Did I just total my comp?

I

IInfernogd

n00b
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
28
I seem to be on a roll tonight with trying my hardest to destroy this machine before I even get off the ground lol.

Hardware:
Motherboard: MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI
Chip: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
Memory: G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)
Power: Antec TPQ-850 ATX12V / EPS12V 850W Power Supply
Graphics: GF 8800GT Extreme 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported ) (x2 for SLI)

System Specs In Bios:
Cpu Freq - Default: 2414MHz Current: 2414MHz
FSB Freq - Default: 1067MHz Current: 1067 (on auto mode in bios)
DRAM Freq - Default: 800Mhz Current: 800MHz
CPU Ratio - Default: 9x Current: 9x
PCI-E Freq - Default: 100 Current: 100
CPU Voltage - Default: 0.0000V Current: 1.18 (I Think, not really sure why default is at 0v is this a problem?)
Memory Voltage - Default: 1.5 Current: 2.0
NB Voltage - Default: 1.25v Current: 1.3v
SB Voltage - Default: 1.5 Current: 1.5
FSB VTT Voltage - Default: 0% Current: 0%

Memory Timings: 5-5-5-5-15 I believe Factory Default if I recall. (Haven't Modified it)
Recomended Voltage for Memory: 2.0v
Dual Channel mode at the moment.

Bios Ver: 1.5

**Running SLI currenty and Graphics card is claiming to be receiving low power, even though I have proper PCI-E power connectors to each card. Didn't seem to have this issue before tryung to overclock and crashing**
**Looking at newegg reviews shows PSU may have a firmware issue with my cards, aside from ordering a different PSU or Sending mine back for a fixed version is there a solution for this? Or is this PSU just a pain in the rear and I should just grab a new one heh?**

The situation:
I start following the overclocking guide step by step being careful to baby (5 FSB at a time and about 1 - 2 minutes inbetween) step my way up. My system is running great! I'm up to 300 FSB and running peachy perfect, no spikes no issues. I've upped my Vcore up to 1.3v just to be safe so I can baby step it down later to find an ideal stability while running cool.

I baby step my way up to 320 FSB...works great and I sit there for a bit to check the system out to see if anything looks off. It runs for a good 20 min or so and I'm just running a few tests while browsing the net and downloading a game demo that I wanted to test my new machine out. then I clock up to 325 FSB then Boom I get a BSoD. (System unstable and shutting down for safety)
So I figure crap... maybe I had the voltage wrong or I didn't follow some step properly and will need to just double check things.

Btw: I'm at 9x as the multiplier on a 2.4ghz machine, with the current overclock I was up to around 2.89 to 2.9 ghz. Everything looks flawless and so I decide to shoot for the goal of 3.0 GHZ and call it good. All my core's are down at 29 Degree's Celsius which is quite cool. (granted I wasn't under heavy load)

I start booting and everything is going normal, I get through the Windows XP is loading screen and am heading towards the user log in screen when my system makes a little "click" sound and restarts.
Now I'm concerned that I've fried something important, and so I check to make sure that it's not the Ram just incase. As well as check the bios to make sure the system settings are back to a normal non-overclocked state.

Things I tried to solve the problem with:
After trying both of my sticks of Ram neither seem to be helping/hurting the problem, so I let the system reboot one more time and amazingly I make it to the user log in screen. Thinking that the Ram wasn't the problem I stuck the other stick in and booted up again... no dice, so I take the stick out again and boot up. Still no dice... now I'm unable to get back to the user log in screen.

After screwing around with bios settings to try and pump some extra power into the Vcore just back up to the 1.3v range... I finally get back into windows. So I log in and check it out and the whole thing loads fine so thinking it may have been the voltage I reboot once again and stick the ram back in. No dice once again I just sit there restarting after the windows loading bar goes away and my mouse becomes active, then just before the user screen loads... restart.

I pull the ram back out again with the stick that seems to be working still in and reboot, still no luck and the endless restarts continue. After letting it sit for a bit while I think, I start the comp back up and it still seems bugged out, then randomly windows loads and I'm able to log in and post this message.

The only indicators I can really give as to what may be the problem is that just as I'm about to load the user login window. When it fails and restarts my harddrive sounds like it makes a "Click" sound (At least I think its the HD, I can't be too sure).

The only other thing that has happened is this last log in, I got a message from Nvidia while still at the user selection window saying the PCI-E device (My video card) is not receiving enough power and is limiting its performance.

I did not recieve this message while my computer was working fine, so I have no clue what the deal is.

Weirdness:
Why am I able to "sometimes" get into windows... if my system was totally wasted (At least hardware concerned) I would think I wouldn't be able to even get to the point of windows attempting to load at all. Let alone actually get into windows fully at some point.
It almost seems like my HD got corrupted or something? I didn't even think a minor overclock could trash a harddrive lol.
I know the post is massive, sorry but I'm trying to give you all the details possible. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Additional bad news, with the "reduced performance out of my SLI video cards I can't even really run a game effectively. I got pretty sad FPS out of a dated game, worse then my fps when on my old comp. This also wasn't the case a few hours ago when I was testing it out, I had a flawless performance out of the cards, so I'm not blaming the cards, I think whatever I did in the overclocking earlier has potentially thrashed their power supply or possibly damaged the cards as well.... this is crazy how 1 crash resulted in so many possibly broken things. (I know this isn't uncommon when dealing with electronics but ouch)

Thanks for your time.
 
I think people are going to be interested in what your system specs are along with voltages, ram divider, and timings. As a complete shot in the dark I am going to say that you need to give a little bit more power to your RAM or NB. Is the RAM already at 2.1V and what is it rated for?

Just to ease the tension a little bit, it doesn't sound like you've done permanent damage to anything as I'm sure all of us have ran across similar situations while trying to find stability. I wish I could be of more help at this time but I can not. This is the right place though as there are many knowledgeable people here, much more so than I am.
 
Possibly 2 problems now.
It looks like you have a PSU problem which is not allowing the gfx card to run and has caused a crash that damaged data on the hard drive or is causing the hard disk to not get enough power to run properly.
Try another PSU that is known to be able to support your hardware and is working well.

Hopefully there is no hard disk corruption, but the click noise I would be worried about.
If the click doesnt occur again with a different PSU, you have been lucky.

FYI:
I hosed my Sisters PC's I am building by overclocking it too far.
The hard disk corrupted so badly, Vista didnt know what to do with it.
Had to start afresh after a long days slog installing and tweaking it, doh!
 
The HD parks when the system fails. That is why you hear a click. Mine does this too (wait, did I just admit my system crashes? XD)

I highly doubt this is a PSU issue. PSU's either work, don't work, or fail fantastically.

What's your RAM settings? This seems like a RAM issue to me.

Make sure you set your PCIe speed to 101mhz. This clears up a lot of GPU problems (like, low performance).
 
I just updatted the post with a bunch more details on the timings, voltage settings, the hardware I'm using that seemed relevant to post, and as much info as I could looking at the bios.

Thanks for the replies so far! I'm thinking I probably have either a simple bios fix... or one of the 2 - 3 other problems mentioned so far. I worry about the HD because this comp has been a pain in the rear to get running, for some reason the thing won't read the windows boot CD's I have. It claims it can't read it or I have the wrong disk ( I have 3 copies for XP lol all 3 are not likely damaged so it's probably a driver issue or something) but alas thats a whole other problem to work on if my current HD is corrupted =/.

Heres to hoping I don't have 2 useless vid cards from either a PSU issue or something going haywire from that crash lol.
 
Heh... so I stuck both sticks of ram in, set the NB voltage to 1.35v and changed the PCI-e to 101 and booted up. Now either I just happened to get lucky and got through to windows. Checked everything out again and it all seemed stable, I waited around to see if I got the message about insufficient power supply. Didn't happen and so I'm sitting here dazed and confused.

To stress test the system in its non-OC'd state I loaded up crysis demo and ran around for a good hour with the settings on high, high AA, loaded up fast and maintained a solid 60 fps with a few slowdowns to around 40ish fps. Right after I got out of the game I checked my core temps, and graphics card temps.

Core temps:
22°C
24°C
19°C
26°C

The Graphics cards:
43°C (Idle temp is normally 35-39°C)
45°C (Idle temp is normally 36-39°C)

Those numbers seem way way low for air cooled, but the system seems very stable while up. Now the big test will be when I have to reboot and we'll see if I can get back into windows lol.

This has to be a bios setting that I have wrong as for why the reboot repeatidly thing, like a low voltage somewhere. I could be wrong though, but I'm guessing that increasing the NB voltage probably helped.
 
Sorry to bump, but I didn't want to make a whole new thread to try and get a question answered. I'm still getting the endless restarts issue right now, even after getting 3-4 successful boots and reboots in a row.

So I upped my Vcore voltage to 1.35, my Ram voltage to 2.1 and the PCI-e is still at 101. Still having issues with booting even with the increased volts, so I have started to contemplate upping my Ram to a Freq that is above it's stock 800MHz.

People on the newegg reviews were saying it was running stable at 1066 @ 2.1v 5 5 5 15 2T. So I was thinking of seeing if this may resolve some of my problem by going to 1000 @ 2.1v 5 5 5 15 2T. Which is actually its "rated" setting, it just comes at a factory default of 800MHz (or my bios set it that way).

As it stands right now, all of my clock settings and such for the Dram and the cpu Frequency are set in auto mode (essentially to my understanding a 1:1 ratio) which may be causing the memory to under perform and lose stability.

Your thoughts?

Model
Brand G.SKILL
Model F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ
Type 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM

Tech Spec
Capacity 4GB(2 x 2GB)
Speed DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)
Cas Latency 5
Timing 5-5-5-15
Voltage 2.0V - 2.1V
Heat Spreader Yes
 
I think you should do a FULL CMOS clear and see if you're stable again. You must have changed SOME setting in the BIOS that screwed you up. Then we can go at it from the start.

My MSN address is in my profile, feel free to add me if you want to start over.
 
Arcygenical said:
I think you should do a FULL CMOS clear...
Click to expand...

Agreed. Do you have any extra ddr2 ram around? I've run into similar problems and only ever solve them by slowly eliminating possibilities by swapping out one component at a time ie. ram, psu, mb etc.
Its hard to fathom that brand new top end gear might not work out of the gate, beware of denial. Good luck keep us posted.
 
Well so far I've managed to get a decently stable amount of boot ups (about a 8 out of 10 chance I'll get into windows) so at the moment I'm working on getting all the proper drivers in right now in the hopes of slowly eliminating those "brand new system" quirks.

I've kept my Vcore voltage at at 1.35v as well as upped the memory to 1000MHz with a 5-5-5-15 timing on it and upped it to 2.1v which is the max it's rated for. (between 2.0 and 2.1v). After making sure everything has at least a good amount of voltage with out really pumping it up it seems to have given me a more stable boot.

So for the time being I'm going to keep trying to tweak it and see how it goes, as for overclocking... I'm not so sure I'll venture down that path just yet till I see how the comp pan's out for a week or so.

No use going to all the hustle and bustle to have the thing die on me any ways and think that it was my fault. :p

I have taken down you're Nick for the messenger and if I run into a problem I'll be sure to send a hello your way. Thanks for all the replies and the offers for help, I'll keep at it so hopefully I don't have to bother any one. =)

Happy Holidays and hope everyone enjoys their time off!
 
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