Boot problems

Palatzo

New Member
Interesting problem here. After a little fiddling with overclocking, i got my XP 3000+ stable at 2.6Ghz, until i tried to restart again.
The first time I rebooted, it was fine. How else would I be able to say it ran stable? But the second time I rebooted, it wouldn't post. So I reset the CMOS, thinking all was well and I would just step it back a bit. That failed to work. I then took out the CMOS battery, just to be sure the CMOS was being cleared. Didn't work. I am a very stubborn guy, and refused to accept I had killed a chip. I continued to unplug the comp for 30 or so seconds, plug it back in, and try again. After about 10 minutes of this, it suddenly booted!. I went to enter the bios, since default settings leave it at 100 fsb and i want 166 to run at stock. Set it t 166, save and exit, then once again, it would not boot.
I figured then I had damaged the cpu, not killed it. So I once again unplugged the comp and let it sit for 30 seconds (when I got it to boot I never had a chance to put the battery back in). Tried to power up again, no go. After doing this same thg for a little while, I got it to boot again.
This time, thinking maybe it would run stable but would not boot for some reason, I figured I would change the fsb back to 166 with MSI Core Center. That failed, as i slowly kicked the fsb up, Core Center crashed at 120. I then tried Speedfan, and my system rebooted at 140.
So here I go again, unplugging it, waiting, plugging it back in, and hoping it will boot this time. After a few minutes, it decided to boot. I gave it one more shot in the BIOS. Somehow, it worked. I am sitting here now, with this computer that I think I may have damaged the cpu, and it's running with 166 Mhz FSB.
Now, for the question... does anyone have any idea what went wrong here, why it only sporadically works, and how I can fix it (without replacing the cpu, i just did that a few weeks ago).
 
Seems more than likely to be a PSU problem, although the timing (right after an overclock) seems odd. Make sure it's not just overheating.
 
also when you clear the c-mos make sure you leave the battery out for 10 secs with the jumper switched to clear c-mos....Ok , is it working fine right now? sounds like the proc isn't getting enough voltage or something, try to set the v-core back to stock, after you cleared the c-mos it might of messed it up...
 
try stripping everything out, seating the proc. Take out all unessessary components, strip down to 1 ram stick. and see if you can post regularly
 
Vcore is 1.62-1.69, same as it was before the overclock. Temps are pretty good, cpu at 30c, and of course thats the hottest thing in speedfan...
It may be the psu, ill try a different one when I get out of work. This psu was awefully cheap (came with the case, cant be worth more than 10 bucks) but the voltages have been surprisingly stable. I'll throw a real good psu in it when I get home, see if that does the trick.
 
I had a very similar thing happen with my other MSI board though. I oc'ed a 1600+ to 2.0, and it ran perfect for a couple days. I didn't even have to bump up the voltage, it was the nicest OC i've done. Then, after about 3 days, it suddenly stopped working. The board died. I cleared the CMOS, I used different parts, I could do nothing to get it to post.
That board was a MSI K7N2 Delta 2. The one I have now is a MSI K7N2 Delta 2 Platinum. With such similar problems, makes me wonder if its the board... I was always under the impression OCing wouldnt kill your board, and you could only kill your cpu if you threw the voltage way too high. I know m ram is good, I had se my CPU:DRAM ratio to 1:1 (instead of 5:6) so I knew I could get the fsb to 200 without having any problems with my ram, since it would then just be running stock.
Also, keep in mind, during this OC, I didn't change the vcore. I tend to have luck on getting decent OCs at stock voltage (I'd consider a 450MHz OC decent, I'm not really into it that much, I;m using stock cooling, and corsair Valueselect ram.).
 
Hmm, I was thinking. About a week ago I kinda flipped while doing a case mod (things kept on breaking, after 3 hours of working on it I snapped). I ripped the door of my case. It had a molex connector attatched to one of my hdds and the hdd cooler. It broke the female connector on my hdd. It still works, but the plastic part that holds everything in place snapped off. Could that possibly be doing it? The drive works fine. I'd hate to have to buy a new drive over that.
 
Odd. It is now working perfectly fine. i couldnt get it to 2.6 this time, but I got 2.4. Only a 250Mhz OC, pretty dissappointed.
What else should I get to get a good OC on this? The ram is running slower than stock (there was no cpu ram ratio that would have my ram running higher than 185, but lower than 210). I thought my MSI board was good for overclocking, since it has the Nforce chipset, and I figured the cpu ram ratio was all Id need to get past any problems with my ram holding me back. I don't think I've reached the limit for this cpu, but I'm not comfortable messing with the vcore unless I am sure it will work. What would be a good boost in the vcore that wont damage the cpu?
 
being able to boot does not mean it's stable
I'll agree with that.
I'm also back to running stock. A heatwave passed thru, with my ambient temp at about 45c, I didn't feel comfortable putting any additional stress on that stock cooler. I was idleing at 58c!
 
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