Can undervolting a cpu damage it?

[Energize]

I know it can cause instability if the clock speed is to high for it, but can it acutally damage it?

 

[SkeeterUK]

Dont think so.

 

[GeForce]

No it won't damage it. If it hasn't got enough volts for the specified clock speed, it will either be unstable or just plain refuse to boot.

Jon

 

[Sinny]

I would have thought it would act the same as upping the voltage, as the chip would sense some state of instability and reboot and i think change the fsb to default untill you go back and unlock it.

not sure about what AMD cpu's do though.

 

[GeForce]

I would have thought it would act the same as upping the voltage, as the chip would sense some state of instability and reboot

Increasing voltage whilst keeping the same clock speed will never cause instability. It can however, fry the chip as it will increase heat output.

That's not a risk when undervolting though. Less volts = less heat, so whilst it might become unstable, and as you say, reset BIOS settings to default, the risk of frying it is none

Jon

 

[Energize]

The bios has some sort of boot guardian thing that stops it being reset, strange thing is @ 1.2v when I start core temp the pc crashes nearly all the time, though everything else works fine and it passes all the s&m cpu tests @ 100% load.

 

[GeForce]

Now that is weird.

Does it also crash with other temp monitoring programs? (Eg. Speedfan, Everest etc).

Jon

 

[Energize]

Now that is weird.

Does it also crash with other temp monitoring programs? (Eg. Speedfan, Everest etc).

Jon

Speedfan works fine.

Hmm, now it's decided to work again.

 

[Street]

I hope it doesn't because I'm running mine at 1.285V at 3.2GHz!

The only difference I've noticed is it runs a lot cooler.. If anything I would have thought it would have made the CPU live longer!

 

[Fanatic]

Would be funny if under volting damaged your CPU.

As isn't that exactly what Speedstep does? Though it drops the frequency too.

 

[Justintime]

Increasing voltage whilst keeping the same clock speed will never cause instability. It can however, fry the chip as it will increase heat output.

well the extra heat can cause instability.. but i get what you mean, it'll never crash from voltage starvation

The only difference I've noticed is it runs a lot cooler.. If anything I would have thought it would have made the CPU live longer!

Correct

 

[Mul]

Well I guess it can crash as a result of too low a voltage or at least start producing errors. Providing it's a stable undervolt, it's all good. My E6300's at ~1.1V 2.8GHz at the moment.