Is overclocking a monitor safe?

[rdjg22]

I have an Asus pb278q (2560 x 1440, 60hz), and I read that you can overclock the refresh rate in the Nvidia Control panel. I just tried it out starting at 85hz and it seemed it work alright, but there were a few animation glitches in windows. I'm just wondering if you can ruin your monitor by overclocking it this way and whether it's safe to do.

 

[MiDNiGHTsoul]

The difference isn't even noticeable to start with.But going so far aint that safe. Heard some cases where they did a 60Hz monitor run at 70Hz stable for pretty long time(2+years), but i wouldn't suggest messing such things,doesnt worth the risk.

 

[mjmacka]

Is it safe? No, you can damage the monitor by forcing it to try and produce more than what it is capable of.

That being said, OCing it a reasonable amount should hurt anything. My advice for doing it is to go up by 1hz at a time, test and when it starts to pixilate or do anything strange turn it down a bit and keep it at stable settings.

 

[photonboy]

No. It's not safe. (at least not perfectly safe)
Yes. You can ruin your monitor.

How risky it is will vary significantly by the quality of the build process and how much you attempt to overclock. There really is no reliable data on the risk however.

I think the "animation glitches" are a good sign you shouldn't be doing it. Since 1440p is more demanding however, perhaps you'll have better results at 1080p.

I play most games at 1920x1080 and reserve 2560x1440 for games that I can run at full quality AND achieve 60FPS.

 

[photonboy]

Huh...

I overclocked my monitor to 2560x1440 @63Hz just to see what would happen.

1) Create custom resolution
2) TEST
3) APPLY the new resolution

So now my DESKTOP is running 63Hz, however when I ran a game at 2560x1440 it ran at 60Hz (FRAPS) as the game chooses the PC profile and not the CUSTOM profile I'd just created for my desktop.

NVIDIA said something about overclocking but with SPECIFIC CARDS like the Titan. I don't know if regular drivers allow you to game with an overclocked monitor unless you somehow force the desktop settings into the game.

 

[PyjamasCat]

No. It's not safe. (at least not perfectly safe)
Yes. You can ruin your monitor.

How risky it is will vary significantly by the quality of the build process and how much you attempt to overclock. There really is no reliable data on the risk however.

I think the "animation glitches" are a good sign you shouldn't be doing it. Since 1440p is more demanding however, perhaps you'll have better results at 1080p.

I play most games at 1920x1080 and reserve 2560x1440 for games that I can run at full quality AND achieve 60FPS.

^This. I have also tried OCing my monitor (got 75Hz from it) and there were lots of things that went wrong, I don't know bout the monitor if it's damaged or not, but Skyrim crashed and required re-installing (no idea why). A few other games refused to even run. No error messages, nothing would happen. Some would have items flicker as if they were still at 60Hz. These issues were not worth the benefit of 75Hz.

I don't know if I have damaged my monitor, (nothing seems wrong yet) but some applications really don't like it. You can try your luck, but as above stated by photonboy, "There really is no reliable data on the risk..."

 

[PyjamasCat]

Huh...

I overclocked my monitor to 2560x1440 @63Hz just to see what would happen.

1) Create custom resolution
2) TEST
3) APPLY the new resolution

So now my DESKTOP is running 63Hz, however when I ran a game at 2560x1440 it ran at 60Hz (FRAPS) as the game chooses the PC profile and not the CUSTOM profile I'd just created for my desktop.

NVIDIA said something about overclocking but with SPECIFIC CARDS like the Titan. I don't know if regular drivers allow you to game with an overclocked monitor unless you somehow force the desktop settings into the game.

You have to run them windowed or the game has to allow you to customise the resolution specifically or let you pick from an nvidia custom res.

 

[rdjg22]

I only noticed the glitches at 85 hz, anything below 85 looked fine

 

[PyjamasCat]

I only noticed the glitches at 85 hz, anything below 85 looked fine

Then maybe you could sit at 80Hz. What exactly are these glitches? Does it become blurry/fuzzy? Or push the picture off the screen?

 

[rdjg22]

The difference isn't even noticeable to start with.But going so far aint that safe. Heard some cases where they did a 60Hz monitor run at 70Hz stable for pretty long time(2+years), but i wouldn't suggest messing such things,doesnt worth the risk.

I only noticed the glitches at 85 hz, anything below 85 looked fine

Then maybe you could sit at 80Hz. What exactly are these glitches? Does it become blurry/fuzzy? Or push the picture off the screen?

When opening and closing a window instead of the animation being smooth as they generally are they'd be sort of slow and twitchy

 

[rdjg22]

I only noticed the glitches at 85 hz, anything below 85 looked fine

Then maybe you could sit at 80Hz. What exactly are these glitches? Does it become blurry/fuzzy? Or push the picture off the screen?

I didn't actually try to game at that rate, I just tested it

 

[photonboy]

I only noticed the glitches at 85 hz, anything below 85 looked fine

Then maybe you could sit at 80Hz. What exactly are these glitches? Does it become blurry/fuzzy? Or push the picture off the screen?

I didn't actually try to game at that rate, I just tested it

The problem is that while a short test may pass, it's uncertain how extended gaming would affect the monitor's hardware.

Your monitor is designed to operate above 60Hz so there's a margin of safety but when you start reducing the safety margin it's difficult to say what can happen over time.

 

[rdjg22]

I only noticed the glitches at 85 hz, anything below 85 looked fine

Then maybe you could sit at 80Hz. What exactly are these glitches? Does it become blurry/fuzzy? Or push the picture off the screen?

I didn't actually try to game at that rate, I just tested it

The problem is that while a short test may pass, it's uncertain how extended gaming would affect the monitor's hardware.

Your monitor is designed to operate above 60Hz so there's a margin of safety but when you start reducing the safety margin it's difficult to say what can happen over time.

Very true, it'd probably be ok at ~75hz but not really worth the risk I guess, especially for the price of this monitor