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Date:      Fri, 10 Apr 1998 15:00:56 -0700 (PDT)
From:      "Eric J. Schwertfeger" <ejs@bfd.com>
To:        Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
Cc:        Gilad Rom <lickyou@ein-hashofet.co.il>, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ps segfaults since I overclocked. and worries. 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.980410145217.1599A-100000@harlie.bfd.com>
In-Reply-To: <199804102138.OAA01260@dingo.cdrom.com>

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On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, Mike Smith wrote:

> > 
> > Well, to the best of my knowledge, the p166 and p200 were almost
> > identical except the fact that intel test these prior to shipment, to make
> > sure what processor can achieve what clock speed without burning.
> > I think overclocking is a 99% fail-proof way to achieve better performance
> > from your CPU(To a limited extent, ofcourse) without paying more money
> > for something which is about the same. The comparison to an old car being
> > raced is not applicable here, as processors at that level are Identical.
> > Please correct me if Im wrong, Thanks :)
> 
> You're wrong.
> 
> There are a limited number of cases where the situation you describe is 
> valid.  The typical error is to assume that this is universal, which is 
> completely fallacious.
> 
> Exceeding the rated specification of electronic components exposes you 
> to the risk of functional or catastrophic failure.  By doing so, you 
> *must* accept sole responsibility for your situation.

Even as a rabbid overclocker, I still have to agree with Mike. The
later P166/MMX's are happily overclockable, except that Intel isn't
bonding all the pins, and it's still not a sure thing.  The non-MMX is not
so happily overclockable. Where you get into real trouble when
overclocking the external clock rather than the multiplier is on the PCI
bus, including the IDE interfaces.  In fact, UDMA (actually loading the 
drivers, or enabling it in the kernel) and an external clock of 83.3Mhz is
VERY BAD mojo. I've never seen that combo work, but I haven't tried much.

Basically, if it works when not overclocked, but not when overclocked, I
never blame the OS.  Sure, my wife's P166 will boot DOS at 291Mhz, but
just because it won't any real OS faster than 200 doesn't mean that DOS is
a good OS and all other OS have bugs.


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