E2160 on P35-DS3L Overclock not holding

[jesterb84]

I have an E2160 (1.80GHz) on a Gigabyte P35-DS3L (F7 BIOS) motherboard which I have successfully overclocked to 3.0GHz (9 x 333) for 1 year now. Nothing in the system has changed since the first overclock last year but now, the CPU is always stuck at 1.80GHz.

What is strange is that when I check the BIOS, the overclocked settings are holding perfectly. However, when I boot into Windows and run CPU-Z (or in the control panel), it shows back to 1.80GHz. CPU-Z shows Bus Speed to be back to stock but Core Voltage interestingly remains at the modified setting (1.424V).

Would anyone know why Core Voltage change seems to be holding but not the Bus Speed (back to stock 200MHz instead of 333MHz)? Do you think my CPU has had enough of being overclocked? =)

I have tried removing the battery, short jumpers to clear BIOS, etc. but nothing is working... The BIOS shows overclocked settings but CPU-Z and Windows Vista are telling me it's back to stock (except for the Core Voltage).

 

[GakAttack]

Well i have the exact same MOBO/CPU, and the exact same problem happened to me twice...

I fixed the problem and this post from Idontcare solved my problems:

"I have DS3L and this issue is common.

What happens is that the BIOS is set to error on the side of caution and pretty much assume that any computer reboot or system shutdown which isn't "clean" must be a bad overclock.

To "clear" the lingering memory of this false-positive you have to unplug the PSU from the outlet and set the mobo clear cmos jumper and leave it like that for about a minute.

Then set your clear cmos jumper back to default, then plug the PSU back into the wall. I have confirmed repeatedly that you must unplug the PSU from the wall to make the process work.

The next thing you must do when your system reboots is go into the BIOS and first select the load defaults option, save (F10) and reboot.

Then go back into the BIOS and setup your OC options. Save and reboot.

Now at this point in the timeline there is some kind of reboot/cold-boot counter in the BIOS and if it doesn't register a controlled shutdown followed by a clean cold-boot then it will assume that any subsequent reboots (initiated by you, windows, or a failed OC) are all counted as failed OC's.

So once you set your OC settings and the BIOS does it's mandatory reboot to get out of the BIOS screen the very next thing you need to do whenever the reboot is complete and you are in windows or linux is you must do a hard-shutdown (not a restart). Let the computer sit at least a minute after shutdown before booting again.

This sets whatever register Gigabyte uses for tracking "known good BIOS settings" as your OC settings and now you can initate reboots/restarts and not have the OC get mis-percieved as a bad OC."

hope that helps!

 

[jesterb84]

GakAttack, that trick worked! Thank you very much!!!