Having an overclocking nightmare!

[paulpicks21]

Sorry , typo on the thread title , should have read - Having an overclocking nightmare! My Bad lol.

Ok first off , system spec , its my father in laws PC -

Windows 7 64bit Ultimate
Q6600 2.4ghz stock
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2
P5N32-E SLI , Bios 1901 (latest)
8800GTS
4 gig 6400
500 gig 7200 hdd
Creative X-fi High fidelity sound card
550 watt PSU

(If I have missed anything let me know)

The problem.....

We set about overclocking the cpu , nothing crazy , just from 2.4ghz to 3.0ghz.

But we are getting major issues.

Left the multiplier at 9x , changed the rated fsb to 1333 which gives an exact clock of 3.0ghz , upped the voltage to 1.40.

After 5 mins or so of playing cod4 or half life 2 online the sound will cut out and die.

If we exit the game back to windows the sound works again and if we go back into the game again it works fine for another 5 mins or so. Any ideas?

Also not sure if this is related but tried to overclock the GPU ever so slightly , talking real small amount and the whole pc froze up when running a graphics benchmark. (had to hit the reset button)

Could it be the PSU? Not man enough?

Had a few BSOD before upping the voltage from auto to 1.4 , seems stable now except for the sound issue and the issue of not being able to overclock the GPU at all.

Sorry for the long post , but its doing our heads in , I mean its not a crazy overclock , temps are hitting a max of 56 degrees under stress so no probs there.

Cheers

Paul.

 

[kurahk7]

Sorry , typo on the thread title , should have read - Having an overclocking nightmare! My Bad lol.

Ok first off , system spec , its my father in laws PC -

Windows 7 64bit Ultimate
Q6600 2.4ghz stock
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2
P5N32-E SLI , Bios 1901 (latest)
8800GTS
4 gig 6400
500 gig 7200 hdd
Creative X-fi High fidelity sound card
550 watt PSU

(If I have missed anything let me know)

The problem.....

We set about overclocking the cpu , nothing crazy , just from 2.4ghz to 3.0ghz.

But we are getting major issues.

Left the multiplier at 9x , changed the rated fsb to 1333 which gives an exact clock of 3.0ghz , upped the voltage to 1.40.

After 5 mins or so of playing cod4 or half life 2 online the sound will cut out and die.

If we exit the game back to windows the sound works again and if we go back into the game again it works fine for another 5 mins or so. Any ideas?

Also not sure if this is related but tried to overclock the GPU ever so slightly , talking real small amount and the whole pc froze up when running a graphics benchmark. (had to hit the reset button)

Could it be the PSU? Not man enough?

Had a few BSOD before upping the voltage from auto to 1.4 , seems stable now except for the sound issue and the issue of not being able to overclock the GPU at all.

Sorry for the long post , but its doing our heads in , I mean its not a crazy overclock , temps are hitting a max of 56 degrees under stress so no probs there.

Cheers

Paul.

Try lowering your RAM multiplier by 1, see if that helps .

 

[paulpicks21]

Cheers for the reply ,

The ram ratio is set so its running at around 866 so not a massive overclock on the ram.

Surely 66 more than standard wouldn't cause these issues?

Edit: I guess I could unlink the memory from the cpu and set it to the standard 800mhz , but like I say , am sure it wouldn't cause issues what with only being overclocked by 66mhz?

Cheers

Paul.

 

[kurahk7]

Cheers for the reply ,

The ram ratio is set so its running at around 866 so not a massive overclock on the ram.

Surely 66 more than standard wouldn't cause these issues?

Edit: I guess I could unlink the memory from the cpu and set it to the standard 800mhz , but like I say , am sure it wouldn't cause issues what with only being overclocked by 66mhz?

Cheers

Paul.

True, but are the voltages for the RAM set at the recommended? and are the timings as well?

 

[paulpicks21]

Well the voltage for the ram is set to auto and shows up as 1.8v in CPUID.(Stock voltage is supposed to be 1.8)

The timings are also set to auto and seem to change from 5.5.5.15 to 5.6.6.18 when the processor is overclocked from 2.4 to 3.0ghz

I am still learning myself about all the in's and out's of overclocking so bear with me lol.

I overclocked my own pc without any issues at all , taking the dual core from 2.5 to 4.2mhz , runs sweet as anything , but my father in laws pc is not playing ball in any way and really is doing my head in.

Cheers

Paul.

 

[gamer 101]

what are your temps, and I would do some research on Overclock.net - Overclocking.net and see if any of them have had any similar problems. I do know the intels run a little warm out of the box, and you didn't specify what type of psu you are running. Is it 80+ and what are the reviews on it and does it supply a good constant voltage. I always like to go over a little with my psu just in case I need it, and new egg has a chart on what psu you should get that is real easy to use. One other problem I had is with dirty electricity after my last build. Is the p.c. hooked up to a good battery back-up. Alot of people over look this but in custom p.c.s it could make a big difference.

 

[paulpicks21]

Cheers for the reply gamer ,

Regarding the temps , the max the cpu has hit under full load stress test is mid 60s so I am pretty sure temp is not an issue.

And regarding the PSU , sadly I don't know the full spec of it , I can't check for a few days as I am not with the pc.

What I do know tho is that the pc was originally built by a reputable company and I would imagine they put in a decent Psu as the pc was far from cheap.

The only mods done since it was built are the new arctic cooler 7 , an extra 2 gig of ram and the overclock. Would this be enough to max it out and cause the issues?

Cheers

Paul.

 

[kurahk7]

Cheers for the reply gamer ,

Regarding the temps , the max the cpu has hit under full load stress test is mid 60s so I am pretty sure temp is not an issue.

And regarding the PSU , sadly I don't know the full spec of it , I can't check for a few days as I am not with the pc.

What I do know tho is that the pc was originally built by a reputable company and I would imagine they put in a decent Psu as the pc was far from cheap.

The only mods done since it was built are the new arctic cooler 7 , an extra 2 gig of ram and the overclock. Would this be enough to max it out and cause the issues?

Cheers

Paul.

And I can assume that you installed ram of the same speed, timings, and voltage?

 

[Krispy1]

going from 2.4 to 3 is more then u think. not all cpu chipsets are that flexible. try going to 2.8 and see if its more stable

 

[paulpicks21]

Cheers for the reply gamer ,

Regarding the temps , the max the cpu has hit under full load stress test is mid 60s so I am pretty sure temp is not an issue.

And regarding the PSU , sadly I don't know the full spec of it , I can't check for a few days as I am not with the pc.

What I do know tho is that the pc was originally built by a reputable company and I would imagine they put in a decent Psu as the pc was far from cheap.

The only mods done since it was built are the new arctic cooler 7 , an extra 2 gig of ram and the overclock. Would this be enough to max it out and cause the issues?

Cheers

Paul.

And I can assume that you installed ram of the same speed, timings, and voltage?

Yes bud , the 4 gigs of ram in his are all ddr2 6400 800mhz , the timings are set to auto in the bios.

 

[paulpicks21]

going from 2.4 to 3 is more then u think. not all cpu chipsets are that flexible. try going to 2.8 and see if its more stable

Cheers Krispy , will give that a go next time I am round at his house.

 

[johngalt]

Check out my specs - my mobo is different, an eVGA, but I get 3.2GHz out of my machine with no issues. Same CPU. Is the Q6600 the last revision (G0)? Also, 2 more things - does the motherboard actually support running at 866 for the RAM (I ask this because, strangely enough, my mobo supports DDR800, 1000, and 1300, but it grinds to a halt if I try to run my RAM at 1066, which my RAM, OCZ PC8000 2 GB * 2, is rated to run at easily)? And is your OCing also changing anything relating to the PCI / PCI-e speeds? If the mobo allows it, can you try *decreasing* the PCI-e speeds (that's a long shot - mine only allows increasing, no decreasing, and only for the 3rd 8x PCI-e)?

Finally, did you disable (if possible) spread spectrum for all your system components?

Although you have an Asus mobo, in addition to reading up at the link gamer 101 gave ya, here is a good thread in general about Overclocking Kentsfield CPUs (of course, some of the info is specific to the eVGA 780i motherboard, but a lot of the basic info is *not* specific - [P]'s 780i overclocking guide (moved from old Forum)

 

[paulpicks21]

Cheers for your post John,

Gives me plenty to think about next time I am over at his house.

Regarding the Q6600 , I think its more likely to be the older version of it and not the Go as the pc is around 3-4 years old now (not sure when the Go was released?).

Will try setting the ram to 800 and see if that makes a difference.

Regarding the PCI-E speeds , it appears they are locked and stay the same. I checked this as at first I thought perhaps it might be overclocking the sound card as well and causing the sound issue.

Cheers

Paul.

 

[johngalt]

I built mine over 2 years ago now (actually, right at 2 years - Happy Birthday, Beast mark IV!) and I bought my CPU retail, but, yeah, yours (his) may, in fact, be an older CPU. IIRC, B0 was also a good bin, b/c there was a good chance you were getting a binned higher clocked CPU that was actually under-clocked. Cannot remember now.

At any rate, check out some of those things - IIRC, Asus is every bit as good (and often times better) than eVGA when it comes to OCing, bu I am not familiar with their boards so I cannot say what else to look at - hopefully, though, this is food for thought.

 

[paulpicks21]

Thanks again John , I will update this thread next time I have had a play with it.

Paul.

 

[paulpicks21]

Well what can I say!

Things have gone from bad to worse.

Since I saw my father in law last , the pc started blue screening all the time when he was using it , then today it wouldn't even go into windows without blue screening.

Spent about 5 hours on it this evening just trying to get the blasted thing to work but to no avail.

Been trying to rule things out , so far things tried are -

Reset bios back to standard
Tried different graphics card
Attempted to reinstall windows 7 (blue screened when installing)
Formatted HDD
Attempted to install windows again (Blue screened again)
Tested with different memory sticks
Tested with different CPU

Every time it just blue screens when trying to install windows.

Ran out of time in the end , gonna try a different HDD tomorrow.

Other than that , think we have ruled everything out apart from the motherboard?

Bloody computers lol

 

[kurahk7]

Well what can I say!

Things have gone from bad to worse.

Since I saw my father in law last , the pc started blue screening all the time when he was using it , then today it wouldn't even go into windows without blue screening.

Spent about 5 hours on it this evening just trying to get the blasted thing to work but to no avail.

Been trying to rule things out , so far things tried are -

Reset bios back to standard
Tried different graphics card
Attempted to reinstall windows 7 (blue screened when installing)
Formatted HDD
Attempted to install windows again (Blue screened again)
Tested with different memory sticks
Tested with different CPU

Every time it just blue screens when trying to install windows.

Ran out of time in the end , gonna try a different HDD tomorrow.

Other than that , think we have ruled everything out apart from the motherboard?

Bloody computers lol

Although I doubt that the power supply can be the cause, did you try a different power supply? Other than that, make sure all the cables are securely plugged into the correct connectors.

 

[paulpicks21]

Hi bud , have not tried a different psu yet , but I guess if a different hdd doesn't work then its worth trying yeah.

Cheers

Paul.

 

[Wishmaster]

I do not know about your board but many have a jumper to reset CMOS.

Have you tried moving that jumper, waiting 1 min the putting it back?

Should clear CMOS then reset to OPTIMISED DEFAULT and restart.

PSU shouldnt cause BSOD.

Most are due to hardware failure or drivers.

 

[paulpicks21]

Hi Wishmaster , we removed the cmos battery for 10 mins at the start before doing anything else which reset the bios , I assume that does the same thing as you mention.

Cheers

Paul.