Question to guru's that have OC experience and technical expertise in this. Before when I OC'd my system, my data would actually get corrupted, even though the PCI bus was locked at 33MHZ. On my new Abit IP35-e, I did not see a option to lock the PCI bus, only the PCI-e bus which I set to 100Mhz. I have 2 SATA HDD's and they have very important data on them that I do not want to lose. I still have to save up for a external backup solution so for now I'm vulnerable. Since the SATA is linked to the SB (ICH9) chipset, if I don't mess with the voltage there when I OC, will it still remain stable? If I up the voltage there, will it still affect my HDD's?
OC'ing motherboards can corrupt or make HDD go bad?
- Thread starter lenell86
- Start date
Data corruption is always possible when overclocking. If your data is so important, unplug the unused drives, especially when setting your OC.
No back-up drive = how lucky do ya feel, even if you're not overclocking.
Good Luck!
No back-up drive = how lucky do ya feel, even if you're not overclocking.
Good Luck!
Ok, so you guys are saying during the OC process it does affect the HDD's. Well how about once I get a good OC that I like, will the HDD's get affected longevity, durability wise?
MTDEW
Diamond Member
- Oct 31, 1999
- 4,284
- 37
- 91
Once you have a stable overclock , then you no longer risk corrupting your data.
Its while you are testing that if you push the mobo,cpu or memory too far that it errors you can corrupt your data.
Thats why, even if you do unplug the your extra drives while overclocking/testing , its still a GREAT idea to do a clean install of windows and make an image of it before you start.
That way if you corrupt The Operating System while overclocking/testing, you can just restore the image instead of having to completely re-install windows all over again.
In short: Once you have a STABLE overclock , then your data will be safe from corruption. (thats what a stable overclock is! )
But while testing to get the "right" settings to get the system stable, you run the risk of corrupting your data if your overclock fails.
Its while you are testing that if you push the mobo,cpu or memory too far that it errors you can corrupt your data.
Thats why, even if you do unplug the your extra drives while overclocking/testing , its still a GREAT idea to do a clean install of windows and make an image of it before you start.
That way if you corrupt The Operating System while overclocking/testing, you can just restore the image instead of having to completely re-install windows all over again.
In short: Once you have a STABLE overclock , then your data will be safe from corruption. (thats what a stable overclock is! )
But while testing to get the "right" settings to get the system stable, you run the risk of corrupting your data if your overclock fails.
thanks MTDEW, thats what I needed to know. I will use a spare drive then to do my OC testing/benchmarking and when I achieve what I want, I'll slap in my current drives
Corruption occours when bad data is written to the HDD because of instabilitys due to your OC, not because of the PCI bus itself. Most (all that I know of) newer MB's lock the PCI bus at 33MHz.
Rubycon
Madame President
- Aug 10, 2005
- 17,768
- 485
- 126
Originally posted by: MTDEW
I ALWAYS image my drives before any overclocking with Acronis True Image.
That way if your drive gets corrupted , its only 5-10min to restore it back.
This should be a standard. Everyone is anxious to pull the trigger but once you have that backup you can have all your cakes and eat them too.
BonzaiDuck
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2004
- 16,701
- 2,078
- 126
I don't install my software and data to HDDs until I've found a "stable" over-clock.
This is still an area where there seems to be some unspecified vulnerability, and, yes, the best procedure would involve having a spare hard disk to store the entire partition copied with something like Partition Commander, or utility software such as that mentioned to create an image of the disk in the event that it needs to be restored.
It's also a good idea to make "emergency repair disks" when you first install the OS.
Even so, I've usually done my homework first -- don't have a pile of software installed and my important data at first -- and have been able to achieve over-clocks incrementally without having any more of a mishap than PRIME95 reporting a rounding error. Occasionally, the sorts of problems I've faced either meant the system wouldn't post initially, or the operating system would not load.
This is still an area where there seems to be some unspecified vulnerability, and, yes, the best procedure would involve having a spare hard disk to store the entire partition copied with something like Partition Commander, or utility software such as that mentioned to create an image of the disk in the event that it needs to be restored.
It's also a good idea to make "emergency repair disks" when you first install the OS.
Even so, I've usually done my homework first -- don't have a pile of software installed and my important data at first -- and have been able to achieve over-clocks incrementally without having any more of a mishap than PRIME95 reporting a rounding error. Occasionally, the sorts of problems I've faced either meant the system wouldn't post initially, or the operating system would not load.
BonzaiDuck
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2004
- 16,701
- 2,078
- 126
. . . . and I wonder . . . how I've had such good luck with six or seven OC configurations . . . when I continue to live "on the edge."
Those of you who keep an old computer running as a file server on ethernet LAN, possibly even for a 3-drive RAID5 array -- I haven't explored VISTA yet -- that's "in the works" -- but I know Win 2000 Pro, XP Home/Pro/MCE2005.
There's a little utility that should be loaded when you install the OS, or it's "installable" through "Add/Remove Programs" from the install disc. It's called "Backup" -- or in the case of Win2000Pro or Advanced Server, "NTBackup." Roxio and other suites now provide it as "Sonic Backup" -- once known as BackupMyPC, but I haven't found anything these similar programs do that the XP Backup program doesn't do.
The program features a scheduling capability, so that you can set it to back up your e-mail files, Favorites and BookMarks, photos, Quicken files, audio and video files (but the video stuff is probably too big and impractical) -- anything -- by creating "jobs" and then scheduling those "jobs."
I create a full backup and re-write it every three months. In between, I make "incremental" backups for the full backups. Once in a while, you can backup the backups to DVD-R.
Then there are the "Repair disks," and the use of a utility like Partition-Magic or Partition Commander to dupe your hard disk partition to a spare drive. There's about twenty ways to assure data integrity and backup, but many people just don't do it because it either requires attention to detail when done manually, or attention to detail when you set up the jobs and schedules.
But in this house, "Backup" has . . . . saved . . . . our . . . . silly . . . . A**es.
Others will differ, except for the duplication of an entire disk with the utilities I mentioned, but IT professionals I know who are still working for a living say they prefer to rely on an exclusive data backup on a regular basis, willing to reinstall the OS from scratch and all the programs. For that, I'd still backup downloaded/compressed program installation files once to USB HD or DVD, and keep a NotePad inventory list (even better with a database program) of all programs you install to your hard disk.
Those of you who keep an old computer running as a file server on ethernet LAN, possibly even for a 3-drive RAID5 array -- I haven't explored VISTA yet -- that's "in the works" -- but I know Win 2000 Pro, XP Home/Pro/MCE2005.
There's a little utility that should be loaded when you install the OS, or it's "installable" through "Add/Remove Programs" from the install disc. It's called "Backup" -- or in the case of Win2000Pro or Advanced Server, "NTBackup." Roxio and other suites now provide it as "Sonic Backup" -- once known as BackupMyPC, but I haven't found anything these similar programs do that the XP Backup program doesn't do.
The program features a scheduling capability, so that you can set it to back up your e-mail files, Favorites and BookMarks, photos, Quicken files, audio and video files (but the video stuff is probably too big and impractical) -- anything -- by creating "jobs" and then scheduling those "jobs."
I create a full backup and re-write it every three months. In between, I make "incremental" backups for the full backups. Once in a while, you can backup the backups to DVD-R.
Then there are the "Repair disks," and the use of a utility like Partition-Magic or Partition Commander to dupe your hard disk partition to a spare drive. There's about twenty ways to assure data integrity and backup, but many people just don't do it because it either requires attention to detail when done manually, or attention to detail when you set up the jobs and schedules.
But in this house, "Backup" has . . . . saved . . . . our . . . . silly . . . . A**es.
Others will differ, except for the duplication of an entire disk with the utilities I mentioned, but IT professionals I know who are still working for a living say they prefer to rely on an exclusive data backup on a regular basis, willing to reinstall the OS from scratch and all the programs. For that, I'd still backup downloaded/compressed program installation files once to USB HD or DVD, and keep a NotePad inventory list (even better with a database program) of all programs you install to your hard disk.
BonzaiDuck
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2004
- 16,701
- 2,078
- 126
Originally posted by: lenell86
thanks MTDEW, thats what I needed to know. I will use a spare drive then to do my OC testing/benchmarking and when I achieve what I want, I'll slap in my current drives
You could do your stability testing with a bootdisk or Linux live CD if you don't want to bother swapping drives. I don't think there's much danger of data corruption to begin with. I've been recklessly OCing for years and haven't had any data corruption, even after numerous BSODs.
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
- 7
- 76
I don't think data corruption is a very high probability , but it can and does happen.
The data written to the hard drive is correct as far as the hard drive is concerned, its only writing what the OS tells it to.
The problem is when you OC, your OS may go a bit wacky and mangle the bits that are sent to the drive. So its not a problem of the bus or the drive being damaged or not working , its just the data got lost in translation.
The reason I think the probability is low is because for the OS to send bad data out to the drive , it has to be running somewhat functional. My experience has been that the OS crashes or locks up before it gets a chance to send that data.
Still don't OC a system your currently using without backups. Lots of other things can go wrong besides just the hard drive data.
The data written to the hard drive is correct as far as the hard drive is concerned, its only writing what the OS tells it to.
The problem is when you OC, your OS may go a bit wacky and mangle the bits that are sent to the drive. So its not a problem of the bus or the drive being damaged or not working , its just the data got lost in translation.
The reason I think the probability is low is because for the OS to send bad data out to the drive , it has to be running somewhat functional. My experience has been that the OS crashes or locks up before it gets a chance to send that data.
Still don't OC a system your currently using without backups. Lots of other things can go wrong besides just the hard drive data.
BonzaiDuck
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2004
- 16,701
- 2,078
- 126
Watek's in center-field; Modelworks sounds pretty sensible.
Usually, the only thing that gets written to HD when "PRIME-ing" is your CoreTemp log, although without enough memory, ORTHOS used to do a lot of paging.
But here's my advice about OC'ing and testing:
Turn off your AV software, turn off Automatic Updates, kill any systray items that are likely to be active and grab clock-cycles. Usually, I only leave my Powerchute or other UPS software on. And speaking of that, I think it's foolish to OC without using a UPS system. In fact, I think it's foolish to have a computer without a UPS even if you have a surge protector between the system and the wall-socket.
Just to show why it's worth turning off Auto-Update: I wasted 4 hours Blend-testing memory last night, because I forgot to turn off this XP feature. The system was taking a licking and kept on ticking, until AU just decided to install the updates anyway and do a system re-boot. I was worried that the over-clock had become unstable, but the assurance that everything was fine could be found in the Event-Viewer System and Application logs. It explained everything.
But I had to start my test over this morning -- to run 11 hours. No Problemo, though, Governor . . . ..
Usually, the only thing that gets written to HD when "PRIME-ing" is your CoreTemp log, although without enough memory, ORTHOS used to do a lot of paging.
But here's my advice about OC'ing and testing:
Turn off your AV software, turn off Automatic Updates, kill any systray items that are likely to be active and grab clock-cycles. Usually, I only leave my Powerchute or other UPS software on. And speaking of that, I think it's foolish to OC without using a UPS system. In fact, I think it's foolish to have a computer without a UPS even if you have a surge protector between the system and the wall-socket.
Just to show why it's worth turning off Auto-Update: I wasted 4 hours Blend-testing memory last night, because I forgot to turn off this XP feature. The system was taking a licking and kept on ticking, until AU just decided to install the updates anyway and do a system re-boot. I was worried that the over-clock had become unstable, but the assurance that everything was fine could be found in the Event-Viewer System and Application logs. It explained everything.
But I had to start my test over this morning -- to run 11 hours. No Problemo, though, Governor . . . ..
On the topic of backing up before OC'ing, doesn't anyone else here use FirstDefense-ISR? I use it and put my snapshots in archives on a different drive where they're safe. That's usually enough to keep me out of trouble. But on the odd chance overclocking corrupts the OS to the point no snapshots are bootable, all that is required is a small and clean ATI image made of your system when first installed and containing no extras apart from FD-ISR itself. This will allow you to restore one of the snapshot archives and the system is back in no time.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter