Sorry if you think I'm coming across as harsh, and this post will probably come across as harsh as well, but if you are going to read this, I plead with you to read all the way until the end—don't stop midpoint in my post carrying the thought of "wow, hat's really an asshole" with you. I truly believe that to run a project like Folding@Home or WCG on an overclocked computer without sufficient stability testing is asinine. Sure, it may say zero errors, but what if there is an error somewhere in one of those work units, and it happens to slip through the cracks? Think of a complex math equation with many steps. What happens if you slip up and change a sign somewhere, slip up on your arithmatic? Sure, all the other stuff might be right, but there was a "stability error", per se, and the whole effort is wasted when you get the wrong answer. What if that is what we are doing... what if our possibly unstable computers are making a miscalculation somewhere, and it slips through the cracks?
As I said before, we could be holding future lives in our hands. When you overclock and get subtle stability errors over time because you never tested and you find out your computer is behaving abnormally, possibly not able to boot to windows because a critical system file got corrupted, there is no real harm done. Sure, it sucks reinstalling windows and all those programs and getting everything set up the way you had it, but at the end of the day when it's all said and done, it's no big deal; however, when an overclocked effort to cure cancer or another disease goes awry like an installation of windows that was slowly knocked off its feet by a slightly unstable system overtime, the effects could be disaterous.
I am not equating anyone's effort to "playing with lives", or at least, I am not trying to, even though it may seem that way. We all run distributed computing projects to help others. Many of us have spent our money to upgrade computers that run these projects to get more work done, and similarly, we overclock knowing that the higher speed will get more work done, and that's great. One of the main reasons I overclock is to get more work done. I'm just saying that if proper tests aren't done to verify the stability of our computers doing this magnificent work, it could be all for naught—or even having adverse effects.
Again, please don't take me the wrong way. I've been here since 2006; if I were a troll, asshole or otherwise, I'm sure someone would have noticed by now. I intend to do no harm to my readers, emotional or otherwise. I think we're a great bunch of people and we have a very tight-knit community for being a tech forum as large as we are. I am friends with many of you, and some of you have helped me with many things. I recall getting a 17" LCD monitor off one of you for free, and I don't think you even asked me to pay shipping (if you're reading this, I havn't forgotten your name, I remember exactly who you are, but I remember you not wanting me to give your name out by publically thanking you). I just believe very strongly that everyone should test thier overclocks, if they are running a distributing project, such as F@H and WCG, the two projects many of us have become so fond of. If you are still reading at this point, and you are one of the ones who are running F@H or WCG without having properly stability tested your computer, I strongly encourage you to do so.
You have no right to call someone else lazy, you are not them. Lighten up.
