Stealth computing- any ideas?

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:15 am

Hello all,

Does anyone know how to overclock a Dell without involving the IT guy?
We've just been given some rather nice Dell Optiplex GX745 (Linky) ultra-small form factor workstations. They're equipped with E6600's and 2GB of Ram, running XP Pro sp2- very nice.

The only problem is that theyre all running at stock speeds, and our IT guy is a bit of a tw@t (the kind of guy who expects to be asked for permission before you plug in a USB fish tank or christmas tree)

My machine quietly folds for SPCR (obviously) from a USB drive, as this gets around the user account control, however I'd like to overclock the PC if at all possible to get some extra PPD. I've been in the BIOS, and couldnt find any options to overclock; have Dell neutered our workstations? Or is there some key-combination that opens up new options?
Is there any way to unleash the machines potential without Admin priviledges?

Thanks for any help you can offer

Bob

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:09 am

I'm sorry if this sounds insulting or condescending, but honestly...what the HELL!!!

I don't know the personality of your IT guy, he may be a real a-hole but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a reason to be that way. I do most of the IT work at my company (though I'm a chemist) and I have to say, it's BS when people treat their work computers as their personal machines. Think of what it's like to have 20+ machines to administer and everybody wants to download their own screensaver or icon package (or name you software of choice), and when their machines are slow and crash frequently and everyone looks to you to fix it as a result (then call you an idiot behind your back because it crashed in the first place after running the software YOU INSTALLED).

Overclocking is just as bad. Luckily for most IT workers, those options are in fact disabled by the OEM. Why the hell would anyone want to overclock a business-class machine anyway, to open Outlook 0.4 seconds faster?? Business-class machines are meant for businesses and are built to reflect those necessities: low cost, stability, and ease of maintenance.

The fact that you've gone out of your way to bypass the systems your IT team has put in place to make his job easier is quite rude. And the fact that your asking these types of questions tells me that you really are knowledgeable enough to do this by yourself and be able to fix things when they go wrong. I'm not saying it to be mean...just real. You are at a level that IT guys hate their clients to be at. You "know enough to be dangerous". I love people that are too ignorant to do anything they haven't been shown how to do. I also love people who treat their computer as a last resort. I also love people who know more about computers than I do (I don't usually have to help them, but I haven't run across any yet at my company). I've come to fear and despise people in the middle. Those who come into work after being shown this great new screensaver by their nephew and want to run it at work.

I would implore you to do your IT guy a favor; leave your machine alone and save your folding for home. And maybe have a little more understanding for his situation, we're not all jerks!

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:32 am

Or better yet: try to start a company-wide program to set up F@H on all the workstations.

When I was the admin of a fairly large business/school, I had no problems using the computing power to fold (although USB drives pissed me off to no end-they're viral nightmares) but it turned out not to be feasible because we were mostly equipped with Pentium IIs. Even the server's Xeons were pretty lame.

Then again, I wasn't a twat. (If you're going to censor it, shouldn't it be tw@?)

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:35 am

I'll spare you the holier-than-thou part, though really, not only misusing company resources but actively looking to misuse them to a greater degree is a bit meh;

If it's not in the BIOS, you can't do much. (See jhhoffma's post about why it isn't in the BIOS.) Overclocking is not done within Windows, administrator priviledges or not. I would really, really recommend against attempting hardware mods.

And really, the 745 is a blazing machine even without overclocking.

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:58 am

Wow, touchy subject!
Forget I asked.
jhhoffma- I get where you're coming from, really, I just thought there might be a way to speed up folding a little bit. My home PC is offline until further notice, could be a few months, and the FaH team needs all the help it can get. As for treating the machine like my home PC you're right, I do; I can't use it for work because our IT guy refuses point blank to install such dangerous programs as Eagle and Ethereal (actually he did install Ethereal, but not WinPCap that's actually required to use it). I've heard stories about him complaining to the boss because he noticed someone had plugged their mouse into the front port instead of the back, to get a little further from their screen, but that's possibly just a myth.

Anyhoo, since it's clearly not cool, I won't bother.
I didn't know whether or not Dell had crippled the machines, since they have then I can't do anything anyway. I will speak to the boss about getting FaH up and running officially, I'll see what they say. If they do go for it though, it won't be for SPCR, but I suppose it's all for the greater good anyway.

Consider me told-off

Chris Chan · Post by **Chris Chan** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:19 pm

I have to agree with jhhoffma really. Yet a note about overclocking big brand machines:
You can't. The BIOS is specially crippled to prevent it. IME that applies for all the big brands.