Strange boot error

[Animositisomina]

This might be a long post, so bear with me.

I recently got a new quad core q6600 and Arctic Freezer Pro 7 cooler for it. Decided to try some basic overclocking, since the stock clock is only 2.40ghz. I was able to get up to 3.0ghz by changing QDR to 1333 and DDR to 667. I could boot into Windows (using Win 7 64bit) and do basic things like watch videos on YouTube, browse the web, check e-mail, et cetera. My temps were all fine, in the mid to low 40s. However, when I finally tried to play a game, my PC completely locked up.

So, I decided to scale back the overclocking and tweak it some more. Now, I did run into some apparently bad settings but all I'd have to do is reboot, go back into Setup, restore defaults, and I'd be fine. But this last time, I put in 1300 qdr and 600 ddr. For whatever reason, this setting made it impossible to POST. I'd see the basic BIOS startup screen, then it would just freeze up. Couldn't even get into Setup anymore.

I did some searching online and eventually read that to recover, I'd have to reset CMOS but taking out the battery on the mobo for about 30 seconds, then putting it back in. I did that and everything seemed okay... it was no longer freezing and I could get into Setup. I restored defaults, saved and exited, then started booting into Windows. But, now I'm getting this strange error when I bootup.

I went into Setup again and looked around, and now I'm seeing some troubling voltages. It also says my temps are at 128c, but RealTemp shows everything around 40c. My mobo shows at around 40c in Speccy, and my GPU is around 44c. In other words, the temps all seem fine. But in the BIOS, it shows those way-too-high voltages and temps of 128.

Any idea what's going on? What would cause this, and is there any way to fix it?

Screenshots:

 

[BinarySynapse]

It's not uncommon for BIOS's to be way out in left-field on voltages and temps. Grab a multi-meter and check the 3.3v, 5v, and 12v lines from the power supply to make sure they're right where they need to be (+/- 5%). If they are, then just ignore the BIOS warning.

btw, if you had 16.32v on the 12v line, you'd be seeing quite a bit of smoke.

 

[Animositisomina]

Thankfully, it isn't smoking. I'm not sure how safe it would be to just ignore this, though. I'd rather not have any errors on bootup, especially since I plan on selling that PC. Do you think taking the battery out again for a longer period might help? I had conflicting info about that. Some people said 10-30 seconds, others said 10 minutes, and I saw others still who said 1 hour.

 

[BinarySynapse]

Thankfully, it isn't smoking. I'm not sure how safe it would be to just ignore this, though. I'd rather not have any errors on bootup, especially since I plan on selling that PC. Do you think taking the battery out again for a longer period might help? I had conflicting info about that. Some people said 10-30 seconds, others said 10 minutes, and I saw others still who said 1 hour.

Like I said, use a multi-meter to see what the voltages actually are. If they are within 5% (ATX spec) of their nominal values, they're good. There should actually be a jumper or button on the motherboard that is specifically for resetting the BIOS. I've never had any problems using that. Read the manual to find out the procedure.

 

[Animositisomina]

Like I said, use a multi-meter to see what the voltages actually are. If they are within 5% (ATX spec) of their nominal values, they're good. There should actually be a jumper or button on the motherboard that is specifically for resetting the BIOS. I've never had any problems using that. Read the manual to find out the procedure.

I've never used a multi-meter before. How would I use one to measure the voltages? I'll take a look at the manual to see what it says about resetting the BIOS.

 

[Animositisomina]

Alright, I went ahead and just tried removing the battery again. It seems I just didn't leave it out long enough last time (which was about 30 seconds). This time I left the battery out for around 5 minutes, and this has apparently fixed the issue. I no longer get that error message during bootup and the voltage readings are all normal again.

 

[Nexillus]

Good to hear Glad it all worked out.

 

[Mackintire]

The good news is you seem to be doing the right things.

The bad news is the Q6600 is a hot beast, one of the hottest Intel ever produced.

That CPU can pull massive amounts of current and in response throw off equal amounts of heat. Be careful. I killled mine in less than a year running it at 3Ghz non-stop.


Swapping it out for the QX9650 dropped my electric bill over $10 a month and lowered the upstairs temperature by 4 degrees.


Good luck,

Mackintire

 

[Animositisomina]

The good news is you seem to be doing the right things.

The bad news is the Q6600 is a hot beast, one of the hottest Intel ever produced.

That CPU can pull massive amounts of current and in response throw off equal amounts of heat. Be careful. I killled mine in less than a year running it at 3Ghz non-stop.


Swapping it out for the QX9650 dropped my electric bill over $10 a month and lowered the upstairs temperature by 4 degrees.


Good luck,

Mackintire

Thanks for the advice. Even with the freezer pro, it does seem to run a little hot (around 48c idle, high 50s under load), and that's at stock/default settings. And since I am planning on selling this PC, I've decided to leave everything at stock. No point in risking burning the thing up, ya know?

As for swapping to a QX9650, this mobo (Asus P5N-E) doesn't support it. In fact, it didn't have many options that seemed worthwhile that I could afford. IIRC, the next step up was the Q6700, but it had a major leap in price, so I went with the Q6600.