Overclocking and product actination

  • Thread starter Thread starter Leadfoot
  • Start date Start date
L

Leadfoot

I just bumped up my cpu from 2.0GHZ (default) to 2.7GHZ which worked fine in
XP

Every thing seems ok although lately I've been getting a lot of request to
reactivate my product key

Is there something about Vista product activation that has a problem with
overclocked computers?
 
It may be that the HAL is detecting a 'different' processor--which may count
toward a 'different' computer, thus triggering re-activation.
 
Will this re-activation be a hassle in Vista same way is XP?
I use different video cards - ATI and NVidia - for different chores. I swap
hard-drives as well, put in and take off a modem - for an occasional fax,
but then I need the slot WIFI etc. I also periodically create XP updated
install disks - Windows updates, video drivers, Intel chipset drivers and so
forth. Moreover, I perform a clean install from the updated XP install every
6 month or so - that is after I overwrite the HDD (RAID0, actually) with 0's
to clean up any potential low level malware. You don't want to hear about
how many networks I use - LAN, Bluetooth, WIFI.... All in all, any time I
reactivate online I have to call and explain that I have the same basic
hardware - mobo, CPU. I am aware of how XP makes a list/score of hardware,
network etc.
Michael
 
I don't believe so. There is a bug in 5600 / RC1 that will cause you to have
to reactivate for an unknown reason.
 
Under Vista the swaps you describe will trigger reactivation more often than
it did under XP. The activations are more biased towards hard drive changes
than it was in XP. Keep in mind that the number of changes you make to a
particular hardware characteristic (such as the video card) does not matter.
It is the number of hardware characteristics you change that matters. The
hard drive is more heavily weighted now. It will take fewer other changes
in addition to a hard drive swap to trigger activation.
 
The problem with Raid0 and cleaning up (writing 0's) on each hard-drive
requires to recreate the Raid0 array - guess Vista will "read' it as a new
drive; I assume it is possible to get the serial of each hard-drive and
stick with it, but I see in raid0 array properties only "gendisk." RC1, at
least, does not recognize manufacturer (Seagate), vendor ID etc correctly -
and it would be possible to get the info from Intel Raid array manager or
such. Moreover, the array might get errors and it has to be reset - lucky
who remembers its name. For ex, a lose fan cable on my machine caused one of
the hard-drives to overheat to the point of generating read/write errors. I
had to redo the array losing the XP (in this case) installation and install
clean. Of course, there are protective measures... but at some cost for
many.
So, again, due to maintenance necessities (malware cleanup, accidents), it
becomes difficult to maintain the original installation or the original
hard-drive setup.

Michael
 
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