this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 86 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

"fuse" implies that the CPU will stop working when it is overclocked, this seems to be more of a mechanism for AMD to let them know that the reason the CPU is not working anymore is because it was overclocked and fried.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Somewhat.

All this fuse does is tell AMD that the chip has had custom clocks or voltage applied to it (this appears to also apply to underclocking and undervolting as far as I can gather)

It does not prove that if the chip is faulty that it must be the OC/undervolt/whatever that caused it.

Think of those water detection strips in other products. They can tell the manufacturer if something has been in a humid environment, but just because it has been doesn't guarantee that that is what caused the fault to come about.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yet Apple throws those phones out of warranty regardless of what caused the fault

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Apple is the bad

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That was years ago, the phones have been waterproof for a long time- I would certainly file a warranty complaint with Apple if my waterproof iPhone was damaged from humid air, rain, falling in the tub as it’s rated to survive all those things. In fact, 5+ years ago people were doing tests dropping phones down 30 feet under water and bringing them up just fine.

Laptops on the other hand are not rated for water, and you’re right, a laptop full of purple spill sensors gets denied unless you bitch hard enough.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204104

Apple will not cover water damage, even though the phone has protection.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

No, this means something else in chip design. For example, an AVR microcontroller can be configured by blowing some fuses. Here is an introduction: https://www.ladyada.net/learn/avr/fuses.html

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Understandable but this is not a fuse in common usage of the word, which is used to break a circuit to protect against over-current. Rather it's an part that changes state irreversibly (much like a fuse would) when something happens. There is no implication that it would cut off the power to the CPU in this sense.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

"fuse" implies that the CPU will stop working

It's just an electronic component, like resistors and transistors. Samsung has something similar in their phones called Knox.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But in the world of electronics fuses and circuit breakers exist to trip when too much voltage is applied to protect the circuit. That's their generally agreed upon definition.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

A fuse is just an electronic component. It can be used for circuit protection, but it doesn't have to be. For example, a transistor doesn't have to be an amplifier, a resistor doesn't have to be for dimming bulbs, etc.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago

Fuses in this sense are write-once data. Once the fuse is burnt, only physical repair could revert the change. These are used as one-way-doors (like the Nintendo Switch firmware upgrade fuses https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Fuses#Anti-downgrade) or tripwires (like Samsung Knox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Knox#e-Fuse)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

How come I bought first gen threadripper cpu for around $400 and mobo $400, but now their prices are like $2000 for cpu and $1000 for the mobo?

I'd like to get more pcie lanes than on 7950x.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Lack of competition, manufacturing consolidation, and inflation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

When the Threadripper Pro came out, you could get a machine from Lenovo with 12-16 cores for around $1800 including some ram, ssd, and a gpu. I just checked and now they start at $2800 for a zen 3 TR Pro with 32/1TB/A2000. It doesn’t seem like there is a practical way to build one yourself affordably for Zen 4 or Intel for that matter. A Xeon 3435X and mobo is also around $2500 for 112 lanes.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This was also present in Threadripper 5000, per the article.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not a new thing, some motherboards even do this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

The Nintendo switch and probably other consoles also use fuses to stop you from downgrading major firmware versions. There's just a massive bank of fuses on the mainboard that blow when you upgrade

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I picture the aurhor of this fearmongering title evil laughing while writing it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

You’ve said that twice on two separate posts now.

Either way, there is nothing fear mongering about this title, the article even confirms the title directly from AMD themselves.