Overclocking in Windows vs. Bios

[jenny9580]

As I've become a little more cautious with my beloved PC hardware, I've been making an attempt to be "safer" while seeing how far I can push my hardware. It's sort of like wearing a bicycle helmet while cliff diving, but it makes me more comfortable with what I'm doing.

Tin foil hats aside, I've been trying to find my max values using ClockGen first (with the exception of RAM timings and voltage stuff). Once I find something that seems stable for a little while, I'll set it in the BIOS and try to make it crash, and tweak from there. To me, it almost feels "lazy" but so far I have had fewer problems than I used to when only using the BIOS.

Is there any reason that OCing in this manner is inferior to using only the BIOS? Could it create problems I'm not aware of, like having a hard time starting up if the computer is shut down for awhile, since the CPU, chipset, etc are already reasonably warm and happy within Windows when finding values with ClockGen? Or am I being superstitious?

Any input is appreciated!

 

[Hacp]

You overclock the wrong way then. You should always overrclock in small increments. I do by increments of 50MHZ. Then I run some test like P95 for 20 mins. If it doesn't crash, I'll go up 50, so on and so forth until it crashes. Then I bump voltage and try it again until it crashes with increases increments. Finally, when I hit a wall, I test for stability, slowly lowering my clock speeds until it is Prime Stable/ Mem Test Stable/ Super Pi Stable.

 

[Gamingphreek]

BIOS > *.*

 

[caz67]

BIOS, i wouldn't overclock in Windows ever.

 

[Doctorweir]

BIOS overclocking is just more...safe...
ClockGen is nice for trying and fine tuning during acceptance testing, but as soon as you found out your stable setup, I would fix it via the BIOS settings...

 

[lopri]

Windows OC'ing is great for suicide shots.

 

[Markbnj]

Look at it this way: o/c-ing in BIOS, nothing is running except the BIOS firmware code. No drivers, no services, no background processes, nothing accessing the disk at all. O/c-ing in Windows: everything is running, accessing the disk, interfacing with hardware devices, etc.

Now imagine you change a setting and the box crashes. You're changing very low level settings. Unlike a power-off Windows doesn't get a message that the system is going down. Whatever the os was doing is just... stopped in mid-stride.

In other words: o/c-ing in Windows == good chance of fubaring something royally. If you insist on doing it in Windows, I strongly suggest running msconfig.exe and choosing "Diagnostic Startup" from the selections on the first tab. At least that way you will have very little running. In fact I do this for all testing when I o/c in the BIOS, until I prove the system stable. And then I still hold my breath the first time I do a normal startup.

 

[Gronich]

I always start by overclocking in Windows:

Set the ram timings very loose; set HTT to 3x; set the voltage at max for the CPU; ensure the AGP/PCI/PCIe bus is locked and load Clockgen, cpu-z and Speedfan; Push the HTT up in whatever increments you like (I start at 100Mhz jumps) until Windows the CPU goes 'ping' and resets (Obviously, keep a record of what it hits) and repeat again in smaller increments until you happy that it is stable at that point...Prime95 the system...tweak the CPU voltages down...tweak the memory timings...Transfer the settings from Clockgen into the BIOS...Prime again! Stable system; Big smiles!

The main reasons I use Windows overclocking are:

1) It's a lot quicker;
2) If the system locks up in Windows when you reboot it reverts to the BIOS settings;
If the system locks up after tweaking the BIOS you have to reset the BIOS jump again and again...
3) You can monitor the temperature rises of the CPU (in Windows) as you are overclocking which gives you a good indication of when you are reaching your CPU or HSFs limits.
4) You can tweak memory timings within Windows with A64tweaker before transfering to the BIOS.

 

[Gamingphreek]

1) It's a lot quicker;

OCing takes time, going through windows is a sure fire way of screwing up, especially because you are too lazy to wait.

2) If the system locks up in Windows when you reboot it reverts to the BIOS settings;
If the system locks up after tweaking the BIOS you have to reset the BIOS jump again and again...

Most good M/Bs if you OC too far simply reset CPU back to a safe operating speed automatically. Running in windows you have a huge amount of other factors you have to worry about.

3) You can monitor the temperature rises of the CPU (in Windows) as you are overclocking which gives you a good indication of when you are reaching your CPU or HSFs limits.

You can do that in the BIOS too. Not only that if you are OCing you should have significant cooling in the first place where you dont have to worry about cooling unless you start doing volt mods.

4) You can tweak memory timings within Windows with A64tweaker before transfering to the BIOS.

Why would you want to.

As said earlier, never OC in Windows. That is where you hear about horror stories. When in the BIOS you are guaranteed that only the firmware is running (as said earlier) and it is really hard to screw anything up with all the features on todays boards. If you think OCing is going to be a quick job, or are looking for it to be you are sadly mistaken. Dont try to take an apparent "quick" way, it will cost you.

(Ask any serious OCer what they use, guarantee it will be the BIOS)

-Kevin

 

[jenny9580]

Thanks for the information so far. I've never found any threads or articles related to this so I wanted to get some opinions.

I wasn't aware of the dangers of using Windows - from my standpoint it just made more sense to tweak from the environment the processor will be spending the most time in, while already "warmed up".

 

[kwarkers]

I agree with Markbnj, your system is very vaunerable when OCing in Windows!

 

[Gronich]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

1) It's a lot quicker;

OCing takes time, going through windows is a sure fire way of screwing up, especially because you are too lazy to wait.

>>>So you screwed up in the pasted by leaving the AGP/PCI bus unlocked or pushing your memory to far...Overclocking in BIOS doesn't protect you from incorrect parameters or corrupting Windows anymore that being in Windows when the system crashes.

2) If the system locks up in Windows when you reboot it reverts to the BIOS settings;
If the system locks up after tweaking the BIOS you have to reset the BIOS jump again and again...

Most good M/Bs if you OC too far simply reset CPU back to a safe operating speed automatically. Running in windows you have a huge amount of other factors you have to worry about.

>>>But not all. Yes, the factors which you will be having everyday when your ACTUALLY using the computer.

3) You can monitor the temperature rises of the CPU (in Windows) as you are overclocking which gives you a good indication of when you are reaching your CPU or HSFs limits.

You can do that in the BIOS too. Not only that if you are OCing you should have significant cooling in the first place where you dont have to worry about cooling unless you start doing volt mods.

4) You can tweak memory timings within Windows with A64tweaker before transfering to the BIOS.

Why would you want to.

>>>Why wouldn't you want to! You say your a serious overclocker! You can test different memory timings without having to reboot over & over again.

As a overclocker who doesn't take overclocking too seriously I don't have to be an egotist about how I do things. I just do it the best and easiest way and have had no hardware/software failures in over 15 years of overclocking.

Overclocking is about tweaking and repeating, over & over - There is no Art to it. It is simple and anyone can do it - it just repetion.

 

[xtknight]

Overclocking in Windows is very dangerous especially if you have file handles open. To be honest I'd use a LiveCD of Linux to test overclocks. The LiveCD will be loaded in to your memory so that will give your memory a test. ClockGen crashes all the time on my A8N-SLI D anyway. If you know what you're doing you can use sync to flush files but you still have the risk of damaging your drivers. I wouldn't trust 3rd party software to adjust my motherboard's settings in the first place. ASUS's A.I. Overclock program never seems to crash for me.

 

[cronic]

bios is the only option for me