Can cpu overclocking cause corruption on my hard drives?

TmBlackFlag

Senior member
Dec 26, 2002
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Hi there, i have a seagate barracuda 250gb. The trouble i have is, after a few days of a fresh install on the HD I get an error on bootup saying:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt
\Windows\System32\Config\System"

Then it says i can attempt to repair but it doesn't work. I have ran ALL Seatools utilities to check for bad sectors and such and all tell me the drive is fine.

So anyways, i recently upgraded my mobo/cpu/video card and moved this hard drive over to a new system with a fresh install i did 3 days ago. I was having the same corruption problem before with this hard drive on my old setup.

Sure enough right now it crashes on me during bootup. By conincidence it happens while I was trying to raise the multiplier on my fx-55. Mind you i had it running at 2.8 OC stable up until today but tried pushing it a bit more.

So my question is, do you think this hard drive is just bad or does OCing somehow corrupt these files? I'm tired of having to reload windows and am about to run to fry's right now for a hard drive.
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
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An unstable overclock, like you've been doing, will corrupt your hard drive data.
 

Stumps

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2001
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yes it can cause corruption, you need to lock the PCI bus bus at 33mhz, most IDE/SATA contollers don't like being pushed any faster.
 

TmBlackFlag

Senior member
Dec 26, 2002
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its a SATA hard drive. I'll check the BIOS settings.

Also, with that said when performing an overclock and really trying to see how far your system can go, do you want to do this all pre OS? Cause this has happened to me quite a bit
 

TmBlackFlag

Senior member
Dec 26, 2002
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or better yet does locking the IDE/SATA controller as you mentioned resolve the corruption problem?

Also in my bios there is a "PCI clock sync mode" that i set to 33.33MHz. Is that the setting i want?
 

Stumps

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2001
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check your memory settings as well, pushing the ram to far can lead to data corruption.
 

TmBlackFlag

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Dec 26, 2002
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I have an fx-55 and the ram settings are stock. I have only been OCing by raising the cpu multiplier and voltage.

Although on the last reboot before the corruption i switched from 2t to 1t on the memory. I have corsair xms ram 2x512mb
 

TmBlackFlag

Senior member
Dec 26, 2002
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Blah! now when trying to boot off my XP SP2 CD and reinstall i am getting a BSOD as it is loading all the stuff in the beginning. Error says

"Bad Pool Caller"
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
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Don't ever install/try to install your operating system while overclocked. And if you've got an SATA hard drive, locking your PCI bus isn't going to affect your hard drive in any way.
 

TmBlackFlag

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Dec 26, 2002
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with that said how can i safely overclock with my SATA hard drive without going corrupt like this?
 

Stumps

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Jun 18, 2001
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Originally posted by: myocardia
Don't ever install/try to install your operating system while overclocked. And if you've got an SATA hard drive, locking your PCI bus isn't going to affect your hard drive in any way.

why not?

I do it all the time on my systems and never had any data corrutpion or any other problems.
 

Stumps

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Jun 18, 2001
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Originally posted by: TmBlackFlag
I have an fx-55 and the ram settings are stock. I have only been OCing by raising the cpu multiplier and voltage.

Although on the last reboot before the corruption i switched from 2t to 1t on the memory. I have corsair xms ram 2x512mb

that could be your problem....try setting it back to 2T and see if you can run windows
 

TmBlackFlag

Senior member
Dec 26, 2002
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2T is working and i am repairing windows atm. I just thought my corsair xms memory could hit 1t no problem.


also as posted above is this true? "locking your PCI bus isn't going to affect your hard drive in any way. "

I want to get back to trying to push this fx-55 to 3ghz without any other hard drive problems. I'm overclocking strictly by raising the multiplier and not touching the memory.
 

myocardia

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Jun 21, 2003
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Originally posted by: Stumps
why not? I do it all the time on my systems and never had any data corrutpion or any other problems.

On an unproven overclock?
 

Stumps

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Jun 18, 2001
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Originally posted by: myocardia
Originally posted by: Stumps
why not? I do it all the time on my systems and never had any data corrutpion or any other problems.

On an unproven overclock?

well thats a different matter...but I ALWAYS make sure that my overclocks are 100% before doing anything "normal" with my PC's

you should have put that in your post
 

myocardia

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Jun 21, 2003
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Originally posted by: Stumps
well thats a different matter...but I ALWAYS make sure that my overclocks are 100% before doing anything "normal" with my PC's

you should have put that in your post
You didn't realize that install & reinstall are two different things?;)
 

myocardia

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Jun 21, 2003
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Only the nVidia SATA's can be locked. You need to research which SATA are the nVidia, on your board.

edit: And once you've found out, alot of times they have to be locked in the BIOS, before they become locked.
 

ingenue007

Senior member
Apr 4, 2000
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back in the day, higher pci speeds sometimes gave increased peformance. is that still true?

the only time i had a corrupt HD was at pci 37 or 38.
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
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I agree with myocardia, why take a chance with an OS install with it being pushed
too close to it's limits. What's to gain really, a slightly faster install?? Also what brand
and rating of power supply are you useing? higher OC'S mean more power is needed.
 

TmBlackFlag

Senior member
Dec 26, 2002
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seasonic s12 330w but in another thread we determined it was sufficient power for my meager system.