Warranty when using aftermarket cooling or overclocking

I'm not really sure on this,I'm leaning towards yes they should morally but does anyone know and understand the specific laws in your region?

I believe its a grey area where consumer law is concerned and that's why I've never heard of questions being asked when a CPU or video card for that matter is returned.

I posted this reply in another thread which has prompted my thinking

I know lots of computer enthusiasts who use after market heatsinks and over clock they all return them if there's a problem,the temperature and over voltage protection should protect the hardware from being damaged,I've also never heard of anyone being refused a return because they have been asked if they over clocked or used an aftermarket heatsink.

Has anyone been refused an RMA due to this reason? I'm also lucky enough to have a no question return policy with the retailer I use and I advise anyone to go for a large retailer like this.

 

Yeah there's no way to tell,unless they ask or you openly tell them,its not even worth investigating its much cheaper just to replace it,I know they sometimes do investigate things like phones and ipods now for water damage there's a small tab inside so if you submerse it in water it changes colour,that's the only kind of investigating I've heard of.

I guess you could supposition a case where certain parts always blows when they are overclocked and then the engineers phone and ask you but I've never heard of it.

EDIT and there isn't any good reason the CPU protection circuits would work any less well with an aftermarket HSF,one of the reason I started the thread was seeing the the new warranty info on the side of boxed CPU's,you must use the boxed cooler and as I've always understood it,as long as you don't remove the built in heatsink that protects the CPU then you are not voiding your warranty.