Is overclocking legal? [closed]

Is overclocking your CPU and GPU classified as being legal ? If so, why don't manufacturers make overclocking easier so that just about anyone is able to play around with it ? - at own risk of course.

Manufacturers are not obliged to make easy any course of action just because it happens to not be illegal. I don't know what jurisdiction you are in, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find any language in any law that states that overclocking is illegal.

I think the key is the "at own risk" - if you make overclocking too easy, people will start playing with voltages, timings and frequencies without having any idea about how they interact and what the consequences may be. At best, then, you get an unstable system, and at worst, you can destroy the hardware. For which the manufacturer almost certainly will get the blame. What company wants to make it very easy for the customer to put the company in that position?

It's legal but risky - hence why manufacturers make it difficult.

It used to be the case that chips were tested and those that failed to meet the highest specification were "downgraded" to a lower spec. (I'm not 100% sure of the process). This means that a CPU rated at 2GHz (say) is functionally identical to one rated at 3GHz. Therefore you could try to operate the 2GHz chip at the higher speed.

However, there's a good chance that the chip will fail when operated in this mode for any length of time. What the manufacturer doesn't want is you then complaining that overclocking melted your motherboard and demanding a replacement.

Of course it's legal. You can do whatever you want to your equipment.

And (in some cases) they do make it easy. The software that comes with ATI graphics cards (Catalyst Control Center) has an overclocking section built right in. As does the software that comes with Asus motherboards. To name a couple.

That said, since you can damage the gear with overclocking, manufacturers are naturally going to be a bit nervous about giving you the power. There are people who don't read warnings. And there are people who will blame the manufacturer for their own stupidity. So even if they can avoid having to replace gear damaged by overclocking because it voids the waranty, they may still prefer to avoid ill-will by giving tools to fools, so to speak.

It is not illegal, it voids warranties. You are pushing the device beyond it's manufacturer support limits. If you destroy your GPU or CPU, the manufacturer won't replace it because you did something to the device that is unsupported.

It's like buying tires, but sanding the tires down to make them slicks, then your tires blow out. The tire manufacturer will not replace your tires because your did something that was unsupported.