Did I damage my netbook?

[Derek12]

Netbook is a Samsung N145P
2GB DDR3 RAM (upgraded)
Kingston 128GB SSD (upgraded)
Intel Atom N455

The netbook is almost 7 years old and is in mint condition, including battery.

I was trying to overclock the CPU a bit (to squeeze the maximum performance out of it) using SetFSB following tutorials around internet.

As I couldn't find what clock generator it uses (I opened it but I couldn't see it, probably hidden), I was trying each listed PLL until one that worked (listed the frequencies).

Most of them just gave the error PLL id error and nothing further happened but on one of them the computer froze and the screen became completely scrambled, flickered, and made weird noises through speakers

I rebooted it and everything works fine again
I will stop trying to OC it.

My question if I made long-term damage to it, by messing with SetFSB.

Thanks

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

I don't think so, you hardly damage your netbook at all. I used to play setfsb with my toshiba nb200 notebook and acer 3820tg the later which I overclock to 3.0Ghz by changing the hex numbers which is unheard of for laptop in 2010/2011.

I never managed to find out how to overclock my netbook though as there is no example I can follow unlike the 3820tg. I recommend that you donate to setfsb maker to see if your laptop can be overclock. Setfsb is a very hit or miss thing. Some laptops need exact step like my 3820tg and I can't adjust with the slider only by typing number only.

Once you restart setfsb settings would be gone.

 

[Black.Raven]

the laptop is made for the specifications for a reason. So if you are going outside its normal configuration, you enter the danger zone. Ocing is always a risk. CPU's are OC'ed all the time. But they are very strong most of the time. If you overclock your graphics card to the max it will probably crash sooner then when you leave it at stock. Overclocking CPU's in cases with ample airflow is done by most tech enthusiasts. Overclocking netbooks and laptops with little to no room and airflow is not common. you're probably fine. but if you really need to use the netbook, I wouldn't take the risk.

 

[natr0n]

The old days of netbook overclocking was needed. These days processors are much better suited for almost everything. No need to mess with it.

 

[Sasqui]

I opened it but I couldn't see

My bet is you loosened or damaged something by doing that.

 

[r9]

Netbook is a Samsung N145P
2GB DDR3 RAM (upgraded)
Kingston 128GB SSD (upgraded)
Intel Atom N455

The netbook is almost 7 years old and is in mint condition, including battery.

I was trying to overclock the CPU a bit (to squeeze the maximum performance out of it) using SetFSB following tutorials around internet.

As I couldn't find what clock generator it uses (I opened it but I couldn't see it, probably hidden), I was trying each listed PLL until one that worked (listed the frequencies).

Most of them just gave the error PLL id error and nothing further happened but on one of them the computer froze and the screen became completely scrambled, flickered, and made weird noises through speakers

View attachment 86462

I rebooted it and everything works fine again
I will stop trying to OC it.

My question if I made long-term damage to it, by messing with SetFSB.

Thanks

You be fine.
I think the PCIE clock was linked when you raised the FSB and basically overclocked the PCIE bus which can cause such artifacting on the screen.
High clocks don't damage anything, higher volts and temperature do.
No oc on stock volts can do anything but make the computer crash.

 

[silentbogo]

My question if I made long-term damage to it, by messing with SetFSB.

You are fine and there will be no permanent damage.

Atom N450 is a bad overclocker. Even if you are lucky and can get +10% FSB, it won't make it fast enough to make a difference.
It's biggest problem is being a single-core hyperthreaded CPU with low clocks. That generation was relatively bad at hyperthreading (only 15-20% benefit from single-threaded depending on load).
There isn't much you can do to fix that, except keeping the SSD, selling the old puppy and buying a new[er] netbook.

 

[Derek12]

Thanks to all

I won't try further to OC it, I will leave it as is

I simply wanted to squeeze a bit of performance out of it, but it's still usable

You be fine.
I think the PCIE clock was linked when you raised the FSB and basically overclocked the PCIE bus which can cause such artifacting on the screen.
High clocks don't damage anything, higher volts and temperature do.
No oc on stock volts can do anything but make the computer crash.

The artifact screen occured just after hitting the "Get FSB" button after selecting a Clock Generator (to read the frequencies) I hadn't time to set clock

My bet is you loosened or damaged something by doing that.

The scrambled screen happened just after hitting the "Get FSB" button it works fine otherwise

[...]I recommend that you donate to setfsb maker to see if your laptop can be overclock. [...]

Unfortunately the program seems to be EOL , maybe because FSB is dead and now it's QPI, HyperTransport, DMI...

 

[OneMoar]

no harm done the scrambled screens means you got close to the right pll gen

it would't matter if you wound that atom up to 3Ghz its still slower then frozen dogshit

 

[brandonwh64]

no harm done the scrambled screens means you got close to the right pll gen

it would't matter if you wound that atom up to 3Ghz its still slower then frozen dogshit

LOL you are right, We bought some of those intel compute sticks (latest gen) and They are only worth web browsing and RDP to other machines.

 

[Derek12]

no harm done the scrambled screens means you got close to the right pll gen

it would't matter if you wound that atom up to 3Ghz its still slower then frozen dogshit

Meh it's still enough for my needs
For more intensive tasks I use my desktop or a bigger laptop.
I only wanted to extract more performance for a possible windows 10 update.

 

[alucasa]

LOL you are right, We bought some of those intel compute sticks (latest gen) and They are only worth web browsing and RDP to other machines.

Have you tried one with Core m3/m5? Have always wondered how good they were.

 

[silentbogo]

LOL you are right, We bought some of those intel compute sticks (latest gen) and They are only worth web browsing and RDP to other machines.

His N450 is about 1/10 of the computestick(in terms of performance) in a hotter package. Imagine what that's like.
Haven't tried Computestick yet, but from what I've heard is they throttle a lot, and most likely not just from heat, but from reduced power cap on SoC package. I've tried Z8300 on an ASUS netbook w/4GB RAM, and it was quite adequate.
It did handle well Chrome w/ 10+ tabs, LibreOffice, HD video playback, etc. Also worked flawlessly, when playing FHD content on TV or ext. monitor. Too bad that one did not support WiDi

 

[Nuckles56]

I remember playing CoH on minimum settings at the lowest screen resolution one of the early atoms in a netbook with similar specs (apart from the SSD) and that was just bad (sub 25 fps and worse with local multiplayer)

 

[Derek12]

Anyway yesterday I got an Acer One 10 tablet/laptop with an Atom X5-Z8300 and an external hard drive, but I will keep the netbook, because it has proven to be a reliable and robust machine in its 6 years of use, including battery. even if it's heavier, blukier, hotter, and way less powerful than the tablet.

The only crash it had is the one of this thread, that machine is a tank. And after upgrading to 2GB of RAM and 128GB SSD the performance increased notably.

I hope the Acer One 10 is as reliable as it.

His N450 is about 1/10 of the computestick(in terms of performance) in a hotter package. Imagine what that's like.

It's technology evolution
FYI the netbook ran Visual Studio 2012 (with a small project), Office 2016, SQL Server 2014 with a small database, and XAMPP, and hosted a test Web Service, without any hiccups, but the screen res is too low to code comfortably LOL
It can surprise how a good optimization can help.


The only piece of software that kills it is Windows 10*, and that's why I wanted to overclock it.

*And SetFSB


Anyway we are derailing this thread this was about if I damaged my netbook not to talk about its performance.

 

[P4-630]

I got myself an Acer netbook years ago, also with an atom, it was running XP, made a XP/7 dual boot on it, worked well but just for surfing/email nothing more, it sucks for other productivity tasks....

It's still an Atom.

 

[silentbogo]

I need to check my trash/parts pile... I might even have a non-working EEE PC 4G. Always wanted to strip its innards and turn into portable KVM switch.

 

[Derek12]

I remember playing CoH on minimum settings at the lowest screen resolution one of the early atoms in a netbook with similar specs (apart from the SSD) and that was just bad (sub 25 fps and worse with local multiplayer)

They don't have a "full" GPU, it's mostly software emulated (GMA 3150) with almost no allocated RAM not made for 3D gaming.
The only 3D games I could play on it was Half-Life 1 and Need for speed Hot Pursuit (both 1998)
That's why they lag with Windows 10, advanced hardware accelerated interface, DWM. that you can't disable unlike Windows 7.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

If it still works, it works right? It's only damaged when it stops working again

Thing to remember with OCing these things is that if it doesn't run something, it's very likely that it doesn't by a *long* margin... And I doubt you would ever manage even 50% let alone 100% overclock on something like this. OCing is really only useful if you are either pushing benchmark scores, want a slight boost on some task like video encoding or file compression, or trying to bump up FPS a few % to get it above a certain threshold (my old laptop ran BF3 at 55-65 FPS without a GPU OC, with the OC I managed 60+ consistently)