All of a sudden I can't get OC to work. HELP!

[jpar63]

Hi, I am having a strange problem with my rig. For ages I have been running my E8500 @ 3.8GHz with no problems what so ever. Just the other day my system froze and when I went to reboot I would get POST but fail to load Vista 64. The only change I have made to my system is the addition of an Asus Xonar D2 sound card. I don't think that would be the cause, since it works just fine when I set my timings and volts back to stock (which is perfectly stable). Here are my specs: As I said CPU is C2D E8500 3.16GHZ stock, MoBo-Asus P5N-D, 2 GPU's Evga 9800GTX+ in SLI, 4G of Mushkin Enhanced ram @ 800MHz, PC&P Silencer 750watt power supply, Sound card-Asus Xonar D2. That said my OC settings were: CPU @ 3.8GHZ, Memory unlinked @800MHZ with a 1:1 ratio with FSB @1600MHz. CPU voltage- 1.325, Mem voltage- 1.91, NB&HT-1.44v, SB- 1.52v. Like I said I was stable for the past year, now I get random freezes at the speeds/voltages. Is it possible that with the addition of the sound card I have to up the NB voltage? Could my CPU be dying? MoBo on it's way out? PSU dying? Who knows! I have tried flashing my bios (same version 1101) incase of corruption, that didn't help. Any help would be appreciated. It is just really strange that suddenly OC'ing my rig causes freezes.

 

[dokk2]

Hmmm,wil system o'clock without the sound card.might have to try different order to get the same results..

 

[jpar63]

It was actually working fine for two weeks or so after I installed the sound card. The other day I went to scan a doccument with the printer and the system froze. I have since uninstalled the printer. This just seems strange cuz it was such a sudden thing. Now, I can't even load a game or even open up internet explorer (That is if I can get it to boot) without it freezing.

 

[djvibes2007]

"For ages I have been running my E8500 @ 3.8GHz with no problems what so ever"

...how long is ages? if your talking a couple of years or so depending on how much you have flogged the cpu, it is possible that you have suffered some voltage migration or whatever the proper name is called - basically the cpu begins to need more voltage to sustain the same overclock.

 

[jpar63]

Maybe "ages" was the wrong word, just feels like that. I had been running @ 3.8GHz for about 8-9mos. During that period the system was 100% stable, passed memtest, prime95 and Intel burn test all for hours on end. I was also able to game indefinately (CoD4, CoD5, FarCry2, Crysis) without any crashes or lockups at all. I have tried a slight uptick in my CPU voltage, it didn't help. I am building a new rig soon so maybe I will bite the bullet and throw more volts at the CPU and see if that helps. This MoBo is crap in regards to voltage droop, when the Vcore is set @ 1.325 in BIOS, I get CPUz reporting 1.28. May try pencil-mod if I stop being lazy and feel like taking the MoBo out of the case.

 

[jpar63]

SOLVED. I increased the FSB to 1680MHz and lowered the multiplier to 9, which gave me a core clock of 3.78MHz with memory @820MHz and I AM NOW TOTALLY STABLE. Strange how this happened a of a sudden, maybe adding the sound card did create "holes" in the OC values of my FSB. Anyhow, problem solved, at least for now. Gota stress the system for a while with Prime95 just to verify stability, my guess is it will be fine.