Odd problem

[NotAGolf]

First off, sorry if this is in the wrong section, it could probably go into a number of different ones so I put it in the general section. Feel free to move.

Over the past week I have been overclocking my cpu, trying to get a bit more out of it than the 2.8Ghz I've been running it at for the last year.

I managed to get it up to 3.1 GHz by upping the vcore to 1.45v. Temps were 36c idle and 62c after several hours Orthos. This was Orthos stable for over 12 hours.

I then restarted my computer and the problems began.

It booted up and displayed the BIOS splash screen as normal, then instead of bringing up the dual boot screen to let me choose which OS to load (xp or vista), there's just a little cursor flashing in the top left of the screen and it doesn't go any further.

I then stuck the XP cd in and ran the repair console and tried chkdsk /r. Completed that and tried to boot up again. This time it booted as normal got into windows. But after about 5 minutes it freezes so I have to restart, and guess what....I get the blank screen again

I then tried a few more times, reducing the clock to 3.0, 2.8 (and reducing the vcore as well), both times it ran Orthos for a few hours, and worked fine, but then screwed up when I restarted and got the blank screen again so had to run chkdsk to get back into windows.

I'm now running at stock speeds and stock volts and I've restarted a couple of times without any problems.


Any ideas what's happened? At first I thought it was overheating and just playing up, but the temps were fine everytime I checked them. Then I thought I might have damaged some hardware (duff RAM, mobo etc), but seeing as chkdsk fixed the problem everytime i'm not sure about that. Then I thought my overclock may have corrupted my install somehow, but the fact that I could work in windows for several hours with no problems, and now the fact that at stock speeds everything seems to be ok makes me think otherwise. I'm all out of ideas now.

I'm tempted to overclock it back up a little to see if the problem re-occurs but I dont want to break anything so I have come to you guys for advice before I break anything!

Thanks very much for any help.

 

[PhoenixUK]

Reinstall all your drivers.
Do stress test, memory test (minimum 200%coverage), overall test ( 3dmark etc).
If you got some thermal paste left, take out your CPU, clean heatsink nicely, clean cpu, reapply paste, stick back in.

You might as well trying to update BIOS if this is possible.
Then start the whole OC from a scratch, dont just put xyz fsb and xyz random +50% volts. Start slowly from begini and work your way up step by step.


Please dont miss anything I mentioned on the way .
If this doesnt let you get 2.8 clock that you had or something slightly higher then there is very high possibility that your CPU is dying.

 

[NotAGolf]

Thanks for the reply Phoenix.

Reinstall all your drivers.

Will do

Do stress test, memory test (minimum 200%coverage), overall test ( 3dmark etc).

Will do

If you got some thermal paste left, take out your CPU, clean heatsink nicely, clean cpu, reapply paste, stick back in.

I think I do have some paste left, but attaching the Noctua heatsink and fan is the hardest thing i've ever done, i'm scared i'll break something this time. And also the temps are fine. Sitting here they're only 28c, ok thats idle and its nice and cool but even under load they stay sub 40c (stock) and 53c (2.8Ghz). Is it really worth it?

You might as well trying to update BIOS if this is possible.

I havent got a floppy so the only way I can do it is using a usb, but I've heard things go wrong doing it this way. Also seen a lot of people with problems after updating the BIOS (might not be any worse then the stock version though...). Is it really worth it?

Then start the whole OC from a scratch, dont just put xyz fsb and xyz random +50% volts. Start slowly from begini and work your way up step by step.

Will do.

If this doesnt let you get 2.8 clock that you had or something slightly higher then there is very high possibility that your CPU is dying.

Thanks again.

 

[PhoenixUK]

You can skip the thermal paste + cleaning if you really dont want to do it but it's good to do it every now and then .
I would go for it.


On the BIOS side i think most ppl do it from USB sticks nowadays.
Unless you're very unlucky or got some cheap stick like Tesco 3x2gb for 10quid ;] I think you shouldn't worry much.

And yes, it mostly saves some of the problems.


Ahh and one more thing I forgot, check your PSU volts as well. Also trying it on other PC will do the trick.



Goodluck and have fun .
Testing takes some time but it's worth it
If you got any problems just keep us updated.



Phoenix

 

[NotAGolf]

Thanks Phoenix. I will do as you've suggested in a few days as I've got an exam every day til friday.

You say check the voltages on he PSU, what exactly should I be looking for? Currently they're: (according to everest)
vcore: 1.36v
+3.3: 3.33v
+5: 4.97v
+12: 12.10v
+5 standby: 4.97v
VBAT Battery: 3.12v
GPU Vcc: 3.33v

Under load the vcore drops to 1.31v (due to vdroop i think). The rest stay the same, maybe fluctating by 0.02v every now and then. PSU is an OCZ modstream 450W, I know it's not great but I cant really afford a new one.

**edit** Also, what is VID? It's displaying 1.35v in core temp. Is this the stock vcore?

 

[NotAGolf]

Bit of an update, havent got round to fixing anything yet, but I have done some testing. I rand HD tune on both hard drives to scan for errors, repeated it twice, both times came back with no errors. Also ran memtest for 6 hours last night with no errors.

It hadn't done the blank screen since my last post until a few minutes ago. Restarted once, got a blank screen, restarted again, this time with the xp disk in, and it displayed the "press any key to boot from disk", I didn't press anything and then windows loaded normally

One other thing is that I'm starting to get a few "An unhandled win32 exception occurred in winamp.exe" along with svchost and a couple of other I think.

To me this is pointing more towards a corrupted OS install rather than a dodgy bit of hardware...but I don't know very much lol. What do you think?

Thanks.

 

[GingerNinja1989]

Possibly, so why not back up your data and do a fresh install to rule that one out?

 

[NotAGolf]

Possibly, so why not back up your data and do a fresh install to rule that one out?

I will do but I've got an exam tomorrow and friday and had one today so I'm a bit short on time at the minute!

It's just annoying to do a fresh install so I just want to see if there's anything else I can do before taking the plunge. I don't have any spare parts so I'm limited in that respect.