Overclock Ruined my PC?

Beeralbion · 9 Aug 2006 at 09:53

Hello,

Lastnight I decided to fiddle with my BIOS and I found a little setting that allowed me to auto-overclock my CPU.

I set it to be overclocked by 10% (It gave me options for 3%, 5%, 10%). Everything ran fine and the temps were only marginally higher than normal. After a few mins the pc locked up for a couple of seconds so I rebooted and reset the overclock to 'Standard' i.e. no overclock.

However...

After the POST section where usually I expect to see the Windows XP logo with the little blue/green bar swishing along I get nothing but a black screen.

Nothing happens after that at all.

Have I managed to break something??? Can this be worked around???

System Spec:

Asus A8V Deluxe
A64 3000+
1Gb Corsair XMS
6800GT

Any help greatly appreciated.

Rob43 · 9 Aug 2006 at 10:11

If you can get into the bios,load your default settings & reboot,if not

Pull the cmos battery,leave it out for a minute,stick it back in,then reboot.Should get you back into the bios, it will reset everything to default

Better learning to overclock yourself,rather than using auto overclock settings in the bios mate.That way you know what the setting are,rather than this type of thing happening

Rob

AFK_Matrix · 9 Aug 2006 at 10:14

Have you tried to clear your CMOS? There should be a jumper on the motherboard to do this, that will then set your BIOS to its defualt settings. Make sure you have the PC turned off before doing this though. Look in your motherboard manual as it should have instructions on what to do.

Beeralbion · 9 Aug 2006 at 10:14

Yeah I thought I would do it quickly as I saw the option. Didn't realise it had the potential to lock me out of the computer altogether!

Will try the BIOS battery when I get home from work. Thanks for the tip, hopefully it will work.

Kinda put me off OC'ing altogether now though

The Asgard · 9 Aug 2006 at 10:18

Turned Off means unplugged from the mains. If your PC is still plugged in the cmos will be retained even without a battery.

I know you said this AFK_Matrix just thought I would be a bit clearer.

Johny Boy · 9 Aug 2006 at 10:38

Look in your manual for the cmos jumer, remove it for few second or move it on to thrird pin if it's that sort.

Put it back boot up and your pc will back to default settings, don't worry its normal and not a problem.

What did you expect to happen when you pushed it to far of course it won't boot.

Reset your cmos and start again.

nO}{8 · 9 Aug 2006 at 17:15

your hard drive could have been corrupted, which means a complete format :eek:

Mattus · 9 Aug 2006 at 23:50

nO}{8 said:
your hard drive could have been corrupted, which means a complete format

It would be damn bad luck on his first OC though. I've never corrupted an HD through overclocking despite doing several suicidal OCs. With locked PCI buses and SATA drives it tends not to happen often any more!

I'm betting it'll be fine after a CMOS reset. Don't let it put you off overclocking! As has been said, do some reading around until you understand what the manual overclocking options are doing. You're more likely to succeed than you are using the auto OC. Those things are a good idea but generally they don't work very well.

Justintime · 10 Aug 2006 at 00:12

Overclocked/unvolted/too tightly timed memory can blow a windows installation to shreds.

Joe42 · 10 Aug 2006 at 00:21

My first oc corrupted my disk. It happens.

Setting the auto overclocking isn't overclocking, its letting the bios overclock and in many cases the bios isn't very good at it. Set it to stock and let one of us guide you through how to do it properly. Don't let this put you off, just make sure you know what your doing.

A corrupted harddisk never stopped me

Hopefully yours isn't corrupted.

In my case it was a board with no locks, hence an overclocked ide bus. Now that really does kill a windows installation.

Beeralbion · 10 Aug 2006 at 11:00

Well I managed to get the BIOS battery out lastnight. Left it out for an hour before replacing it. unfortunately it made no difference. Tried to find a jumper to reset the CMOS but didnt have a spare one. I think I have one in the mobo box but that is in the loft at the mo! Will get it down later tonight and try again.

If this makes no difference then I guess I will give it a format (I only just formatted so the drives contain nothing of any use which is fortunate!)

AFK_Matrix · 10 Aug 2006 at 11:09

I assume that you did unplug the computer power lead when you yanked the battery out yes?

Beeralbion · 10 Aug 2006 at 11:17

Yep, It was completely disconnected from the main power as I had to move it out into my room to get into it.

Forgot to mention that I have 2x Raptors in RAID 0. I wonder if they have got completely borked by the problem? If it can possibly corrupt a HD then i'm guessing that it isnt going to get on too well with a RAID setup!!!?

hp7909 · 10 Aug 2006 at 11:31

Beeralbion said:
{snip}Asus A8V Deluxe{snip}

Finally changed from that mobo to ASRock's 939Dual-SATA2. You see the A8V DELUXE was the bad revision 1.0, i.e. it did not have any AGP/PCI lock :eek:

I learnt that (almost) the hard way after overclocked the system too much (FSB 214MHz

). PC booted, but threw up a lot of grabage when detecting HD's (SATA & IDE). What I did is cleared the CMOS, like suggested, & worked. But on 1 occassion had to restore the Windows partition from a backup. Gave up trying to Overclock the board from there on. Apart from that great board nevertheless!

But what do you mean by 'Tried to find a jumper'? It SHOULD always be there :confused:

Anyway, seek the manual (PDF here) :cool:

trojan698 · 10 Aug 2006 at 12:34

Sounds like the oc has corrupted windows. If you're going to overclock, you're best doing it manually using bios settings as opposed to using software.

hp7909 · 10 Aug 2006 at 12:39

trojan698 said:
Sounds like the oc has corrupted windows. If you're going to overclock, you're best doing it manually using bios settings as opposed to using software.

True, but the A8V Deluxe without AGP/PCI lock the problem will still be there. So not worth really attempting any OC

trojan698 · 10 Aug 2006 at 12:52

Ah, missed that bit, just a general rule though! :cool:

SkeeterUK · 10 Aug 2006 at 13:33

To reset the bios i usually just make sure power is off for computer, then hold down delete key under the insert key and whilst held i power the computer on and while delete is still held down still the bios should reset itself and come on.

El Jimben · 10 Aug 2006 at 21:26

Think I corrupted my windows boot partition earlier coz I upped the CPU frequency by 9 i.e. 10x9

That's what you get for being impatient! Am I right in thinking newer mobos have the pci/pci-e/HD speeds locked by default or is it something you have to set in the BIOS?

Beeralbion · 10 Aug 2006 at 21:59

Well resetting the CMOS using the jumper (which indeed was on the switch after all - it was late and I didn't have a torch hehe) nothing had changed.

So here I am with a fresh install of XP!

Thanks for your help guys, a wealth of knowledge here!

Think i'm going to upgrade soon and get myself a decent board so I can finally dabble with overclocking! (more re-installs to come...)