Intel Says Yes to Overclocking, but No to Warranty of Overclocked Death Chips

[malware]

During Computex 2008, Intel said that they'll change their strategy when it comes to overclocking and allowing users to squeeze extra performance from their systems. Overclocking capabilities will be the main feature of Intel's 4 series chipsets, said Eric Mentzer, Intel's vice president and general manager of the Graphics Development Group, in an interview at the Computex exhibition in Taipei. "We spend a lot of time working with our motherboard partners to figure out all the hidden bits inside, helping them figure out how to bring the best out of these platforms," Mentzer said. In the past and sometimes even today Intel used to lock down its chips to prevent them from overclocking, and that's exactly the time when terms like "FSB wall" started to mean something. Now the company is focusing to eliminate all the overclocking obstacles for us, but that will come with the cost of the warranty which won't cover death chips that were overclocked. Now comes the perfect time to ask, how is Intel going to know if my motherboard or CPU were overclocked?

Source: InfoWorld

[Mussels]

My bet is a bit on the CPU that can only be activated once, and is permanent - if the voltage goes above stock levels, boom, warranty is gone.

[intel igent]

i donth think there should be a problem as long as we keep voltages within spec

[will]

Originally Posted by Mussels

My bet is a bit on the CPU that can only be activated once, and is permanent - if the voltage goes above stock levels, boom, warranty is gone.

But what if you had a crappy PSU or mobo and the vcore spiked for a tiny period, then bam you have no warranty! This sucks though, quite a lot of people will be put off by this...
What about resellers, do you think they will be given devices by intel to tell whether a CPU has been overclocked or not? Or do resellers just send the chips back to intel?

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by will

But what if you had a crappy PSU or mobo and the vcore spiked for a tiny period, then bam you have no warranty! This sucks though, quite a lot of people will be put off by this...
What about resellers, do you think they will be given devices by intel to tell whether a CPU has been overclocked or not? Or do resellers just send the chips back to intel?

as an example, my CPU is 1.250v stock (roughly)

If my crapp mobo or PSU put say, 1.40v through it (which i use to run 3.6Ghz)... intel would rightly blame them. Its not intels fault if your house gets struck by lightning, its not their fault if your mobo or PSU dies and kills their CPU.

[kylew]

I thought this was standard procedure already? Overclocking is "allowed" and unofficially "supported" but if you break your chip overclocking it, then it's your problem. Considering that with normal levels of overclocking with no too ambitious voltages, it'd be difficult to fry a modern chip anyway. I've pushed over 1.7v through my Q6600 for extended periods of time (air cooled) and it's still running happily with no problems. This is just to stop idiots who don't know what they're doing from breaking stuff and trying to send it back. They aren't going to add something in to the chip that detects voltage and voids the warranty if it goes about its spec, as it doesn't mean you've overclocked. As Will said, a crappy mobo or PSU could push the voltage up. They couldn't put this sort of "lock" on because warranties would be getting voided all over the place without people even knowing. Now, if they put a "lock" on above a certain voltage, that has to be constant for a certain period of time, I wouldn't say that's too much of a problem, ie, chip killing voltages, so the only people who pushed it that high are the record setting benchmarkers who don't care about killing CPUs.

[tigger]

Personally,i agree with the no warranty thing.I overclock my cpu knowing full well i could kill it,i agree with intel saying you can oc but no warranty.If i killed my chip i would'nt even try and rma it.

If you had a spike in voltage or a lightning strike well thats just tough luck i guess *shrug*

[Mussels]

Despite how moral many of us are, dont forget that we had threads even here on TPU not long ago where someone asked how to kill a video card, so he could get a faster one from RMA.

People DO overclock, obviously, and ask for warranties. I've had people try and return CPU's bought from me saying 'it just died' and they've popped off the heatspreader, killed the CPU, and glued it back on with superglue... i'm sure intel wont find such things amusing.

[tkpenalty]

Well the new CPUs from intel on the new socket have a set of contacts on the TOP side of the PCB of the CPU itself, which I think intel will use as a way to read the CPU clock changes (or max voltage/CPU clockspeed values). Normal boards wont be able to have access to those pins...

I do not mind if they dont have warranty on overclocked chips, intel with their excellent fabrication rarely has CPU deaths (most of the time its the motherboard).

[Steevo]

Intel had a "black box" on most chips to tell on the user.

[candle_86]

it wont be that hard, a little bit of static cache can do that, enough to record say the fastest clock speed the chip ever ran at. So if its say a 1.8ghz if they find it ran at 1.9 ever they can void it right there, and that is very possible with say 1kb of static ram

[newtekie1]

I agree with the no warranty thing. As for how they will detect it, I doubt it will be a voltage reading. My guess would be a register on the chip that reads clock speed. It stores the maximum speed the chip has run at, and if a warranty product is sent in and the register says the chip ran above spec(I assume there will be a small amount of lee-way) then they deny the warranty.

I know last time they said this everyone speculated that they would put a fuse on the chip that would blow when the CPU was overvolted for anything more than a few seconds(this would eliminate the voltage spike killing your warranty issue).

I assume a lot of resellers will have to change their CPU return policies because of this, and give themselve time to either send the chip to Intel for testing or test it themselves before shipping out the replacement.

I think this is a good move, personally. I hate people that kill hardware themselves overclocking or whatever, and then send it in for Warranty when they don't deserve it. It makes the prices higher for everyone.

[allen337]

With the Intel chips now its just about impossable to kill one overclocking. Ive overclocked hundreds of intel chips till they actually shut down, no blue screen just shut down. I pushed my Q6600 b3 to 4.4 with 1.7v before she shut down. If its heat related that could happen at stock speeds and could be detected most likely. But your more likely to blow a cap or ruin a mobo rather than a processor. ALLEN

[tkpenalty]

Originally Posted by allen337

With the Intel chips now its just about impossable to kill one overclocking. Ive overclocked hundreds of intel chips till they actually shut down, no blue screen just shut down. I pushed my Q6600 b3 to 4.4 with 1.7v before she shut down. If its heat related that could happen at stock speeds and could be detected most likely. But your more likely to blow a cap or ruin a mobo rather than a processor. ALLEN

Have you seen stock speed Cedar Mills explode? True, that most Intel CPUs these days dont really die unless you did what Wile E did.

One thing I really wish they did is provide that nice copper flower heatpipe cooler for all their mid range CPUs instead of they super high end CPUs.... I want one of those!!!

[will]

What did Wile E do? To be fair I've never ever had a CPU die on me, not even ones I've had for years running at 24/7 overclock! Probably the only component I've never had to return (except maybe a case!)...

[flashstar]

Intel is finally unlocking the FSB on all of their chips??

If this is true, then it would mean the biggest change in policy since the PII!

[echo75]

thats nothing new to me, i actually think they have been operating according to those rules all this time, i have never seen anyone who got his CPU replaced after he carlessly fried it by indescriminate overclocking.

[DaMulta]

Originally Posted by echo75

thats nothing new to me, i actually think they have been operating according to those rules all this time, i have never seen anyone who got his CPU replaced after he carlessly fried it by indescriminate overclocking.

They replaced my QX9650 and I even left de-electric grease on it.

[will]

Originally Posted by DaMulta

They replaced my QX9650 and I even left de-electric grease on it.

LOL! Probably thought it was thermal paste or something....

[acperience7]

I wonder if they'll keep the multi locked on the new chips then?

[DaMulta]

on the pins and the chips underneath lol I think not.

[InnocentCriminal]

I can't wait to play with a Nehalem based chip.

^^

[echo75]

Originally Posted by DaMulta

They replaced my QX9650 and I even left de-electric grease on it.

count yourself lucky, that was an exception not a rule, so dont bank on it.

i personally would prefer it that they take no responsibility but dont lock up the chips allowing for overclocking than if they lock up all the chips!

[will]

Originally Posted by DaMulta

on the pins and the chips underneath lol I think not.

well maybe u spilt some who are they to tell where you can put thermal paste but seriously what were they thinking? and how come you didnt clean it off before you sent it back?

[kylew]

Originally Posted by Mussels

Despite how moral many of us are, dont forget that we had threads even here on TPU not long ago where someone asked how to kill a video card, so he could get a faster one from RMA.

People DO overclock, obviously, and ask for warranties. I've had people try and return CPU's bought from me saying 'it just died' and they've popped off the heatspreader, killed the CPU, and glued it back on with superglue... i'm sure intel wont find such things amusing.

An important point though is that what if your CPU dies due to reasons not related to overclocking? Is it immoral to RMA your CPU? That's where the issues lie I think.