Help! I tried to OC and owned myself

[OMGNOOOO]

Oh man I'm panicking right now.

I just built a new PC.

Q6600
ABIT IP35 PRO
DDR 800 RAM

Everything was running so well, and (according to Abit's software) so cool, I decided to try a modest overclock. I've never tried this before, but their tool in the BIOS was just begging me ... and I read so much about how all you cool kids were doing it ... well, I F^#&ed up I think.

All I did was switch from default Q6600 speed to 333 ... that's the only thing I changed ...according to the tool that would take me from 2.4 to 2.9something ... modest right? So as soon as I saved this setting, my PC rebooted, and now won't boot ... it just screams beeps at me.

Please, baby-talk me on how to fix this.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: OMGNOOOO
according to the tool that would take me from 2.4 to 2.9something ... modest right?

No, that's not modest. That's a 20% o/c. You probably haven't fried your CPU. Try clearing your CMOS to reset it to the defaults, start again, and let us know if you need further help.

Good luck.

 

[dflynchimp]

if your mobo is sending out a screaching bleep, then you've fried your RAM. I did it once (was using cheap Ultra RAM with an Athlon XP 3200+). try swapping out for a fresh pair or a backup pair (if you have one) and see if it boots. Also have to be careful because if your FSB and RAM clocks are linked then changing from 266 to 333 can push your RAM beyond its specs inadvertently

 

[tigersty1e]

Nothing probably happened.

Try clearing the CMOS. Look here or google how to do it.

http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/co...s/cmosClearCMOS-c.html



BTW, best first post I've seen EVER. Just trying to make light of the situation because 5-10 years down the road you're going to laugh about this incident while you overclick your 32 core CPU.

 

[dflynchimp]

lol, definitely lighthearted for the situation. Had it been me I would've been sweating a river.

Another way to have the CMOS reset by itself without fussing with the jumper is to remove the round battery on the mobo and unplug your comp and leave it sitting for three days. But that of course is the slow way around it.

 

[Quiksilver]

There is also a cmos reset switch on the back of the mobo. Read your manual on how-to use it properly and do it and then try again if it doesn't work take your case side panel off, power on your machine and look at the debug console LCD thing that is on your motherboard and look up what the numbers mean.

This is exactly why you overclock in smaller increments.

 

[dflynchimp]

his comp is currently screaching at him, booting it up would be inadvisable

 

[Quiksilver]

Then how would you suggest he test to see if his PC was working properly after clearing the CMOS or to see what his debug panel is reading so he may get the debug numbers and look it up in his manual? He has to turn it on either way, letting sit around and do nothing isn't going to solve his problem.

 

[dflynchimp]

hmm, it seems I might've missread your post.

are you suggesting he tries what you posted AFTER he resets the CMOS? because I didn't read it that way.

speaking from personal experience, however, I'm still guessing he fried his RAM, in which case no amount of reseting and booting is going to put anything other than black on his screen.

 

[Quiksilver]

Yeah, that's what I meant; for him to read his motherboard manual on how-to properly reset his CMOS by using the CMOS reset switch that is on the back on his motherboard. Then afterwards powering on the machine to see if the PC Speaker is still beeping. If it is still beeping he should power off the machine, remove the side panel and power the machine back on to see what the debug panel on his motherboard says (if anything at this point) and power it back off and look it up in his motherboard manual.

If there was nothing displayed on the debug panel and the CMOS reset didn't fix it; then very well he probably fried his RAM.

 

[OMGNOOOO]

First, thank you so much for all the fast replies.

I found that Reset CMOS switch on the back (so convenient) and now I'm booting again; no apparent damage done. I don't hate myself as much as I did an hour ago.

So what did I do wrong? Shouldn't a G0 Q6600 cooled by a Scythe Mine be able to break 3GHz? At default speed, at idle, it sits at 28-32°, at load, it wasn't getting any hotter than 41°. And I'm reading tales here of people getting 3.6 on air ... Am I missing something? (ram related? voltage?)

 

[Quiksilver]

You never specified the exact ram brand, timings, and voltage. Fill us in on the blanks

Also did you turn off C1E and Speedstep?

 

[heyheybooboo]

That reset switch beside the keyboard socket is pretty cool. Make sure you unplug the computer.

The switch takes all the fun out of shorting the pins with a screw driver.

 

[dflynchimp]

3.6 on a scythe is too optimistic. many of us aren't hitting 3.6 using the U120X. 3.0 however is an easy target. 9x333, 8x375 or 7x428 will all get you that. 3.2 at 8x400 looks really pretty tho XD

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: dflynchimp

Another way to have the CMOS reset by itself without fussing with the jumper is to remove the round battery on the mobo and unplug your comp and leave it sitting for three days. But that of course is the slow way around it.

It only takes about 3 minutes on my system.

 

[rodrigu3]

look around for guides on overclocking - they will give you an idea as to how to go about getting a stable overclock; I'm trying to learn myself but so far I don't have a case to put my new rig in, so I haven't been able to test any methods

I read this one guide that talked about finding the limitations of each component and then working from there. Someone else could probably help you out more than me.

 

[OMGNOOOO]

Originally posted by: QuiksilverX1
You never specified the exact ram brand, timings, and voltage. Fill us in on the blanks

Also did you turn off C1E and Speedstep?

My RAM is: G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ (according to the specs that's 1.8v 5-5-5-15)

Like I said, everything else was still at default. Only edited the CPU frequency value, save and exit, then Pfftttzzzz..

 

[tofumonster]

yeah. You can't go from 2.4 to 3.0 ghz in one jump...especially on stock voltage on the FIRST try. You'll probably want to do increments of 10 mhz on the FSB and then run orthos for atleast 4 hours. Yeah..its a tedious process, but its fun all the same. Try reaching the highest FSB on your stock CPU voltage (change the voltage from "auto" to "whatever the Q6600's stock voltage is"). That's a pretty decent way to start out OC'ing

*edit* yes there IS a difference from Auto and manually changing the vCore to stock. Auto will go all 'safe mode' on you and raise the vCore for stability purposes (but raises the temps..)

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Your first mistake was not lowering your memory divider, always drop your memory divider to the lowest setting (2.0 on most boards) before overclocking the CPU. You can overclock your ram later once you find out what your CPU will do.

Then set the vcore manually(DO NOT USE AUTO) to the default for your chip and raise the FSB up 300mhz, boot up and run some stability tests, it should pass on default volts at this level but if it doesn't decrease the FSB 10-15mhz at a time until it passes. If it passes on default vcore, then increase the the FSB 5-10mhz at a time testing for stability at each step. Once you reached the maximum FSB you can hit without increasing the vcore this is you "max on default vcore" At this point you should let Prime95 or whatever your using for stability testing to run for several hours or overnight, and check the temps under load after several hours.

From here you can make the decision if you want to overclock further by increasing the vcore if your temps are reasonable.

 

[myocardia]

This post is just an addendum to GuitarDaddy's post. While most P35 boards use the "memory multiplier" option for RAM speed (2x, 2.25x, 2.5x, etc), some actually use the actual speed option, like DDR 533 (which is 1:1, what you want), and I believe a few might use the ratio option, which would be 1:1 or 1:2, etc.

 

[Pwntcomputer]

Not rubbing it in, but you may want to do a considerable amount of research before you try this out. It's not hard, you just need to understand the step by step process. GL OP, don't break that Quad

 

[hokiealumnus]

Good lord dflynchip, don't freak the poor guy out! Voltage can fry RAM but overclocking it too high without upping voltage will just keep it form posting.

OMGNOOO, go to the abit forums (link here), go into the "Intel chipset Socket T LGA 775 Motherboards" section and there is a LONG thread about overclocking with the IP-35 Pro. There is also an "Overclocking!" section with good info.

Another good resource is this long thread started & maintained by SerpentRoyal. There is a ton of info in there. The thread is about the IP35-E but there is a lot of info that can help you too.

Fry his RAM...sheesh.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Originally posted by: tofumonster
yeah. You can't go from 2.4 to 3.0 ghz in one jump...especially on stock voltage on the FIRST try. You'll probably want to do increments of 10 mhz on the FSB and then run orthos for atleast 4 hours. Yeah..its a tedious process, but its fun all the same. Try reaching the highest FSB on your stock CPU voltage (change the voltage from "auto" to "whatever the Q6600's stock voltage is"). That's a pretty decent way to start out OC'ing

*edit* yes there IS a difference from Auto and manually changing the vCore to stock. Auto will go all 'safe mode' on you and raise the vCore for stability purposes (but raises the temps..)

I did it in one jump at stock voltage using the stock heatsink

 

[dflynchimp]

Originally posted by: hokiealumnus
Good lord dflynchip, don't freak the poor guy out! Voltage can fry RAM but overclocking it too high without upping voltage will just keep it form posting. ...... Fry his RAM...sheesh.

hey, I was just speaking from experience. I upped the memory voltage to 2.8 on my old Athlon XP 3200+ with one stick of Ultra 512mb (that cheap POS cost me $70...can you believe it...) and the thing fizzled...literally. After that the system would just give me a catatonic bleaping noise whenever I tried to turn it on. Swapped in a pair of Corsair value and everything started working again.

 

[darkfalz]

I've found the overclocking failed thing isn't working as well on current boards, often requiring a CMOS reset to get it booting again. My P4 never had this problem.