HELP - I've broken something

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2003
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16,589
I'll try in here as the memory forum isn't offering much help.

Just been seeing how far I could push my memory. All was going well until I tried 500Mhz FSB. At this point the machine booted but immediately (after about 5 seconds, before any beeps or POST) powered off and then rebooted again in an endless cycle.

No problem I think, just reset the BIOS and all will be well but no joy. I've tried the reset jumper and removing the battery for 20 minutes but it still does the same thing.

I'm now worried I've fried either the memory or the motherboard. I didn't think memory could be fried by high speeds, only voltages, and it would just fail to work at the higher speed. Now I don't know if I've damaged something or if the CMOS is failing to clear for some reason. The mobo is a Gigabyte P35-DS3P which has some dual-bios malarky but I haven't a clue how that works or what it does.

Anyone got any ideas or advice, I'm desperate here
 
Remove the ram and try each stick one at a time, Its most likely killed a a stick, all your ram or the memory controller on the board.
 
Tried permutations of memory, no joy. Even tried it with none at all - surely it should beep in this situation? (it doesn't)

TBH if I have fried something I'm hoping it's the mobo or some of the mem as it's cheaper to replace than the CPU. What are the chances the 500Mhz FSB has fried the CPU? TBH I can't see it being the mobo as it's a P35 chipset and the BIOS allows FSBs up to 700. If 500 was going to be potentially dangerous to the mobo, they'd hardly allow you to set it 200 higher.

Think I'm gonna take the mem and cpu into work tomorrow and test them in my office PC - process of elimination.

sarf: err, how am I supposed to run memtest when the machine doesn't boot?
 
Mmmm . . Tempered IHS.

Bes thing to do is test the memory. If its not even posting it sounds like either a failed CMOS chip or even a borked mobo. To say nothing of the CPU being toasted. I think you have been unlucky. I run my E6600 at 425x8.
 
I was playing with my boards overclock the otherday and gave it an FSB it didnt like. Resulted in similar thing - board wouldn't post. No beeps, nothing.
I took the battery out and all but 1 stick of RAM, left it 5 mins, then it POSTed. Try that.
 
None of this makes any sense tbh.

If it was the memory then surely it would at least beep when I removed all of it? It doesn't which leads me to think it's not that. Have yet to try each stick individually, will do that tonight.

As for the mobo, I can't believe 500Mhz FSB would fry anything as this speed is reasonable for a P35 chipset and the BIOS allows up to 700Mhz to be configured. As I said earlier, I can't believe they'd allow 700Mhz if 500Mhz could possibly fry it. As for the BIOS, if that were corrupted in some way, surely the DualBIOS system would have copied in a backup from an earlier successful boot?

The CPU should have been able to take 500Mhz without damage, although quite possibly not running properly. Can't really believe it would have fried it.
 
If it's not beeping with no ram installed, the board and the cpu aren't seeing eachother, simple as that.

Have you tried re-seating the cpu? Might be worth looking for jumpers to clear the cmos as well as removing the battery.

Failing that, you might have to do a recovery bios, but you probably can't at this given stage...as the system isn't even staying on...But still worth a shot really.
 
I agree it's looking like either the mobo or cpu rather than the memory. Hope it's the mobo tbh as I really don't want to have toasted 170 quid's worth of CPU :(
 
I really don't think it's your cpu, as others have said, it maybe your motherboard. If I was you, leave your cpu alone, and take your memory for testing first.


Not all machines beep when the memory is removed, believe me!!
 
Had similar problem with my DS3R, though not from OCing - was actually running stock for a change :)

Anyway, if you search around on your problem on google, you will find it happens an awful lot with the Gigabyte P35 boards.

I have found no solution.

Though, I came across reference to something last night which I nevered tried - which is to have your Gigabyte CD that came with board in drive, power up and let it do its thing. Just let it keep powering up and down for a little while.

I would advise unplugging all hard drives, plus use only one stick memory
 
It lives! :D

Unplugged all the drives and stuck a single stick of memory in and hey presto - it booted.

Have reconnected everything and reconfigured the BIOS and all is now well.

Many thanks to all who offered advice :)
 
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