Ridiculous question about overclocking and fire!

Pck21

Pck21

New Member
So a little back story to the question before I post it. My girlfriend's sister's husband is a pathological liar. He has been caught cheating on his wife (they were dating at the time and it was in her bed, in her parent's house!) red handed, states he owns a lot of property but can't prove it, can't hold a job down for more than 6 months (no joke, that's the longest so far), and he's basically a scum bag that everyone hates. So here's what he told my gf's parent's 2 nights ago...

Apparently, he and his "class" from the local community college took a trip down to the University to compete in a "computer competition." This is a lie because my gf's brother goes to the community college and I go to the University and both of us didn't hear of any competition and we're both tech guys.

Second, he claims that his team won "money" for winning the competition and he "overclocked" a CPU "so much that it caught on fire." :face palm:

I wasn't there to refute such a claim, unfortunately, but my question is this: Is it physically possible for a CPU to catch on fire instantaneously in one sitting and one afternoon of overclocking? I don't know the exact computers they were using during this "competition" but I suspect they would be Dell pre-made computers.

I'm calling BS because I don't think it's physically possible for a CPU to "catch on fire" in the first place with the thermal paste around it and with a cooler on top. Wouldn't a too overclocked CPU just shut down?

Thanks for the replies!
 
I wouldn't be surprised if this was possible for obvious reasons, but as you suggest with todays technology the computer would more than likely shut down as manufactures need to take into consideration hazards such as the fan suddenly stop working etc.

Just my opinion.

Jack.
 
If they were in a real compitition they would of had the proper computers to do it with... Which means they wanted to see how far they can overclock a certain cpu and there for means they need the best of the best for cooling... It would be stupid to hold a thing like that and just use the stock heat spreader lol.... Lieing scumb bag
 
Absolutely not and i will show you a couple of videos to illustrate why:

firstly

[YT]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5t_bNTvHSlc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5t_bNTvHSlc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YT]

They have put a mains wire directly onto a processor, the amount of heat that would produe in such a short space of time is incredible, 230V at about 26 amps, it gets hot then just pops, stopping the circuit in the processor so no electricity flows.

Secondly (and i LOVE this video, waste of a system but so cool)

[YT]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TjHOUonZO6U&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TjHOUonZO6U&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YT]

That is a system with a mains wired straight into it, as i said in the first video massive heat. That caches fire, but notice that it is the capacitors, diodes and wires, not the chips, the chips only ever pop, maybe glow or spark but never catch fire

You are right to call BS on it because it is
 
Bodaggit23 said:
Don't newer chips have thermal shutdown circuits in them
to prevent them from getting too hot anyway?
Click to expand...

yep, it had been said above so i didn't want to repeat :P, but yes they do, all components do now, the motherboard has a few temperature sensors dotted around, everything else tends to just have 1. Multi core CPUs have 1 per core
 
Aastii said:
yep, it had been said above so i didn't want to repeat :P, but yes they do, all components do now, the motherboard has a few temperature sensors dotted around, everything else tends to just have 1. Multi core CPUs have 1 per core
Click to expand...

Plus the fact that these computers were supposedly dell pre made computers, and you cant overclock those to begin with... Yup, hes lying.
 
laznz1 said:
Next he be telling us he changed the components on the board like user:el quad core did lol
Click to expand...

Haha probably, maybe even saying he used ddr3 in a pc-100 slot too>_>(And i actually saw one time where someone tried to jam ddr3 into a ddr slot on an older skt 478 mobo 0_o)
 
Well think about it. In order to catch on fire, it would have to get around 700F right? I cpu would fry long before 700F. Your computer would simply shut off long before it caught fire.
 
Thank you for the replies everyone! I knew for a fact that it was impossible with Dell computers only a few years old, but he always makes these outrageous claims when no one around can refute him. In all honesty, we think he's cheating on his wife again so he makes up these stories to go places we don't know about it. However, this time I think I just caught him in a major lie as there were no competitions that any school participated in recently that I can confirm. I'm going to keep digging and then provide him with the videos posted and show him why it's impossible and the question him about his where abouts that night. Thanks! I'll keep everyone updated on what happens lol.
 
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