Do CPUs degrade???

[MDW]

This probably sounds lame, but my 300A no longer boots into Win98 at 495Mhz. It used to do this with no problems. Now I have to run it below 450 (420) in order to get it to play games, and even then it is not ultra stable. Any thoughts out there??

[Szech]

CPUs, like tires or goldfish have an expected lifetime. When you overclock your CPU, you shorten the lifetime expectency. So your 300A just might be on it's last leg.

[Dave2]

Maybe you overclocked it too long.

[Eli]

You could try cleaning the contacts of the processor... Maybe a small amount of corrosion built up over time. Might be worth a look at least eh?

[Brydon]

You might also want to check fans are still running at full speed, thermal paste is not needing replacing and last but not least clean your heatsink as all that dust and fluff can build up on it reducing its efficiency.

[KillerBug]

And if you are using a cheap heatsink, just remember what overclocking does, it heats up the chip and makes clogs form in the interconnects inside the chip, so the more heat you get, like from using a retail heatsink and letting it get hot just as long as it overclocked, the more these buildups happen, and the faster the chip dies. That is why I use TEC units, even if the chip overclocks fine without them, they keep it realy coool.