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[Rolan7]

There was some processor where my dad used a soldering iron to "unlock its higher clockspeed".  He was really proud of that project, and it didn't crash all that much more often than his other windows 95 machine!  Particularly considering his idea of a cooling system was to leave all the components out on a table instead of in a case.  And air-condition the room, to be fair.  That was the only room with AC growing up.

[methylatedspirit]

There was some processor where my dad used a soldering iron to "unlock its higher clockspeed".  He was really proud of that project, and it didn't crash all that much more often than his other windows 95 machine!  Particularly considering his idea of a cooling system was to leave all the components out on a table instead of in a case.  And air-condition the room, to be fair.  That was the only room with AC growing up.

Okay, so my brain's going into forensics mode, trying to figure out what CPU it was:

Windows 95... likely pre-2000s, 2002 at most
(Note: stuff way before my time. I only know this stuff because of Wikipedia and old forum posts discussing this stuff)
Using soldering irons... no exact match, but AMD Duron "pencil overclocking" found
Relevant CPU revisions circa 2003... unlikely-to-impossible within known time constraint
Pass tentative halt.
Recheck...
Pencil trick was known as far back as Athlon Thunderbird (2000), and performed exactly the same.
Bounds moved to 2000.
Success: possible candidate found, but enable dubious flag

Was it an AMD Athlon Thunderbird, then? You don't actually need a pencil, per se, to actually do the trick. You just need some conductive material to bridge these tiny electrical pads on the CPU itself to do all sorts of wacky things with the processor. It's plausible, at least. Not sure if Windows 95 would still support the drivers you'd need to be able to run a Thunderbird system well, though. This is really way before my time; I'm working off Wikipedia and Google searches.

Now, why he'd do it with a soldering iron, which could burn something important and kill the CPU, I don't know.

[Lord Shonus]

Generally speaking, a processor is capable of working much faster than the rated speed. The problem is that the rated speed is what they can do reliably on every unit. It used to be common for chips that failed the quality  control to be locked to a slower clockspeed and sold as a budget model.

The chip in Rolan's example could be a 486sx. This was a standard 486 with the Floating Point Unit disabled by grounding that part out, and it was possible to renable it (turning the chip into the more expensive DX) with some careful modding. Most SX chips were DX chips that failed QC in the FPU (considered a luxury at the time), so this was unrelaible.

[Rolan7]

Ooh I think I misrembered because he definitely mentioned the pencil thing! I got confused because he was also a hobbyist solderer. I'll be sure to ask him soon about the specific chip! The 95 was meant as a clue hehe, but I'm not positive it's accurate. I'll check though!

[methylatedspirit]

Generally speaking, a processor is capable of working much faster than the rated speed. The problem is that the rated speed is what they can do reliably on every unit. It used to be common for chips that failed the quality  control to be locked to a slower clockspeed and sold as a budget model.

Yeah, and the definition of "stable" or "reliable" tends to be a bit loose when it's in the hands of an overclocker. I overclock my GTX 1650, personally (don't worry, VBIOS power limits prevent it from burning up), and my version of "stable" is Folding@home crashing at most once a week. Nvidia's is on the order of "crashes once every 5 years of continuous use at max power".

What I get out of that is a mobile 1650 that runs faster than a desktop 1650, and also has more CUDA cores than the desktop variant. It's not quite "world's fastest GTX 1650", but it's close. I get to play Control at 1080p Medium at "decent" (hovering around 50 FPS) framerates, which is an improvement from the 30 FPS I'd get at stock. Woo!

Overclocking here helps people "on the edge". I know it sounds desperate, but people do overclock GT 710s, these crappy display adapters, and the fact that it's possible to eke out just-barely-playable framerates out of hardware designed for adding multi-monitor support... I admire that. That is perseverance.

Speaking of which, NASA's livestream for the Perseverance rover's landing on Mars is currently live. I stayed up all night for this. Let's hope it all goes well.

[Frumple]

Hello, my name is

<Frumple>

and today, I

<scanned barcodes>

for

<all goddamn day>

I reached

<barcode scanning zen>

where I

<started being able to scan most of them without even looking at the goddamned scanner>

I am

<so tired>

[pisskop]

Hello, my name is

<Joseph>

and today, I

<babysat a temp>

for

<my boss who didn't want him around anywhere else>

I reached

<my absolute highest level of irritation>

where I

<started kept road raging at the people who forget how snow works every time it falls>

I am

<consternated>

[Vector]

Hello, my name is

<Veckle>

and today, I

<did math drank tea>

for

<grad school>

I reached

<a level of anxiety and exhaustion that I was not expecting to come so soon>

where I

<cried for hours and pissed off my friends by crying>

I am

<so sleepy and so vexed>

[Egan_BW]

Hurrah for skeleton!

[methylatedspirit]

Let's see, I've managed to stay mostly up to 10 am, then I ended up taking a nap for 4 hours to 2 pm. Now I'm noticing that I'm way worse at handling external stimuli than usual. I heard a YT video, and the first thing I thought was "wait, is the voice clipping?", which is not even remotely true. It's louder than you'd like, brain, but that ain't clipping.

Like, I just feel more easily-overwhelmed by the outside world now. Even sitting in this room, typing this out is a strain on me; I can't even think and type at the same time anymore, and I can hear loads (perceptually; nothing's changed on a physical level) of background noise. It's absurd. I can usually handle being in parties decently-well, so me being so overloaded by just sitting in my room is beyond odd. My only wish right now is to be in a sensory deprivation chamber.

What do? Like, at this point, I think the sleep deprivation is really fucking with me, so I could just sleep. I'm getting less and less overwhelmed over time, so I could also wait.

[ZBridges]

24 hours of deprivation isn't that bad.  You actually get a second wind in the late morning of the next day.  Anything more than that is not advisable, though.

[Frumple]

Thing I wasn't expecting at 4 am from the light classical music channel: Acappella Mozart (Alla turka from piano sonata in A, a cappella amadeus, swingle something or other). It wasn't even bad or anything, just... very not expected. Channel in question does basically no vocals from what I'd heard, until then.

[Mathel]

I learn something at school. I accidentally get to test it the next day.

Yesterday, among other things, I learned that lead does not stain steel (easily). It is thus used to rapid-cool steel wire when such deed is needed.

Today, I tried to solder a copper string to an iron wire. I was using an old solder, which stuck to the copper easily, but would not stick to the wire. I remembered what our teacher told us yesterday, realised the solder is probably mostly lead, and just put a drop around the wire, so it can't easily pop off.

[Frumple]

I have now learned they apparently made a new post-apocalyptic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing. There's at least two TMNT settings with power armored ninja turtles. Possibly more. Bloody hell.

e: the cyber samurai comics were the ones I was actually remembering, so I don't forget/for the curious. Only got one of them when I was a kid, but... thing was pretty damn metal, from what I remember. Ralph had like PTSD nightmares and got melted into a skeleton turtle by acid rain in a dream, had shacked up with that one fox chick. Don was experimenting with like alternate dimensions or something, good chunk of the world had flooded or summat. Freaking toyline tie-ins, what were you doing.

[MrRoboto75]

Today I learned about the word, 'snarge'.

it refers to bird remains after said bird hits an airplane, usually the jet intakes.