Q9450 overclock no longer works, why?

[Obsoleet]

I did an easy overclock on my Q9450 to 3ghz on stock vid since the chip was first available at OEM (before you could get it retail at least), and it worked great for all that time. Now, the system was locking up randomly or not booting past the bios. Sometimes it seemed like different USB devices was causing the boot problem (I'd unplug something and it'd work) and then other times it didn't seem to be the cause (due to the Windows lockups).

Did my CPU just get some tired gates? Or did adding a 5870 and SSD take enough juice away from my CPU to not allow the overclock to work? If so, I can pickup a 850watt Corsair.

Intel Core2Quad 9450 - MSI 5870
Asus P5Q-E (P45 / ICH10R) - 8GB Mushkin XP2-6400 (4-4-4-12)
OCZ Vertex 60GB / Seagate 7200.11 1TB
Asus VW266H + Dell 2005FPW / Samsung PN50B650
AC Freezer 7 Pro - Corsair 620HX
Antec 900 - Logitech G3 / Access 600 kb / SteelSeries QcK+

 

[GundamF91]

What's your PSU? it's probably not the power drain. Usually of all things, motherboard components are the first to fail. you really won't know until you can isolate the faults. First eliminate RAM problems by testing memory.

 

[MagickMan]

I very strongly doubt your CPU is at fault, not with such a light OC w/o extra voltage.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I've been running the same cpu clocked at about 3.2GHz since I got it a month after it came out.
I run mine at a low vcore

 

[Obsoleet]

It's been stable since I pulled the OC back to stock. I did RMA the PSU, it was getting pretty noisy under load. I'll run some tests and see where we go. Not sure I even miss the extra speed.

 

[Spikesoldier]

run a hard drive test on the seagate.

 

[Stefan Payne]

Run the CPU @ Default clock.

I've heard from time to time that the Intel CPUs degrade over time, depending on how much they are overclocked.

But can you try some other memory?
I think that that could be the problem.

 

[Gillbot]

Run the CPU @ Default clock.

I've heard from time to time that the Intel CPUs degrade over time, depending on how much they are overclocked.

But can you try some other memory?
I think that that could be the problem.

imho, that's rare unless they are heavily taxed with too much voltage.

Odds are, it's ram or mobo.

 

[Stefan Payne]

I've heard from a friend that the CPU was getting unstable after about 6 months.
Was a core 2 E6600...
But I can't remember the voltage.

The Memory would be my first choice, 'cause I think the voltage it needs is pretty high...

 

[Big Lar]

I,m still running my Q9400 at 3888 daily at 1.296v. I got this chip as an ES chip before the retail chips hit the stores. It still runs perfect to date. I believe that unless someone pushes the chips voltage wayyyyy outta spec, the chip will last a good long time.

To the OP, sounds like either a PSU giving up life or perhaps a faulty stick of ram, or as previously stated the Mobo. Could be a bad Cap on the Mobo as well.

Larry

 

[Obsoleet]

My ram has never ran at stock speeds. Always under even the default speeds. I run 375*8. That puts the ram under 800mhz (my Mushkin's stock rating is 800 at 4-4-4-12). So I didnt think the RAM would be put under stress at all.

The CPU has always had stock vid to get my 3ghz.. so I don't know where it would get too worn out. The PSU was just RMA'd and so I have a new one in there. That leaves the motherboard?
I have an Asus P5Q-E, which has the better caps and so forth. But yes, before the PSU replacement (haven't tried it much since then but I'm going to), I came to the PC one day and the screen was frozen.

 

[Big Lar]

I'd run Memtest in windows myself. Does not take long to test and will narrow the problem down. Any ram can go bad out of the blue.

Larry

 

[Obsoleet]

Ok, I ran memtest today here are my results.. I did this test under my 3ghz OC (though I'm sure it was clocked down the whole time)

 

[aclim]

probably mobo or psu. My hx620 is quiet, and ive had it about 2years. That may be the problem

 

[Gillbot]

i'd run the boot disk version of memtest

 

[Obsoleet]

My PSU didn't make any noise at all until I got the 5870 and SSD. The noise got quieter though after I RMA'd the PSU and got the new one.

So far so good on my overclock's stability, but I'm guessing it's the motherboard. I seem to have those fail a lot. I have a kill-a-watt tester that I'm going to use to see if I'm approaching 600watts for my system on load.

 

[Stefan Payne]

But remove halve of the memory, memtest 86+ is a 32bit programm, so it can't use more than 4GiB at once...

 

[n7]

For 8 GB in an OCed system, HCI Memtest is a better test than Memtest86+ is, at least for stability checking.

Basically no stress is put on the board when you run Memtest86+ w/ 8 GB, which means while it might not error, it's not picking up other issues, like NB stabilty or errors (which HCI does).
Still a good idea to run both though.

That all said, i think there's some motherboard related going on here.
Likely voltages or something is slightly off he needs to fix, particularly in relation to the NB.

If it works at stock just fine, then it's some setting, timing, or voltage that needs working on.