I think over-volting a CPU can cause it to become unstable by pushing the load temps above and beyond what the silicon is able to function at!
I'm sure there is a proper engineering term for this but it something I call
The Hot Gates
A piece of silicon is designed to run at a certain frequency using a certain amount of voltage and operate at a certain temperature. All Silicon is not created equal, some are physically more perfect and capable than others.
There is a heap of characteristics to silicon, some pieces are able to attain a good frequency at low voltages, some naturally run hotter than others (all other things being equal), some fizzle out when subjected to high FSB frequencies, some are able to sustain a certain frequency while others carp out if a certain operating temperature is exceed . . . . the list goes on!
The Hot Gates scenario is something I've come across before but didn't realise it at the time. It is a condition that I believe is caused by running a chip at too high a frequency while at the same time exceeding a certain thermal spec . . . causing instability and crashes!
So a bit more detail on this scenario . . . . as I'm sure you know when overclocking a chip you need to increase the vCore to keep the chip happy, the thing you probably didn't know is that your individual specific piece of silicon has an *invisible* thermal ceiling where once past will never be able to operate with stability, the higher the processor frequency becomes the lower this ceiling falls, of course as already mention in order for the specific piece of silicon to run at uBer MHz it needs over-volting (therefore producing more heat), this combined with the *invisible* thermal ceiling eventually work together like a pincher movement and form the scenario I refer to as
The Hot Gates
- You can't get the chip stable without adding more voltage (Adds more heat)
- You can't get the chip stable once an *invisible* thermal ceiling has been reached
- The Higher the frequency, the lower the *invisible* thermal ceiling! . . . Boo Ya!
I'm not sure if I explained that properly as I'm a bit tipsy and the girlfriend has just had her wicked way with me lol
You may notice that anyone who is serious about their clocking is using uBer cooling to chill their silicon (water cooling, LN2 etc). The simple reason for this is that a cooler chip will *always* clock higher due to the
The Hot Gates being avoided, their chips may have an an *invisible* thermal ceiling but it will not halt play as quickly as it does when someone is running a hot chip!
vCore is most likely the first *tweak* an overclocker learns about, I reckon it is used to liberally (less is more) and will most likely be the cause of many failed overclocks . . ."Hey I pumped up the vCore andf it's still not stable?"
can overvolting cause instability?.
Short Answer . . . . Yup!
