Q: Warranty At 800Mhz?

[mali]

@BackAssward
You should try to keep the order of posts in mind and understand what they mean and why they were posted. Each post in English is still a PITA for me as it takes long.
The sentence where I said being vague has its price says it all. What I mean is, if you don't tell people the facts without needing footnotes to understand what it means, you have to live with the fact that you move away from them and the likeliness to act positively towards the company decreases.

Meaning in this example: Everyone who is pissed off because of not being accurately informed, will give a shit about acting in community spirit towards Open Pandora. I don't care about Asus sending me a replacement, because they didn't even ask. I sent it in, they sent it back with replacement board. I would think twice when Open Pandora is concerned, but if I am informed that the warranty is voided when overlocking, while it was (more or less)advertised as a feature for years, I wouldn't care either and just send it in. I hope you get my point. Treat others like you would like to be treated yourself, or some such.

 

[Exophase]

I've fried my Athlon XP2000+, I ran it overclocked to 2GHz (from default 1.6GHz) for something like a year, and one day it would just not boot. I had it slightly overvoltaged from what I remember.

CPUs die for a LOT of reasons, you can't say that it's necessarily because you overclocked it. Suffice it to say, "decreases lifespan" is quite a different thing from "frying" IMO.

 

[Chest Rockwell]

As for, why is the option there if it isn't warranty covered? Same reason hack points are there? Or why x86's can overclock but it isn't under warrenty there either? It's because everyone would whine if it wasn't "open" enough for you to do these things.

The difference is, on x86's they advertise at their base clock. A 3 GHz processor is advertised as a 3 GHz processor and not 3.5 because it can overclock to that. On pandora, it's not the same- they've used overclocking to demonstrate emulators in many videos, talked about it as one of the features, etc. I don't care if they don't cover overclocking under warranty, but when you do that you lose the ability to market it with the benefits of overclocking.

Last I checked, all their marketing and news material clocked it at 600MHz. Only on this informal board not related to OP do some developers talk about having overclocked... much like you might find on a forum about any hardware; it has always be presented as non-standard. Overclocking in general doesn't void warranty... overclocking and frying your chip just isn't covered under warranty. It's the same with the solder pads if you want. using them doesn't void warranty... using them and frying your Pandora does. You could ask your question about the pads, they are as much 'marketing' material as overclocking has been (in that, they are also not in any official marketing material, just talked about here).

You clearly didn't look too hard (too busy rushing to OP's defence?) because it says it right on the front page of the very website:
ARM® Cortex™-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
"600 Mhz+"

You're right though, most of the developers official videos, for example, don't talk about overclocking, but their officially sanctioned developers almost always are, which leads me to believe that not all of the pandora videos were made at 600 Mhz (or below), it's just not stated when the overclock. That is, of course, just the videos, though. Look at pretty much any post, however, about things that the Pandora team are using as one of the features of their device - PS1, N64, etc- and there's some reference to how it will run better with overclocking. Stuff like that just doesn't sit well.

 

[Awakening]

Last I checked, all their marketing and news material clocked it at 600MHz. Only on this informal board not related to OP do some developers talk about having overclocked... much like you might find on a forum about any hardware; it has always be presented as non-standard. Overclocking in general doesn't void warranty... overclocking and frying your chip just isn't covered under warranty. It's the same with the solder pads if you want. using them doesn't void warranty... using them and frying your Pandora does. You could ask your question about the pads, they are as much 'marketing' material as overclocking has been (in that, they are also not in any official marketing material, just talked about here).

Posting on a forum can be considered marketing. Craig and the others are here representing their company. Whatever they say and wherever they say it is official. As a representative of a company you have to be careful of what you say. You can compare it to talking to a guy from a store dressed in that store's uniform.

 

[Polossatik]

There is only one major thing that makes silicon based electronics fail internally and that is heat. (I mention internally seen corrosion is the other major external factor - soldering and connectors. You have with "more heat" also "more wear" on the substrate, but wear is about lifespan and it involves more factors).
Simplified one can say (°):
A CPU/chip/transistor does not "die" from to much voltage, it dies from creating more heat then it's rated to dissipate ( Watt = Voltage * Amp and all electronics have a resistance, causing more heat to be generated if watt goes up for the same resistance. ). This is what kills most of the overclocked cpu's.
This is not about the "whole" chip/cpu/etc , it's about the weakest point of the design.
Measuring a chip "outside" temperature is an INDICATION of the heat build up inside, but that heat is not distributed even.
A cpu is made of several "area's" each having a function, the heat distribution is not even for all area's.
The more "speed" the more they create heat and less time there is to "channel" the heat to the housing for dissipation to the air/cooler.

That is what the manufacture cpu speed rating is doing, it warrants that at a certain speed the worst amount of heat buildup in one "hot spot" will "get out" of the actual "chip" inside the black square block we see as a chip safely without destroying the "chip".
If there is a bit more heat created then can get out then most of the time that will first result in "bad behavior" of the chip, so your OS crashes or so.

Most chips are made on the same line, only AFTER they are made they are "rated" technically.
Hence one possible reason why the 720Mhz TI chips are be more expensive , there are simply less produced that can 100% cope with that heat at 720Mhz.
Of course if TI found that the 720 chips got them $$$$ and they keep the price high of those, but actually they make more 720 "rated" chips then the can sell, they rebadge them as 600 and they can be safely used as 720 - but you don't know. (AMD is doing this for the moment with some of their "lowend black edition chips" - it's a marketing thing to keep those lower ones in place )

(°) note the word "simplified", I'm trying to paint a picture here, not to be 100% technically correct

There is not much difference in overclocking it by "software" or by "voltage".
One can perfectly up the voltage a bit and lower the clock speed enough to stay in the "heat range" and life happily everlasting.
One can in theory perfectly generate enough heat with "software" overclocking to do harm.
Of course, the reason why you "up" the voltage to to get the damn thing "stable" again, so basically if you have an unstable chip at volt X then you can be pretty sure you are "passed the safe limit" of speed, and upping the voltage to X+ 0.1 will only counter the effects and not "solve" the actual problem (= to much heat).
Hence if your pandora works fine at like 700Mhz (soft overclocked) but crashes after like 10 min at 710, then one can assume that using 680 or so will not kill it right way and will be actually pretty safe to use at the same room temperature (!).
So if you find the max limit at let's say 50 Celius and you back off a bit, you have a nice and safe "max limit".

This is normally your own risk, you are using stuff outside the specs of the manufacturer (referring to TI, not Openpandora).

( Multiple edits for splleing and some rewording )

 

[Dead1nside]

Ok, so how about we have a built in overclocking utility that lets you select the speed you want (and OPP level), but if put either outside of spec, it pops up a warning box notifying you that doing so will void your warranty (and of course will log the overclocking request to some super secret flash built into the omap so any repair requests can tell that the device has been overclocked...)

OK?

(BTW, Don't NVidia have overclocking options built-in to there GPU drivers?)

I think you're trying to make a point, I hope so, although what you say is not completely unreasonable it does sound a bit Apple to me.

What are the predefined limits? 900Mhz? Each chip's individual anyway. I'd rather just be honest about things.

 

[kingoddball]

yes im also a bit blown away by the post of craig. at least make it look sarcastic with some kind of picture.
I really have the feeling craig was serious at Mali.

Mali, pm craig, maby a good idea.

Why the hell should Mali PM Craig!?

The way Craig said what he did was disgusting. Sarcastic or not!

As for the Overclocking: It was splashed all over the official site that OC'ing upto 900mhz (which has now been pulled).
I purchased mine when that was still on the site - invalid and warranty voiding now!?

 

[mali]

I'm really starting to get sorry for posting at all in this thread. Craig might have had reasons for acting like he did. We are all humans anyway and have good days and bad days. No harm done. Let's let this thread die, I won't post in this thread any more as it makes me sad.

 

[laurencevde]

The EU (and, quite frankly, if that map's at least a bit correct, most pandorians are from the EU) has rather strict consumer protection laws.
As far as I know, they're more or less like this:

There's a legally required warranty for as long as the device is, under normal usage, reasonably expected to function. For electronics, this is generally considered to be 3 years. During this term, you may do anything you like with it, as long as that action doesn't cause it to fail, without voiding this warranty. And the burden of proof that the owner killed it, is with the manufacturer/shopkeeper (ie: they have to prove you didn't kill it)...

So, for overclocking, this means that even if you overclock your device, even for extreme overclocks, such as making the Pandora run on 2Ghz, if the device fails due to something completely unrelated, you can still claim warranty.
On the other hand, if your overclock, no matter how modest, does caus it to fail, you could/should no longer claim that warranty... (unless everyone manages to stably run his Pandora on 800Mhz, and thus running it on 800Mhz becomes "normal usage", but yours dies on 610Mhz...)

Yes, it's quite hefty, but I kinda like it this way. It requires manufacturers to produce decent quality goods, that don't easily fail.

 

[kingoddball]

No. It was marketed as a device that can clock upto nearly 50% extra.

 

[DaveC]

So if it is true and anything over 500 MHz can damage the chip then shouldn't there be something in the OS that prevents overclock?

I don't think it is fair that OP should be liable for users doing something that is known and documented to ruin the device.

 

[Kramy]

@MDave
Actually, this is very wrong. I don't know how much knowledge people have about overclocking ARM chips. I killed an Asus Mypal A600 by overclocking and my Dell x50v failed because of heat. I proved this by experimentation and added a heatspreader to get 702MHz stable.

edit:
In layman's terms: ARM CPUs behave exactly like x86 CPUs when overclocked. Overclocking above the limit on a too low voltage will cause errors and overclocking at higher voltage above the limit will cause a freeze due to overheating.

All right then, your knowledge in this area has convinced me, overclocking the Pandora will make the ARM CPU overheat thus it will void your warranty.

Happy now?

No, I'm not happy.

I would like to be able to overclock my Pandora without voiding its warranty. I don't care about other people. Do you think you could put an exception clause in for me?

I won't touch the voltage. Promise!

All of this "it's not an x86 chip blah blah" stuff seems totally pointless to me because I've NEVER heard of someone frying an x86 from overclocking either.

I've fried my Athlon XP2000+, I ran it overclocked to 2GHz (from default 1.6GHz) for something like a year, and one day it would just not boot. I had it slightly overvoltaged from what I remember.

My old Athlon XP 2400+ is overclocked to 2.2ghz. It's been overvolted by something like 0.15v for about 5 years now.

It's more likely that your PSU/mobo is shit, and the ripples killed it.


Now in all seriousness... overclocking should be allowed. Perhaps not over-volting - but even then, as long as your power source is stable, you're good to go!

 

[Fishbong]

It is quite obvious to me that craigix was being sarcastic.
Overclocking won't void our warranties.

 

[Dead1nside]

I'm going to not post in this thread again. After re-reading things perhaps people are tetchy because this ground has been gone over before. Hopefully we can all trust each other. Everyone just wants to be able to use their devices to get the best out of them, a little push in clock speed might be necessary but I think everyone understands potential harm, and warranty consequences of pushing reasonable boundaries.

 

[Mr B]

While perhaps not stated in clear text the Pandora have been put forward as an overclock friendly device by many team members and would be legally binding at least by Swedish consumer laws, this is because the consumers have been made to understand that overclocking is risk free and allowed by warranty before the purchase. By Swedish law it is also not possible for the seller to make any changes to what he is selling after making the offer to sell, nor take his offer back.

Overclock friendly it is. And Overclock per definition means "run it out of spec". This in turn means it's NEVER covered by warranty. Not even here in Sweden. That said, a low power chip, that gets a 25% frequency bump isn't going to get hot enough to damage it self. As have been stated earlier, it will become unstable, and crash way b4 it can hurt it self.

Err, maybe I look as some reluctant, but I just confused that SW overclocking may do physical damage to CPU. Up to now I suppose that overclock can lead to SW crash (OS hangup, freeze,...) at worst.

Look at your average overclocking utility for a gfx on PC. It includes everything you need to fry your gpu, and memory, permanently. (Altho, most GFX have the voltage regulator bits disabled and hence are much harder to permanently damage) Software overclocking or not, just doesn't make any difference.

(BTW, Don't NVidia have overclocking options built-in to there GPU drivers?)

Yes. As does ATi.
B!

 

[skeezix]

Not that I speak for anyone of value.

Undervolt shoudl never be a problem.
OC should never be a problem, not really, in an ARM chip with adequate venting/etc.
OVervolting is asking for trouble. I'm not sure what warranties are like for other companies, but overvolting seems often not covered, and is actively prevented in many cpus

Pandora has pretty easy overclocking, but as we all know its relatively harmless -- and if your battery gets hot, freaking turn it off or clock-down. Duh.

I don't think we currently have kernel support for volt-ing, but maybe there is. I've not looked at the chip specs in ages to know if it supports sw-volting, but my memory suggests it does? Either way, if we dont' expose that to the user, peopel are more or less covered. (Alternate kernel builds or firmware, makes it interesting however!)

IMHO, overclocking should not be a warranty-voiding thing, but volting should be

For videos and such, generally the pandora is not clocked -- in my videos I try and be clear in the desc to note the environmental conditions -- clocked or not, code optimied or not, X11 up or not, and so on. But generally I never overclock .. the Pandora is a pretty beastly performer, but OCing is a handy tool when you need it. (Heck, you want performance, just go to a greatly reduced environment like pmenu/etc, and you've gotten rid of anythign in the way.. clocking isn't usually needed!) But if you want to be really pushign your dosbox emulation or Amiga on unoptimized UAE, then OCing is a tool.

The current UI warns when setting clock outside the recommended spec.

jeff

edit: IF we do have a kernel interface to the volt, maybe we should suppress it; then real men can build their own kernel and know what they're getting into. (Course, peopel will just download and use that kernel anyway, but they also will know what they're getting into, and in that case they can get into lots of other trouble anyway

 

[Username]

OMGs Craigs we used to bes best of frends but nao i am enraged and applaled at tha way you treated your comunity members!! i thaut u wer bettar than that! it sover for us! good=bye!

 

[Vimacs]

Okay so if we do any overclocking in software, without changing the voltages this will no matter what, even if it isn't the cause of any problems, void our warranty?

Nobody will be able to tell if you overclocked it or not, thus it's a non-issue

_If_ it fails, you can either tell them you overclocked or you don't. It depends on you altruism coefficient. I got a replacement motherboard from Asus for my A600, because I didn't tell them.

So you're a dishonest little shit too?

I want your order number. You are banned from having a Pandora from us.

That's right, your order is canceled.

I uhh... don't think he's a first batcher

That's great news, and even better - he never will be!

Pleas tell me you weren't serious there.
Canceling, or threatening to do so, someone order who may have trusted you with 300$ for over a year just is a nogo.
Also, calling someone a "dishonest little shit" is a bannable offense to the forum guidelines in my opinion.
You should really have some more respect for people who placed so much trust in you and/or the project.

IF you relay where serious here consider my order canceled and any work done by me on the pandora os stopped.
Also if you continue to treat customers in such a way i may think about putting everything i did so far under a restrictive license, that should make at least the pnd/pxml system useless for some time.

Pleas tell me you weren't serious there.

 

[rabidpoobear]

OMGs Craigs we used to bes best of frends but nao i am enraged and applaled at tha way you treated your comunity members!! i thaut u wer bettar than that! it sover for us! good=bye!

whatn's your ordern umber?

 

[kingoddball]

OMGs Craigs we used to bes best of frends but nao i am enraged and applaled at tha way you treated your comunity members!! i thaut u wer bettar than that! it sover for us! good=bye!

whatn's your ordern umber?

How is that a concern on yours? Yes, we all see that you're mocking his writing style.