Can overclock from IDE drive, cannot from SATA drive?

[Gustavus]

I tried this question once before with no luck, so will make it brief this time. I have a P4 (Prescott 3.2 GHz.) system on an ABIT IC7 G motherboard with OCZ PC3200 2,2,2,5 platinum rev. 2 RAM. I have an IDE drive with exactly the same info as on a cloned SATA drive. I can boot stably from the IDE drive with a 16% overclock (memTest, Prime 95 etc.) to 3.7 GHz. If I try to boot from the SATA drive (remember the drives are exact clones -- SATA made using Acronis True Image) it fails in bootup at the same BIOS settings I can boot stably from the IDE drive. If I clear the CMOS and go to default BIOS settings the system boots from the SATA drive and runs stably at 3.2 GHz. If I start working up in overclocking it will fail to boot.

I expected the SATA drive to be, if anything, a little better than the IDE. Does anyone have any idea of why the system will not boot overclocked from the SATA drive when it will from the IDE drive?

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

[taltamir]

maybe your SATA driver takes more power OR introduces more interference on the PSU, causing the power supply to have more fluctuation in the power it provides to the CPU... causing instability.

I don't even think it matters if it SATA or IDE, but the specific drive model itself... Your SATA hard drive is just tougher on the PSU...

Thats the only reason I can think of.

 

[zagood]

Check the BIOS to try and find a sata lock.

-z

 

[myocardia]

Here's a guide on how to overclock the IC7.

 

[Gustavus]

First, thanks for the replies.

taltamir,
I had suspected the power supply when the problem first appeared. The system is on the bench in the lab and my normal bench PS is a Thermaltake Pure Power 420 w. I had a new Antec Smart Power PS 500 (500w) so I swapped supplies with no effect -- the problem still remained. The load is low; mother board with CPU and memory, ATI Radeon graphics card, the hard drive (only one at a time) and a Plextor CD/DVD writer. The system is cooled by a ThermalTake XP 90 on the CPU and a Swiftech MCX159-P on the Northbridge. Heat is not a problem.

zagood,
The system does boot from the SATA drive at default settings and with some slight overclocking so it isn't that it won't boot from a SATA drive. Long before I get to the OC that is possible when booting from the IDE drive though it hangs at the first boot screen where you have a choice to go into setup or into BIOS update. It is a hard hang though so hitting Del will not take me into setup. Once that happens I must power down, clear CMOS and then go into setup etc.

myocardia,
Thanks for the link, but I am pretty skilled at overclocking. 3.7 GHz out of a 3.2 GHz Prescott is not phenomenal, but not bad either. I have pushed it further, but Prime 95 would start showing errors with the settings I wished to use; 2,3,3,5 for memory, 2.8 for SDRAM and 1.5 for Vcore. I could go further by loosening timings and upping Vcore, but 3.7 was a reasonable target. I wanted to use a SATA drive as the C drive to improve disk performance.

The two harddrives are both Seagates; the only kinds of drives I use.

The IDE is a 7200.7 160 GB model ST 3160023A

The SATA is a 7200.8 300 GB model ST 33000831AS

The SATA is a clone of the IDE drive made using Acronis True Image.