Overclock/Instability all around

Meloco

Meloco

Meloco

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25 Dec 2005
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Kent
I've tried running at 3.8ghz, seemed stable, but games keep on crashing to desktop and HD films are now locking up and causing me to reboot. I've even underclocked everything/put settings back to normal/auto and I still get freezing on HD film playback (usually takes a while say 5 - 10min). My gfx card temps show around the 80's at film playback, games is usually in the 90's. Just wondering what people's thoughts were on what might be causing the problem? GPU/PSU/MOBO etc.

thanks,
 
mithrandir said:
What was the last stable overclock you had it on?
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before updating my ram it was 3.6ghz, and that was fully stable in anything. 3.8ghz had been working for a couple of days (PC on solidly for about 3 days) hd films and gaming. Today has been constant lockups on HD film playback.

Desktop temp readings (degrees c):

cpu 37
gfx 80
 
Hey Meloco,

it sounds like you maybe corrupted either your O/S or maybe some applications when you went for your Max overclock. I had this happen myself once or twice when doing some reckless overclocking and would result in general Windows instability or gaming crashes even when everything was set back to stock!

The solution was to restore a Norton/Acronis backup of the O/S that was taken before any overclocking was done and everything worked fine again!

If you don't have a backup of the whole OS and you don't wanna do a complete re-install then you could maybe try uninstalling the media app that keeps crashing and try a fresh install, having said that it could be the graphic drivers or audio drivers that are fubar so it may be that the quickest route may be a fresh start.

O/S corruption is very possible once you really start pushing your clocks, not sure exactly what happens but various bits of data on the hard-disk get gOOfed, its not permanent damage to the hard disk or anything really nasty so don't panic!. If the corruption is really bad you find that Windows won't even be able to boot!

Do you have a backup of your O/S?
 
Big.Wayne said:
Hey Meloco,

it sounds like you maybe corrupted either your O/S or maybe some applications when you went for your Max overclock. I had this happen myself once or twice when doing some reckless overclocking and would result in general Windows instability or gaming crashes even when everything was set back to stock!

The solution was to restore a Norton/Acronis backup of the O/S that was taken before any overclocking was done and everything worked fine again!

If you don't have a backup of the whole OS and you don't wanna do a complete re-install then you could maybe try uninstalling the media app that keeps crashing and try a fresh install, having said that it could be the graphic drivers or audio drivers that are fubar so it may be that the quickest route may be a fresh start.

O/S corruption is very possible once you really start pushing your clocks, not sure exactly what happens but various bits of data on the hard-disk get gOOfed, its not permanent damage to the hard disk or anything really nasty so don't panic!. If the corruption is really bad you find that Windows won't even be able to boot!

Do you have a backup of your O/S?
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Ah thank-you very much for the reply! It does make sense, since at an earlier time when I was pushing for 4ghz the boot-disk got corrupted and I had to re-install apart of the OS. I don't have a backup before overclocking (maybe a restore point). But I will just re-install Windows 7 again, as I think it needs doing anyway! I will try that and report back again.

thanks again for the advice :D

edit: Typical, now I am at stock levels it seems to be ok, but I still want that overclock. Would you suggest overclocking first, then installing the OS?
 
Meloco said:
Would you suggest overclocking first, then installing the OS?
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Nope! :p

Reset the BIOS back to stock, install your O/S, then make a backup before you install any drivers, then install drivers and your usual bits n pieces then take another backup. Hopefully you have a seperate data drive to store these on.

I'm not sure if you have used it but acronis backup software can run from a Boot CD or a USB drive so that you dont even have to install any software as its all done pre-boot.
 
Big.Wayne said:
Nope! :p

Reset the BIOS back to stock, install your O/S, then make a backup before you install any drivers, then install drivers and your usual bits n pieces then take another backup. Hopefully you have a seperate data drive to store these on.

I'm not sure if you have used it but acronis backup software can run from a Boot CD or a USB drive so that you dont even have to install any software as its all done pre-boot.
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thanks for the info, I will probably use it on a USB drive. I have another drive I can store the backups on too. Do the backups work like Norton Ghost used too?
 
Meloco said:
Do the backups work like Norton Ghost used too?
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If your talking about the restore process then yeah, you boot a mini O/S from the CD-ROM/USB-Drive which presents a compact GUI from which you select the backup/restore file, point it to the disk or partition you want to backup/restore and off you go.

It's good general overclocking practice to have a good backup as its not that hard to bOrk your O/S while overclocking with bad settings, like I say it doesn't appear to damage any hardware (i.e the hard-disk) but just makes a mess of various important files.

Once you have a couple of good backups you will find your confidence increases about attempting crazy overclocks as if it all goes **** up you know its a 10 minute process to restore everything back to normal! :cool:

BTW: this may not be 100% the reason you are having problems but it does happen from time to time and can cause a lot of stress and confusion amoungst overclockers. If the thought of re-installing your O/S and stuff doesn't pose a problem then its deffo something you can try. I don't see any other obvious reason why your system won't run flawlessly at stock though? :confused:

[edit]

Meloco said:
My gfx card temps show around the 80's at film playback, games is usually in the 90's
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that sounds higher than normal? . . . . anyway to rig up some temp extra cooling for the graphics card like a spare 80mm/120mm fan to see if that helps?
 
Last edited:
Re-installed the OS yesterday. Made a fresh backup etc.

Been using default load settings and just had a blue screen right now. Something about a "non_paged....".
 
I had plugged my pc tower case straight to the wall main socket and do not use surge protecter or multiplug as it will cause overclock instabilty. I use surge protecter before and overclock 4.0 (kept crashed) and try wall main socket (stable and no crash)
 
Thanks for the info, I will try that when I next overclock, but at the moment everything is at default clock speeds :(. Just had another crash "memory management" blue screen. Wondering if this is a hdd fault?
 
Meloco said:
Re-installed the OS yesterday. Made a fresh backup etc.

Been using default load settings and just had a blue screen right now. Something about a "non_paged....".
Click to expand...
Try and reset your CMOS and see if that helps. If you start getting more random bluescreens think it might be your mobo
 
Could be the board as mentoned, or perhaps your memory, try running memtest on the ram sticks to check theyre ok.
 
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