This forum broke my computer!

[RyanW2050]

Well, it's broken, but i'm kidding about the blaming part.

I accepted the risks in overclocking, though i can't say i actually expected them to happen.

I'm running:
AMD 3500+
8800GT
2x1g ValueSelect PC3200
EPOX EP9NPA+Ultra
450W FSP Group
maxtor 100g IDE HD, i think 7200rpm

I was following this Text guide to overclocking for A64s.

I set my Multiplier to 6, my RAM to 100mhz and started upping my speed.

225, booted
230, booted
240, booted
250, booted
260, booted
265, booted
270, Fail to boot from HD, please insert system disk.

At this point i backed down to 255 and it failed again.
220, fail.


So, i reset my bios back to fail-safe settings and it goes as far as this:

Windows did not shut down properly, would you like to
--safe mode
--last working settings
--start normally

no matter which option i choose it freezes on that screen as soon as i hit enter.



I plugged my hard drive into another computer, and it boots fine, so it's not he HD.



Anyone have a guess as to what exploded? Did i do something wrong and fry something?


Thanks!
Ryan

 

[Marty502]

Did you lower the HTT speed as you increased the FSB?

I didn't notice I had it around 1200 Mhz the other day! And I was fooling with multipliers an stuff too. Not a sign of unstability though. It should always be around 1000 Mhz.

 

[spinejam]

it sounds like you jacked your OS!

set "fail-safe defaults" in bios and start a "repair" install of windows.

 

[RyanW2050]

I left my HTT on auto, which may have not done what i thought it would.

But even still, i was under the impression that HTTxFSB > 1000 would just result in instability, not actual damage.

If it did stay at 5x, i would have been running at 1350mhz when i failed to boot for the first time.

 

[RyanW2050]

Originally posted by: spinejam
it sounds like you jacked your OS!

set "fail-safe defaults" in bios and start a "repair" install of windows.

I put my HD into another machine and it boots normally.

 

[sutahz]

Wow, thats impressive! Was sorta wishing you did really blamed us, that'd been funny.
Wish I could give a better guess then HT, but even that I wouldnt have considered.
I'll just repeat whats been said. Clear/reset your BIOS, load defaults, see if you can do an install of windows (diff hdd, same hdd, dont matter). Take out any expansion cards (NIC, SND) too.

 

[Quiksilver]

Have you tried resetting the CMOS by using the jumpers (or in some cases a little button on the back of the board or even on it)?

 

[RyanW2050]

Originally posted by: QuiksilverX1
Have you tried resetting the CMOS by using the jumpers (or in some cases a little button on the back of the board or even on it)?

I did remove the cmos battery for a few minutes. I think it has the same effect.

 

[Quiksilver]

I think if you pull the battery, you need to let it sit out for 30 minutes IIRC. I prefer the jumper method and pressing the power button a few times to discharge everything before moving it back.

 

[SpeedEng66]

heh

like what quik said

take out the batt put the jumper on reset unplug the psu take out hardware so your running the min needed (just one stick of ram, no pci cards or any usb, drives) and hold the power button down to discharge the caps..

 

[justly]

Don't count on removing the battery to reset CMOS/BIOS.

From Wikipedia "The non-volatile BIOS storage in contemporary computers might be in an EEPROM or flash memory chip and not in CMOS itself. In these cases, the battery back-up is meant to keep the RTC chip synchronized".

It doesn't hurt to remove it, but it also doesn't guarantee anything.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: RyanW2050

Originally posted by: spinejam
it sounds like you jacked your OS!

set "fail-safe defaults" in bios and start a "repair" install of windows.

I put my HD into another machine and it boots normally.

Did you actually boot off of this drive in the other computer? Just hooking it up as a secondary drive in another computer and reading from it, proves nothing except that the drive is not pysically damaged.

I agree it sounds like a jacked up OS, try a repair install, or back your data up on the other computer then do a full format and fresh install.

 

[stevty2889]

I agree with the others, it sounds like a coruppted OS, that is common when overclocking, if the motherboard doesn't have certain features. Some boards are known to not lock all of the SATA ports. If the SATA bus is overclocked, it causes hard drive corruption. If the drive is IDE, and the PCI bus isn't locked same thing will happen. The HTT multiplier not being lowered can also corrupt the hard drive. The memory overclocked too far will do the same thing.

I really don't think anything got physically damaged. Putting the hard drive in another computer doesn't say a whole lot either, unless that computer is identical to the one you pulled the drive out of, it will not have the same hardware, and it will have to use differant drivers. If one of the drivers was corrupted that could keep you from booting.

I suggest you try the repair install that has been mentioned. I've had to do the same thing myself after overclocking too far and corrupting my hard drive.

 

[tigersty1e]

Is it even possible to damage components by increasing the speed nowadays?

I mean if you jack the volts and it boots, I understand, but don't equipment nowadays have failsafes if you overclock too much?

 

[Pocatello]

Look at it as a positive thing. Now is your excuse to buy a new CPU, new motherboard etc. I hear intel C2D CPUs are popular for OC.

 

[Avalon]

Can't leave the HTT multiplier at auto. I kind of did the same thing as you did when I had a DFI Ultra-D, except I intentionally was overclocking my HTT...got it to around the same speed you did before my system started failing to boot from the HDD. Fortunately for me, a BIOS reset and cooldown did the trick.

You may have corrupted your OS.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

As a founding member of the A643Ghz club on a couple forums I can tell you one thing for sure. Don't expect anything to come easily when overclocking. It took me about 6 weeks of nights and weekends to make the 3ghz club with my 3700+ san diego on air. Here's my take. pull the power cord, pull the battery, move the cmos reset jumper for about 30 seconds, move the jumper back, replace the battery then re-apply power. Just for safety sake, go directly into the bios and re-set failsafe defaults.

It's been my experience on NF4 boards to not trust anything to defaults. If you don't tell it what to do, god knows what it'll actually do. Set your ram to 100 and your HTT multiplier to 3x. Manually set every ram timing you're comfortable setting. Check all your voltages, then re-check all your voltages. Don't make too many changes at a time, especially not voltage, timing or speed at the same time. Do lots of F10 save and restarts. Dropping your multi all the way to 6 is a little over-kill IMHO. That will allow you to find your max stable FSB speed but, that max FSB will likely be much higher than you'll actually use in the long run. I'd say 8 is a fair number. At present I run 265x11 at stock voltage day to day and can push it up to 275x11 at 1.45 volts pretty much at will. I've played with my system with every multiplier form 6-11 and my chip maxes out around 310fsb with a 10x multi but that takes all of 1.525 volts and a ram divider.

2.95ghz is close enough for day to day usage especially considering I can run my ram in synch at 265FSB. Not many guys I know of run 2GB of DDR1 at DDR530 with 1t timings and cas 2.5 and that makes a bigger differennce than 100mhz total cpu ever will.

You have to find your chips happy place. A lot of the later samples of 3500's I've played with just don't have the head room of some of the earlier ones. I've got about a 6 month old 3500 running in my HTPC and I can't so much as get 2.5ghz out of that thing. Then again it's in a NF4-DAGF too.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: justly
Don't count on removing the battery to reset CMOS/BIOS.

From Wikipedia "The non-volatile BIOS storage in contemporary computers might be in an EEPROM or flash memory chip and not in CMOS itself. In these cases, the battery back-up is meant to keep the RTC chip synchronized".

It doesn't hurt to remove it, but it also doesn't guarantee anything.

That's the BIOS, the code that makes your computer boot and run. Removing the battery and shorting the CMOS jumper resets the CMOS, which isn't the same thing. And the OP definitely needs to do it, because anytime you overclock far enough past stable to trash Windows, you nearly always trash your BIOS, since you were writing to it with an unstable system.

 

[justly]

"Non-volatile BIOS memory refers to the memory on a personal computer motherboard containing BIOS settings and sometimes the code used to initialize the computer and load the operating system. The non-volatile memory was historically called CMOS RAM or just CMOS because it traditionally used a low-power CMOS memory chip (the Motorola MC146818, or one of its higher-capacity clones), which was powered by a small battery when the system power was off. The term remains in wide use in this context, but has also grown into a misnomer. The non-volatile BIOS storage in contemporary computers might be in an EEPROM or flash memory chip and not in CMOS itself. In these cases, the battery back-up is meant to keep the RTC chip synchronized."

This is the first paragraph from the same Wikipedia link that was in my original post (obviously you didn't read it). Notice how it says that the term CMOS has grown into a misnomer when used in the context of non-volatile memory used for BIOS.

Below are the links I referenced to write this post.

Wikipedia - Nonvolatile BIOS memory

Wikipedia - CMOS

definition of misnomer

If you still believe I'm wrong, and these are not the same (in the context of this thread) then I would be very interested to learn more, but that would require you to explain or provide links (you might even consider submitting a correction to Wikipedia).

I can accept if I am wrong, the big question is can you prove your right?

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Just pulling the battery with the power off hasn't worked, unless programmed to in a few years. you have to use the jumper, now just move on.