Give up Overclocking forever?

[PCTweaker5]

I used to have my 2600+ Barton Mobile at 2.4GHz w/ 1.725Vcore when I first got it cooled with an SP-97. Now I cant even find a stable point at 2.3GHz at any voltage around there and Im sure as hell not going to go into 1.8v. RAM isnt overclocked at all and everything else is just fine. Im not sure what Im going to do but for now Im considering going back to all stock and staying there until overclocking finds me once again on another PC. Its kind of a waste for a 2600 Mobile but Prime95 sux ass and my PC keeps restarting or quitting to desktop during games and such and I cant find out why. I will not run memtest86 because last time I did that I fried a CPU. I will go back to all stock settings and if I still have problems than I can safely say my hardware is f*cked.

 

[PCTweaker5]

If perhaps somebody in Virginia could come to my house and find a stable point I would be sooo happy.

 

[charloscarlies]

Are you using the PSU in your sig?

 

[PCTweaker5]

Yuppers!

 

[charloscarlies]

What fsb are you trying to run it at? What bios?

 

[PCTweaker5]

BIOS is the one that came with my motherboard and its running at 200FSB. I just tried play FarCry at stock system settings and it runs perfectly fine but I do notice the decrease in performance from my overclock. I really wish I could be stable at at least 2.3GHz but I think my chip can no longer handle it so I may just have to settle for a 6800 Ultra if I want better performance and build a 64 FX later on.

 

[PCTweaker5]

OK played FarCry just now and it quit to desktop at stock settings. Only program running is FRAPS so could this just be a game issue or have I messed up my PC? Perhaps its the newest NForce drivers?

 

[Killrose]

If you are sure your PSU rails are clean and stable, I would recommend a close inspection of all capacitors on the motherboard. Seems to be a real problem these days.

 

[PCTweaker5]

Well a few days ago when I checked voltages on the PSU I noticed that they seemed lower than they normally were when I first got it. I just sleeved the PSU a few weeks ago so could that have caused any of this stuff? I did cut some wires but its because I didnt need them and was told to do so in a sleeving article and I also made sure to close the ends so that it doesnt connect with any other wires.

edit:
Voltages are as follows according to MB readings:
3.3v = 3.24V
5V = 4.99V
+12V = 11.85V
-12V = -11.95V
VBAT = 3.16 (last two digits fluctuate but mostly show 16)
5VSB = 4.96V

I hope these voltages are OK because sleeving that PSU made me feel very happy and my parents and I dont have a dollar to our name.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Clean out your CPU fan. Mine was so chock fulla dust, the temps had risen from around 45C to 60C, which dropped right back after cleaning.

 

[PCTweaker5]

Nah it aint the temps. Im really depressed about this but if it were to be anything Id want it to be faulty memory which has already been RMA'ed once.

 

[Avalon]

Geil sometimes has problems with certain nforce2 boards. However, I think problems would have reared their head when you first got your new sticks in...would have had some sort of compatibility problems. Still wouldn't make sense though that your chip worked fine and was suddenly having problems. If your temps are fine, it sounds power related.

 

[PCTweaker5]

Damnit! Not my beautiful PSU.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Hey, I have the same ram and a lanparty non-ultra-infinity (ultra 400 A).

The third ram slot on mine wouldn't run at any FSB over 180, with the third slot being the one that enables dual channel. Anyway, I moved the ram over to the second, disabling dual-channel, and it runs like a charm! I'd try it, as dual channel does absolutely NOTHING for an nforce2 ultra400 system.

By the way, my golden dragon 3200 will run at 2-3-3-5, 217 MHz on the revision A board. Try it; even though they say to use 11 instead of 5, 5 works much better with this ram and board assuming you're in single channel mode. Try it; can't hurt!

 

[PCTweaker5]

I think you just started a flame war by saying Dual Channel does absolutely nothing. Anyways I really dont want to have to do that and if I do then Im gonna RMA everything I have.

 

[Killrose]

Your PSU rails look good, run with one stick of ram at a time maybe? But I would think that if it was something like that you would'nt be stable at any speed. Although your PSU rails look good, the motherboard does regulate power to the CPU and other various components, so maybe there is a problem with it.

 

[bobsmith1492]

No need to be That drastic... just try it; it is true that for an AMD system dual channel doesn't really do anything, and it wouldn't be much of a loss compared to the pain and cost of RMAing everything.

 

[PCTweaker5]

Thats true. I'll try reinstalling windows and see what happens and if I still get the problems then I'll just wait until I get a job to buy a new PSU. Do you think it would be OK to still use the PSU for the other parts for about 1 month?

 

[WobbleWobble]

I will not run memtest86 because last time I did that I fried a CPU.

Are you sure it was all because you ran memtest86?

 

[magratton]

And quit being so stuck on not running memtest86. To be honest, I cannot think of a single reason why that would have been your problem before. More likely that something else was amiss. To be honest, a while back I was having game-to-desktop, rebooting and "STOP" windows problems. Turned out one of my ram chips was bad. I would do what everyone else is recommending, run memtest with one chip, then the other and make sure they are running clean. This is debugging like any other problem solving and if you are unwilling to run the programs that test what you need to test, then you aren't going to get very far.

Good luck man!

 

[PCTweaker5]

Yeah I guess I could but last time I got some weird smiley faces on my screen during memtest86 and then my PC would no longer reboot and I cant get my CPU replaced if it gets fried.

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: PCTweaker5
Thats true. I'll try reinstalling windows and see what happens and if I still get the problems then I'll just wait until I get a job to buy a new PSU. Do you think it would be OK to still use the PSU for the other parts for about 1 month?

It might not bre the PSU and you should beg/borrow one and determine if it is. If your rails are fine under load, then I would suspect the motherboard. Check your vcore readings under load and see how much if any it fluctuates.

 

[PCTweaker5]

All I have is a 250w PSU in my old Gateway PC. Would this be suitable for testing if I unplugged all of my fans except the CPU fan? I also forgot to mention that a couple of days ago I was messing with a cold cathode light and tried to connect the pins to a PSU connected molex and when I did that a little spark happened between the red and black one because it was just the bare pins and my PC shut down instantly. It turned on just fine but is it possible that this could have damaged anything? Ya I should have mentioned that way before and Im sure a lot of you are pissed off about this but Im sorry I didnt think of that since the PC was fine right after. Also my RAM is rated at 2.9v which is running at 2.6v default and when I tried to overclock it I went to 2.7v and then 2.8v, could this have damaged the RAM even though it is rated at 2.9v? The problems actually started happening after I attempted the overclock so this might be it. Sorry for being a dumbass and leaving this important information out, I guess I was just in denial.

 

[Killrose]

250watt is too small for any overclcoking IMHO, but if you are running at stock speeds and having stability problems, it might work well enough to run a test at stock speeds. You could lighten the loads a bit too. I would at least try it.

And touching the red 5+line to a black neg line is never a good thing and could be the root of all your problems

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Killrose
touching the red 5+line to a black neg line is never a good thing and could be the root of all your problems