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Please help me diagnose my OC Problem!

R

RudeBoie

Platinum Member
Ok,
the equipment:
IWill KK266
Athlon 1.3
2 256MB DIMMS of PC150 Corsair RAM

Cooling:
ALPHA PAL8045 w/YS-Tech 80MM
Lots of fans throughout case

Any more specific info can be found in the "My Rig" link.

Since September, I've been running at 155*10 with no problems. A few months ago, I ran prime95 for 72 hrs and got a perfect bill of health.

In the last few weeks, I've run into a serious stability problem when oc'ing and I can't figure which component it is. To reproduce the problem, I can either run Prime95 or run a high CPU app like a game. If I run a high cpu app, I'll see what looks like light, then heavy interference on my monitor. If I run it enough, then the computer will crash.

At first I thought it was the memory because I've heard that more than 1 dimm oc'ed can cause problems for stability. But when I only used 1 stick, this problem repeated. I changed slots because I know some slots can be better or worse for oc'ing, but the same problem happened. The main reason why it probably isn't the mem is because if I raise the multiplier anywhere above default (10) and keep the clock at default (133), I'll still get my OC glitch.

It could be the cpu. It seems strange that it could be damaged or something. Its run oc'ed at 1.85 volts (which by no means is considered high I think) and there is a lot of cooling. I remember that stock HSF on my chip would idle at 120+ F (49C). I idle at 100 (38C) and max at 113 (45C) or so, so I feel I always kept heat down.

It could also be the motherboard.
It's the only thing I can think of that could be effected by general oc'ing, not just by the higher bus.

There's nothing else that I can think of that might be affecting it because everything else I can think of can have problems on bus need and not gen mult oc'ing.

I'm basically leaning towards the cpu as the problem, because I have a hard time believing that both my mem sticks are faulty, and I'm not sure how I can know if the MB is behind it. It seems possible that the cpu might be burned out for higher speeds, but it still seems like it would have plenty of health.

Basically, I don't know, and I'd like to hear opinions on what's the problem.
 
Running components overclocked can wear them down. Overclocking stresses your CPU. After some time, it just can't manage running at the speeds it used to. I've lost 10MHz from my own OC over the past few weeks due to this effect.
 
Have you considered your video card? At 155fsb the AGP is running at 77.5 mhz 11 mhz over default. Since the distortion of the moniter. But since you state that leaving the fsb to 133 but raising your multiplier gives the same problem, that could count it out. Unless you have a jumper on your motherboard for switching between 100 mhz and 133mhz. If left at 100 mhz then the AGP divider is 2/3 and OC it to 133 raise the AGP to 88.6mhz. If thats not the problem, I can only think of the MB but I dont see why it would cause any distortion on your moniter. Sorry if im not any help.

In any case, I would test 1 device at a time.
 
Have you considered the weather? The ambient air temps may be higher, warmer weather often causes people to lower their overclocks some. Open the case, take a can of compressed air and clean out all the fans, heatsink, video card fan, and power supply. Reapply artic silver and try dropping you max cpu speed by 25-50MHz. Same can happen with your video card if it is overclocked.
 
Thanks for the help so far.

To clairfy, it's not distortion to the monitor, but the oc causes something that looks like my monitor image is getting distortion (kind of like if you oc your vc too far, you'll get strange graphical errors).

I have considered the room temp, but over the past months, my room temp has stayed the same (I use MBM and monitor my PSU and System temp to verify this). My system temp is always at 72-73F.

And I did thorougly clean through my sys a few weeks ago right after the problem started ocurring.

I don't believe it's the vc oc'ing that's the problem because putting it at default speeds doen't effect anything.

I could definitely see how letting my oc'ing down bit by bit could help, but I forgot to mention that I can't oc at all now. I've tried smaller jumps, like from 1.33 to 1.35 and I have the same problem. That's what really gets me. Total failure. What's strange is that eveything speed that could post from before can post now. And every speed that couldn't, same thing. It just seems that everything is normal, and then when XP is loaded, watch out. I would think if there was damage, that perhaps I wouldn't be able to post at the range I still can, especially since I can't sucessfully oc even a little.

It's not always that I have to run a cpu intensive app to get the distortion and crash either. A lot of times, crashing would start happenning while booting XP- I'd get graphical garbage (like if anyone remembers those glory DOS crashing days) and once the bios started showing glitches. When the bios started show junk, I thought I might have installed some hardware incorrectly, so I took out and reinstalled (remove from slot, reinsert) everything, and the BIOS glitch has not happenned again since. But the rest of the OC symptons do.

KIAman, my jumpers are for 133 bus, and yeah, the problem happens even with a default bus and increased mult.
 
I thought I heard something about "electron tunneling" that can happen to a cpu when the voltage is kept high. But in those cases the cpu completely dies, but you might have a rare case. Either that or your MB has a problem. And about those graphical glitches, it still gets me that the problem lies in your video card because what else can possibly glitch your graphical output? Ive never seen a bad CPU,MB,PCI devices that caused any graphical glitches, but i have seen HD's that have. Hope you find out soon.
 
Last Bump for Suggestions

ed. If I make some changes (switch RAM slots, go to default BIOS settings), for some reason, sometimes that'll eliminate the OC problems for a while. But it usually comes back within 5-6 hours. It just seems strange.
 
I am leaning toward damage to the mobo from prolonged ocing, especially the fsb kind.....

Try this (good advice from a friend I trust)....Pull the cmos battery and unplug the power supply...for at least ten minutes...then falsh mobo to latest bios (ok if it is the latest already) then set everything to default....run it at that speed for first time then shut down and start bumping it back up....


To rule out memory run a stress test like memtest...run it at default for overnight then bump it up a bit and do same thing....
 
So have you monitored the Voltage output of you PS? I know that it has been getting hotter now wich means that the PS will start to load down more even though you keep the same components in the case but if the tem goes up then that PS has to work harder to crank the power out. Remember as tem goes up so does ther resistance of components. So it becomes a vicious cycle of heating up. Just my 2 cents
Mike
 
Duvie,
I'll go try that later this week. My floppy is messed up, so I'm bringing home the computer to work on this.

Mikeg, my voltage output is the same as it always been. I'm pretty sure the PSU is having no trouble holding it's own, but I'll monitor it more closely.
 
Originally posted by: RadioactiveMagpies
does your ram have heat spreaders?
Click to expand...

One does, the other doesn't.

Since I've tried each stick by itself (running 256 insetad of 512), I don't believe RAM heat is a factor.
 
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