Q: Ok so I've been wondering about overclocking for a while now so I tried it a little bit the other day. I went into the BIOS and pushed the CPU clock slowly, bit by bit, up to 2.75gHz (from 2.66gHz). Now until I reached this point I had no problems whatsoever and I was thinking "Great! This works fine." But when I reached 2.75gHz my PC started to randomly shutdown and also took ages to start up again on the XP loading page (10+ minutes). I shorted out the C_MOS connection and it worked fine again. So my question is, what went wrong? My setup is as follows: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 motherboard: http://tw.giga-byte.com/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2544 Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66gHz, 2gb DDR2 ram and Gigabyte 8800GT graphics card and 530W PSU. Now I'm pretty sure its not the power because a calculator I used said I was only using 288W for gods sake!! -.- And i dont think its the temperature because at 2.7gHz the processor was running at 55 degress celcius? Help! Cheers
A: Both your motherboard and CPU are very overclockable so i would look to the PSU or the memory. I've had builds that overclocked 25% with a quality power supply fail after putting them in a case that came with a PSU already installed. If the PSU your using came with the case, it's most likely lower end and could cause issues during overclocking. Remember that as you overclock the FSB you are also overclocking the memory. As you raise the FSB to increase your core speed you are dragging the memory along for the ride. The problem is most bargain memory sticks choke at even the slightest overclock. I'd download memtest86+ and test the memory. Memtest86+ is a file to make a bootable cd that runs before windows loads. Test the memory at default or stock speeds. Then lower the cpu multiplier in BIOS and gradually increase the FSB, testing the memory at each increment.If memtest86+ shows errors during an overclock you've found the weak link. Remember to set your cpu multiplier back to default after testing. If it is your memory limiting your overclocking, use a memory divider, that is, lower the memory speed in BIOS. Using a memory divider I have the cpu overclocked 20% on one of my builds with the memory running at it's rated speed. That particular memory would fail if I ran it in synch with the cpu. And to respond to those who say that overclocking will shorten the life of a processor: technically it's true. By overclocking you are shortening the expected life span from 10 years to about 7 years. Think you'll still be using that processor in 7 years?