When overclocking, does anything besides increased heat shorten the life of the chip?

I wasn't sure what the best title for this would be.

Lets say you have a videocard that is running well within spec heat wise, even under max load.

Lets say you also know that it can overclock significantly and still keep the temps well within a good range.

Is there any reason NOT to overclock it, assuming your overclock would be stable?

My understanding is that overclocking tends to shorten the life of chips because of all the extra heat that's generated.

But is there anything else, any other factor or force involved besides heat in overclocking that stresses the chip, so to speak, in a way that causes it to wear out more quickly?

In other words, if you overclock a video card, but there's nothing wrong with your temps afterwards, is the overclock still going to shorten the life of the card?

Or is heat the only stressor involved in the overclock that could damage the chip, and so fine temps = same life span?

I've read through some of the overclocking stickies on this forum and whatnot, but I'm still not sure on this point.

Thanks.

Personally I don't think so.
But overclocking only gives a few FPS...so to me it's not really worth it.
If your case is not vented properly it could cause other things in the case (PSU/ CPU/Northbridge ) to heat up.
Below is a pic of the diff between stk and O'cing.
I would have put a link to the site but I closed the window b-4 I could copy the URL...and I don't remember how much he OC'ed.
But it does give you a rough idea that O'cing a card does not give that much of a real world benefit...now if your into benchmarking as a hobby the OC can give a good amount of points.
EG: my 8800GT stk 600 core/1500 Shaders/900 mem gets 10801 in 3dmard06
with an OC of 690 core/1780Shaders/960 mem I get 12485points 3dmard06.
The only time I OC is to fold...and if I want to play a newer game and my comp can no longer handle it....which rarely happens since I try to upgrade my comp every year or so.

Thanks for the info.

My primary concern is that the machine in question is a laptop, so dead video card = dead mobo. And who needs that?

But my temps are good, and I've been thinking about getting a laptop cooler to bring them down even further.

And apparently, according to one man's account, the card I have can overclock significantly without much of an increase in temperature.

So I figure it might be worth playing with to see if I can get an increase in real world performance without much of one in heat.

Because if I can do it and keep the temp well within a safe range, then why not do it?

But I wanted to get more info about whether there are other factors overclocking could introduce besides just increased heat that could shorten my video card's (and therefor my mobo's) lifespan.

Since you don't think so, and no one else jumped in all like "No, you fool! X Y and Z also impact your video card's life when you overclock!" I figure I'll play around with it sometime.

I am after those few extra frames, as there are some games that are a bit new for my system that could benefit from just a couple extra fps.

So thanks again for your input.

What card do you have ?
What Games do you play ?
Depending on which game, it might be better to OC the CPU...because some games are more CPU intensive than GPU intensive...other factors are what resolution and settings do you play said games at ???
And yes a laptop cooler could help a lot...and can't hurt for the $20-$30 bucks you'll spend...just take a look at some reviews b-4 you buy

While heat is the primary issue, overclocking one thing can cause problems elsewhere-- if other components can't keep up with the overclocked chip, then they can be damaged.