Is there a break in period on pc gear????

New topic, can a system over time "break in better" and be able to attain more overclockablility..?? such as a new stick of ram vs and older of the same kind...?? or say a new 2600+ used hard over a brand new one??? do solid state electronics slowly go out of spec and suddenly be able to overclock a bit better..?? what is your opinion..??

heh

good question but i dont think so...
oc'bility depends on the voltage and there is only a limit you can stretch a component, no matter how long it has been used
it will pass out after one certain point

yes but I have noticed say 1 pc that over time seemed to overclock better with the exact same system.

i dont think so...
there are too many things that can be taken in account for experimental errors

true... but I am talking like starting I saw a peak overclock on the video card od around 620 on one card, then after a few weeks of hard core gaming I was able to raise that bar almost 10mhz without artifacts with nothing changed at all and....

Humm, that's a very good question AI.

I can't offer any hard facts to support or disprove your hypothisis but my opinion would have to be no. Computer hardware does not "break in" the same way a car engine would per say. There are no moving parts that get smoother over time. Only electical connections that if anything break down over time or perform differently with various voltages / amps.

The only explanation I could afford to offer in your situation would be that over time you might have installed a better driver or updated bios that would support a higher clock speed.

Again, I want to reiterate that this is only my opinion. I admit I have a some-what limited expierence in electronic engineering and could very much be way off base. I only offer my opionion from my past exp. in electronics and computers. I would welcome the insight anyone else could offer on this for my own benifit.

Only thing I think time would help is the heatsink compound. Over time with the vibration of the fan it may work itself into the microscopic pores better. Then with better heat transfer you may gain better stability.

There is the possiblity that the electric contact in the sockets improves slighly after a few hot cold cycles, (after which it begins to degrade due to corrosion) which could account for a peak of performance. My guess is that this effect would be so minor as to be unnoticable.
However some components, may be just a little better then others, perhaps in a perfect world, both boards could reach the higher speed, but in this case the slow one is not quite as good.

hehe

found this on Arctic Silver's website

Important Reminder:

Due to the unique shape and sizes of the silver particles in Arctic Silver 3, it will take a minimum of 72 hours, and as many as 200 hours to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink.) The CPU's temperature will drop as much as 2C to 5C over this "break-in" period.

so if you use AS, temp will drop if u use it longer and OC ability may be stronger i guess...

Ahhhhh wise grashopper very good point!