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Think I screwed up my computer... help!

Last response: in Overclocking
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Okay, I was experimenting in overclocking, I moved the fsb from 133 to 140. Worked fine, got a medium boost. Raised it to 145, temp's 55 C, got a stop error trying to load Windows XP. That's ok, I've got the generic heatsink anyway. Lowered it to 143, got to the log on screen, then crashed. Lowered it to 141, got to the log on screen, clicked on my logon, crashed. Lowered it to 140 again, got to the log on screen, could log in, froze trying to load my personal settings, pressed the reset button, lowered it back to 133, worried that it wasn't working. I logged in OK, but every single one of my personalized settings weren't there. I didn't even have an Internet connection! I was worried. I rebooted, still there. I didn't have a desktop, my user files were still there, but it wasn't accessing them. The oddest thing was, when I tryed to change some of them, they wouldn't change. Other times, it would give me an error. It was in Windows 9x style, but reported Windows XP. I had NO icons in the left-hand side of my start bar, it was almost as if I was in 9x Safe Mode. Some good news, though; I'm typing this from my mother's login, none of the other logins were affected. I created a personal diagnostic user. I could use this, delete my old login, re-create it, but there's alot of settings which I don't want to lose, and don't get me started on all the cookies I'd have to get again. Any help? My comp's stats are:

Athlon XP 1900+
GA-7VRX v. 1.1 (no, haven't had any traditional problems w/ this board)
256 mb of PC2700 ram
Geforce 3 TI 200 128 mb oc'd (that oc'ing went fine)
Sound Blaster Audigy Mp3+
80 gig Maxtor Hard Drive

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Must be because of those damn Canucks.

You should write your congressman and demand the immediate destruction of the People's Republic of Canada in the harshest possible manner.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway

try using the windows XP system restore feature.
you might have a save point that is from before the "incident".
restore the computer to that, and then report back what happens. :) 
almost like saying "take two of these, and report back to me in the morning"

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

Unfourtunetly, I'm green at this, so I did about half-an-hour's last minute specific reaserch on this. Unfoutunetly, all of the overclocking sites forget that newbies might be reading these, and forget the basics. That's one of the reasons I like Tom's; they often give the background and basics in the intro. Anyway, I didn't do a system checkpoint because I didn't think about it, and I thought it did it automaticly. At start up! My computer rebooted about 20 times before I thought of it, and by then, it had erased the old ones to make room for the new ones. ARRGH!! Oh well. I learned a valuable lesson the hard way, and since I could get my computer into Networked safe mode, and I can burn backups from there, all I lose is my computer's sense of virginity. My parents aren't all that mad, their impressed I know what overclocking is! And I get something to do this weekend!

Did I mention I was sick as a dog that day, and I electricuted myself on a faultily wired lamp as well? That wasn't a good day.
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try "boot to last known good configuration"
press F8 when the computer boots, and then select it from the list. that might restore it.
i hope that can fix it.
if not, there SHOULD be a system restore point that you can go back to. like a driver install, or something like that...windows update.
there SHOULD be a restore point you can go back to. if there isnt, then you might have deleted them, or your drive got REALLY messed up when you did that overclock (not the actual drive per-say, but the information on the drive)
sometimes too high of a FSB can screw with the PCI speed, which can screw with the hard drive, and other devices that run on the PCI bus. you gotta watch things when you up the FSB.
but you have learned a good lesson in overclocking from this.
also, next time you attempt an overclock, you might want to get a different heatsink other than the stock one. unless its a P4, then you arent going to have much luck in overclocking.
also, you might want to make sure the ram you are using is of high quality.
and check and see if the cas timings are set to lower values so that the ram will be more stable at higher speeds.

i hope that this situation works out for you...
and when all else fails, there is always the tried and true reinstallation of windows. ;)  but exhaust every possible solution before (just so you can know what to do next time ;) 
GOOD LUCK MAN!


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

Click Help and support in the start menu. Then click "Undo changes to your computer with system restore". Follow the directions.

I'm not really stupid...... I just play one on TV.
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