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I've got an overclocked system that seems to be misbehaving.

When trying to boot up from cold the system just hangs and nothing is output to the screen. Fans are on as they should but nothing happens to finish the boot. From here I have to switch it off then on again and the boot completes.

If I go into the tweak menu in the BIOS I'm informed that a boot has failed

I've been in touch with Overclockers UK support a bit and theres not yet been a solution. We've mainly been tweaking the voltage for the CPU.

Any suggestions?

I'm new to Overclocking which is why I got a bundle with OCUK. With this issue happening on Cold Boot too its tricky to test as I have to make a change then wait till the next day.

My system is here:

Intel Core i7 930 2.80Ghz overclocked to 4GHz Gigabyte X58A-UD3R (BIOS Version: FC) 6GB RAM Power Supply - CoolerMaster Silent Pro M series 700W

Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor-X 1GB Graphics card

1TB Hitachi HDD 720GB Seagate Barracuda HDD 350GB Seagate Barracuda HDD EMu 0404 PCI Soundcard

D-Link PCI-E wireless card Samsung DVD RW drive

One suggestion made by OCUK was that maybe its the power supply but I'm not sure and dont have a spare - it's brand new and a pretty expensive piece of kit. Any thoughts on this? Other recomendations for Power?

thanks

Ben

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4 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

I'm a heavy overclocker with a watercooled machine that was built myself, so I may be able to help. :)

First, Did you try resetting to failsafe settings to determine if it's the overclocking causing the issue?

If not; How many video cards do you have? What kind? What voltages did you use? What multiplier?

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I've got one video card, I've updated the system info above to include that. Will check voltages etc soon as i can. How do I find the Multiplier? – benwebdev Jan 3 '11 at 14:36
The issue is definately with the overclocking as it boots without the overclock. I have just one video card, a Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor-X 1GB Graphics card. Not sure of the voltage but it is in a pct slot and is wired in with a 6pin PCI power cable from the power supply. – benwebdev Jan 5 '11 at 20:20
How did you overclock it if you didn't change the voltages? – hyperperforator Jan 6 '11 at 8:08
The videocard isnt whats overclocked. – benwebdev Jan 6 '11 at 17:16
voltage info CPU Voltage: 1.31250V DRAM Voltage: 1.66V RAM Frequency: 1066.34 MHz - this is with 6.144 GB Memory CPU is running at a temperature of around 34 degrees C – benwebdev Jan 6 '11 at 17:17
up vote 1 down vote

Overclocking is dangerous for the hardware if you don't know exactly what you are doing.

The i7 already contains a form of overclocking in Turbo Boost that can usually net you additional 11 percent CPU power.

Is it worth the risk to gain an additional several paltry percents ?

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3  
Overclocking is almost always done because it can be done. Real performance gain is secondary. – abel Jan 3 '11 at 13:55
1  
"Because it's there" by George Mallory ? Without being flamed to a toast, I do consider the i7 to be a rather too costly and nice piece of hardware to burn-out. – harrymc Jan 3 '11 at 14:05
Nice one. "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?" "Because it's there" – abel Jan 3 '11 at 14:32
up vote 1 down vote

Latest: following advice from the supplier I've now upped the VCore voltage to 1.35V but still nothing just more failed cold boots. I've spoken to the supplier and asked they take everything back to be replaced. ridiculous

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"I increased the load my pony had to carry by 150kg and now the pony stops pulling the cart more frequently." – ta.speot.is Jan 14 '11 at 12:01
exactly. I'm getting nothing but rubbish from the supplier, Overclockers UK.We'll see what happens once theyve replaced the bundle – benwebdev Jan 14 '11 at 12:25
up vote 0 down vote

If you overclock a computer, you can expect to have a misbehaving computer. A lot of the time you can overclock a 2.8Ghz chip to 3.0Ghz and it will be fine. But then as you increase the power, and the clock rate increases, the stability of how the chip handles the power and clock speed decreases.

If you have seen someone on the internet say "oh my i7 has been overclocked to 5Ghz" and decides to ramp it up straight away to this, then you will have problems. You should start with incremental steps, starting at 2.85Ghz, then 2.90Ghz (or whatever small increment you can get) and then monitor how the computer handles the increase in speed. Once the computer goes funny, decrease it. Whatever value your left with if is the safest, most stable speed your computer can run at.

I don't overclock computers, I can never see the point in it, so I'm not the authority on this. But I know that it should always be done in small increments. If you continue to push the CPU beyond what it can take (and believe me, if the computer is misbehaving now, take it as a warning it can't take much more) you risk blowing the CPU, Motherboard, causing unseen damage to the RAM which will show itself when you don't expect it (this happened to me the first and only time I overclocked), blowing the hard drives etc etc.

Count yourself lucky enough to afford an Intel i7 processor. I'm still using a single core AMD Athlon 2.2Ghz on my computer at home due to budget restraints. Be happy with what you've got.

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I see your sentiment but the point here is that a specialist provided the bundle of the processor, RAM, motherboard and cooler preoverclocked to 4GHz. I had to return the board to them in december as it had a manufacturing fault.Since then the replacement is not performing as it should. I know these speeds are possible. – benwebdev Jan 14 '11 at 12:43
Is the motherboard an identical swap? – mickburkejnr Jan 14 '11 at 16:29
apparently. its definately not the one i returned to them as the one i returned wouldnt boot full stop - powered on for a few seconds then went into a restart loop. theyve said that its a manufactur fault that had caused a section of it to overheat. i dunno, this all started at the beginning of December and I'm still trying to sort the issue out. – benwebdev Jan 14 '11 at 17:08
Your entitled to a full refund if the product is faulty. If you look up your consumer rights (as it is a UK place) it should say that your entitled to a full refund if it's not replaced within a certain time. Also, the guarantee on the fault product is usually 2 years, but if it's been replaced this goes up to 5 years as long as you have all the original packaging. Bear this in mind for the replacement they send you! – mickburkejnr Jan 17 '11 at 9:06

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