous - February 9, 2008 @ 12:40 am

overclocking is something i would never do….cuz i cant.

RCP - February 9, 2008 @ 12:40 am

I think over clocking is cool but most computers cant handle most of it software overclocking dont work right in my own way but CMOS works some what good….
anyway maybe software will get around sometime andf better over time but till then its not as it looks to most of it is ****** and Inveteded. where cmos is not

JackWebster - February 9, 2008 @ 12:41 am

Yeah, I worry about overclocking my Intel Quad Q6600. $200US Isn’t that good to waste if you blow it up. It’s good enough anyway at factory.

W1LK1N5 - February 9, 2008 @ 12:41 am

Webcam hacks are a little 90’s

Phreakeo - February 9, 2008 @ 12:41 am

I overclock nearly everything i can to get the extra performance.
As long as you play it safe, nothing bad will happen.

Figilswif - February 9, 2008 @ 12:48 am

Dear Chris,
Hey, I thought of some stuff on overlocking that might help and that is that you should make sure you have enough power to run your system fully on your power supply.
Because(and I’m not sure about this) is that if your power supply is on the edge of not being able to handle your system, you shouldn’t overclock because I can imagine it would make your system quite unstable and crash under heavy loads.
As for just stablizing it, yes, cooling is the main thing, also, if it isn’t overheating but is still unstable you can up the voltage on your CPU(if your overclocking your CPU) and that might give you some more headroom for upping the clockspeed of your CPU. But always up the voltage in VERY small increments. If you really want to get adventures, get some liquid nitrogen and put that on your processor! Hope this helps! Figilswif

kinglacho - February 9, 2008 @ 12:48 am

About the dual-monitor doubt Mbonzo has; the connection between the dual-monitors is in parallel, so the voltage consumption of each monitor is equal in 2, 3, 4, … N quantities of monitors. Of course, because each monitor is plugged in to a 110V power source connection, it will consume that same amount, so it’s pretty much the same, I guess.

Fatal - February 9, 2008 @ 1:14 am

Make sure when overclocking, you have your temperature low so your system does not overheat.

bmwtween21 - February 9, 2008 @ 1:19 am

hey I know rath who u were talking to. If you are overclocking put more fans into the case!

Matt Anderson - February 9, 2008 @ 6:26 am

Oops tried to hit tab to move the text over and accidentally hit submit above!

but what I was going to say was IF water Cooling cannot or will not work, there may just be an alternative. I saw a hybrid system–a mix of peltier cooling and water cooling. It is supposed to provide with SUPER LOW temperatures–which also brings up condensation that can ruin expensive computer components!

Like Chris, I would highly recommend bringing the clock down just a bit, because of the unstableness that you describe. I have had previous issues with instability from my machine that runs air cooling… (Water cooling is just too much of a hassle!)
I needed to bring the clock and the multiplier down on my CPU (AMD) just to get windows to work even though it had worked before!!

Hope this helps!

andersonmat

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