Buying N900s from official sources is a russian roulette in terms of getting a device that can run stable at a given overclock vs undervolt setting; but what if you had a group of people you can trust that would guarantee they stress tested the device you're buying and found it to be stable at a rating proportional to the price you're paying for it? Won't there be people willing to pay extra for the assurance of buying a N900 they can overclock and/or undervolt stably?


Also, this busyness if profitable enough might even help people that can't afford the full price to get a N900 that is at least stable at factory settings (the ones that didn't pass the tests to be sold at a premium price), the discount also includes the fact that the device has suffered stress tests and failed even at slight overclock or undervolt, potentially leaving permanent damage (though any device noticeably permanently bricked or otherwise damaged should be announced as such).



ps: of course buyers must be made aware that even though during the stress tests the devices proved to remain stable, technicly long term the odds of OC'd devices getting bricked sooner are much higher.

realistically there is no profits available anywhere in the chain you described....

Do you mean there are way more unstable OC'd N900s than stable ones, or that there is not enough people willing tol pay a little more for a N900 they can trust will run stable OC'd and UV'd ?

Run some example numbers, Tiago.

There are a few problems with your idea, IMO.

1. When you are buying a stress-tested device, you are also going to get a device, which has been pushed to it's "limits", reducing it's life drastically. When you do that with a new device, which you own, you can be more careful, pretty much like owning a new car vs an used one.

2. People like me who have a N900, which is perfectly over-clockable may still choose not to. Because more often than not, the default works just fine. But, knowing that my device is still over-clockable if need be, because it's not been pushed too many times to the limit, is still re-assuring.

3. Which brings me to the market. I am not sure how many people would want to buy a second-hand device therefore, which may have been carelessly over-clocked to test's its limit, with no guarantees of it's life.

Just my half cents

The stress tests would be performed starting at the safest level and gradually going up untill the device gets unstable, and then back down to the last detected stable level to confirm it is still stable, just like you would do if you were testing the device yourself.

I tried making a quick spreadsheet pulling the ratios of devices stable at a few different clocks out of my arse, with arbitrary prices proportional to the clock, and it says it's profitable, but that is pretty much meaningless without real data being used, and the calculations there assume there will be customers.

things that are overclocked a lot tend to die pretty fast, if you look at factory overclocked video cards it's only a small increase. so, even if you find one that overclocks good, you can't really warranty it for more than 90 days. if you only overclock it a little, you can't make much profit.

Is there a way to gather data on the life expectancy of N900s OC'd at 900MHz and above? I mean, on one side lots of people saying they do it and on the other lots of people warning it kills the device very fast, but i've not seen any reports of people that permabricked theirs due to OC'ing. Either they are too ashamed of admiting they ****ed up big time or since the beginning of the OC'ing scene for the N900 not enough time has elapsed for the bodycount to reach noticeable levels...or what?

...Or, you could just spend an hour or two and do the testing yourself - You can probably get almost any n900 up to ~800-900mhz, provided you give it some extra juice.

Most of the instability people experience can be solved by just bumping the voltage at a particular frequency a tad. But they aren't willing to spend a few minutes messing with it, and so complain that they are having problems etc.

Jolly good, man! Start up your busyness, then tell us how it goes! Godspeed to you in your endeavors!