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CPU Damge: Heat or Voltage increases causing Heat?

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don't worrie about degrading or damaging a cpu unless you are a idiot its practically impossible 

if you run insane amounts of voltage for extended periods you might manage to degrade it enough to where the overclock isn't stable anymore

but saying heat is just a by-product of voltage is wholly incorrect there are many of factors at play a example that as the temperature climbs the resistance,impeadence,switching ablity and the leakage of the transistors can change eventually you can get it hot enough to cause a internal short of sorts leading to a cascade effect causing damage remember you are working on nano-meter scale so a 0.05% change in the circuit from thermal expansion can be a real problem at those scales 

 

other things to consider are 

1. the inherent capacitance of transistors of that scale 

2. gate time and the amount of leakage around a fet-type transistor when it is closed

3. circuit load and current handling capacity at a given switching speed as you go up in speed you lose regulation ability to to ~float~ again you are talking about very very small scales here 

4. plain old fashion to many AMP's and not enough pathway 

 

and yes if you can keep it COLD that drastically changes how much voltage you can run 

cold causes things to contract witch at the nano-scale means path-ways become tighter and less leaky allowing you to pump more voltage to drive the transistors there is still a finite limit 

I just want to clear up some confusion about what causes damage to CPU when you begin to overclock. Is it the heat that kills it, or the voltage?

 

Now, I understand that if you try to give it some crazy amount of voltage it's going to fry, but if you give it a safe voltage(under 1.5V MAX), is it the heat produced by said voltage that will eventually kill the CPU, or is it the voltage directly?

 

Another way to ask this question would be that if you give your CPU a REALLY good cooler(say, a magical, non-existent LN2 sustainable cooler), could you give it a higher voltage without shortening the lifespan of the chip or would it's lifetime still be shortened? 

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Heat is just a byproduct of the voltage. Voltage is what kills it. I mean, obviously heat will melt it if you let it, but the actually long-term damage is done via volts.

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both

Thats that. If you need to get in touch chances are you can find someone that knows me that can get in touch.

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Heat is just a byproduct of the voltage. Voltage is what kills it. I mean, obviously heat will melt it if you let it, but the actually long-term damage is done via volts.

The reason I'm confused about this is how electricity alone could destroy anything. Voltage is Joules/Coulomb after all, and the energy is being converted somehow in a way to damage the chip. The only thing I could think of is heat, especially since CPUs are made up of billions of semiconductors. An inherent property of these is that they are not supposed to be 100% efficient and will always produce heat.

 

This is getting into a deep, dark, area of physics, isn't it?

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don't worrie about degrading or damaging a cpu unless you are a idiot its practically impossible 

if you run insane amounts of voltage for extended periods you might manage to degrade it enough to where the overclock isn't stable anymore

but saying heat is just a by-product of voltage is wholly incorrect there are many of factors at play a example that as the temperature climbs the resistance,impeadence,switching ablity and the leakage of the transistors can change eventually you can get it hot enough to cause a internal short of sorts leading to a cascade effect causing damage remember you are working on nano-meter scale so a 0.05% change in the circuit from thermal expansion can be a real problem at those scales 

 

other things to consider are 

1. the inherent capacitance of transistors of that scale 

2. gate time and the amount of leakage around a fet-type transistor when it is closed

3. circuit load and current handling capacity at a given switching speed as you go up in speed you lose regulation ability to to ~float~ again you are talking about very very small scales here 

4. plain old fashion to many AMP's and not enough pathway 

 

and yes if you can keep it COLD that drastically changes how much voltage you can run 

cold causes things to contract witch at the nano-scale means path-ways become tighter and less leaky allowing you to pump more voltage to drive the transistors there is still a finite limit 

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don't worrie about degrading or damaging a cpu unless you are a idiot its practically impossible 

if you run insane amounts of voltage for extended periods you might manage to degrade it enough to where the overclock isn't stable anymore

but saying heat is just a by-product of voltage is wholly incorrect there are many of factors at play and none of them you need be concerned with keep the temps and voltages sane and don't be worried about it its pretty dam hard to actually kill a cpu 

Well I'm glad to hear that :), but I'm just very curious as to what it is about voltage that causes damage if it isn't heat. I understand that this might be a question for a university professor, but I was hoping someone on the forums could give me an explanation in normal person words.

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Well I'm glad to hear that :), but I'm just very curious as to what it is about voltage that causes damage if it isn't heat. I understand that this might be a question for a university professor, but I was hoping someone on the forums could give me an explanation in normal person words.

see my lengthy edit 

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see my lengthy edit 

Ah! Thank you! That did clear up the confusion. So lower temperatures help up until a point.

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