Only relevant on exceptionally old and broken hardware. Any decent CRT or LCD provides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDID which lists both standard and non-standard modelines and frequency range. X.org takes that into account, unless you override it by hand. Also, the display will shut itself down if driven over threshold.
On the other hand, any software will happily let bad hardware kill itself, if not customized for particular hardware kink. I had a Linux apparently kill a 2.5'' HDD. Turns out OEM configured the drive to unload heads very often, probably to produce impressive power savings -_-'
After about one or two years constantly power-on, the drive accumulated its rated number (~500'000) of unloads and died.
On the other hand, any software will happily let bad hardware kill itself, if not customized for particular hardware kink. I had a Linux apparently kill a 2.5'' HDD. Turns out OEM configured the drive to unload heads very often, probably to produce impressive power savings -_-'
After about one or two years constantly power-on, the drive accumulated its rated number (~500'000) of unloads and died.