Why is my overclock degenerating?

[StageLeft]

NF7-S, barton 2500+, 3500 memory.

When I first bought it 187 @ stock was the best I could get. Voltage made no difference. Any higher and I'd eventually hear a nasty beeping and the comp would shut itself down. I realized this was from a BADLY seated heatsink. I fixed that and was able to run at 200 with 1.75 volts without a problem - for about a week. Now, over the past several days I've been finding what its limits are again and damnit, I'm down to 187 and stock voltage again! The room temperature has been mostly accounted for. It's a couple of degrees warmer, but the CPU isn't hitting my beep-alert of 59.

 

[myocardia]

It sounds to me like it's heat related, but not cpu related. Let me explain: a psu is electronic ("You don't say!"), and is affected by heat just the same way as everything else inside of your box. IIRC, you have a not-too-powerful psu, and running a psu at it's maximum output makes it run hotter, just like running a cpu at maximum output. Okay, when it was x degrees cooler wherever you have your computer, it was able to keep up, but just barely. Remember when you were asking a few weeks ago about your system's instability and heat? Here' the thread, if you don't: link. In the 3rd "response" from you, you said you had it running at 11x200, but it still wasn't stable. (You said "but that's another thread, literally.) Well, that was because you were maxing out your psu. Now that it's warmer, your stressed psu is overheating, and giving you the problems you're having.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: myocardia
It sounds to me like it's heat related, but not cpu related. Let me explain: a psu is electronic ("You don't say!"), and is affected by heat just the same way as everything else inside of your box. IIRC, you have a not-too-powerful psu, and running a psu at it's maximum output makes it run hotter, just like running a cpu at maximum output. Okay, when it was x degrees cooler wherever you have your computer, it was able to keep up, but just barely. Remember when you were asking a few weeks ago about your system's instability and heat? Here' the thread, if you don't: link. In the 3rd "response" from you, you said you had it running at 11x200, but it still wasn't stable. (You said "but that's another thread, literally.) Well, that was because you were maxing out your psu. Now that it's warmer, your stressed psu is overheating, and giving you the problems you're having.

Thanks! I just perused that thread again. I think that my first few responses were with my original really crappy 420W PSU, which eventually died. Then I responded on the 9th I think with the new PSU. My current one is only 350W but its a decent antec and it's got a couple of fans built into it.

Somewhere I guess this must be heat related. It is a little warmer now, and other than using AC to keep the house at 72 (which I will come summer, but not yet), I guess I'll probably just have to live with this

:frown:

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It may be unrelated but I'd add a passive cooler to your southbridge if you haven;t already, I found they get damned hot! While you're at it you may want to pop off the NB cooler and add better T.I.M in case it's making poor contact or they didn't apply enough or used poor quality thermal tape. Chipset cooling on nF2 deserves special attention unlike many other chipsets.