PC UNDERclocking

[bhowell]

Outside of a performance decrease, can you think of any negative effects to setting BIOS settings for CPU, memory, PCIe, and other devices to lower or lowest settings? I am having constant lockups with my current setup and setting memory and CPU settings to their manf settings aren't working. Thought about starting from the bottom and working my way up.

 

[antiacid]

If you have trouble with your current setup, you should try to swap parts because it might be a defective component. If you run everything at the manufacturer's rated speeds, you should not be breaking any warranties and therefore get your faulty component RMA'ed for very little (shipping costs one way usually).

 

[bhowell]

Unfortunately that won't be possible. I don't have any parts that will work in this machine. Previous PC is 3 years old. Only thing I could put in new PC from the old is HDD. I would be putting in an IDE whereas new one uses SATA.

Old machine has AGP card..new one can only use PCIe.

Old PC has PC2700 memory, new one only uses DDR2 800.

etc, etc

I have another post in New PC Builds called Looking for ideas that I have been working out of as well.

 

[antiacid]

Most likely cause of lockups would be:
1- ram
2- psu
3- drivers/os install

so try memtest86+ with your computer. If that doesn't solve it, take the PSU to a computer shop and ask them to test it. They'll take a small dongle which plugs in and if red lights pop up, you found the culprit. If that's still not saved, you can try reinstalling windows and seeing how that goes or if you can replicate the program who'd cause the crashes.

 

[bhowell]

I have definately did the reinstall windows thing....roughly 10x since Jan 16. Both Vista and XP. Right now I am trying a different drive and 3 of 4 2g memory sticks removed. Will see what happens from there.

 

[Cache]

One simple task you might want to consider is simply reseating all the items in the case. After years of use, being bumped (moved at all?), etc. it's very easy for things to gently slip ever so slightly out of place. Before trying to swap out parts or track down esoteric BIOS functions, just try making sure everything is set physically.

As for underclocking in general, I currently undervolt my system just because I'm a sadist who likes to see how low I can go before the system chokes up. It won't harm anything (if anything it helps reduce heat), and it's easily done. In your case, though, if you are overclocking at all, go ahead and move things to their stock speeds and settings after ensuring all the parts are properly mounted/secured. If it runs fine at stock, then bump back up until you see a return of the problems.

Ultimately, if neither of those is the problem, then you're stuck tracking down physical wear and tear problems. I had a problem recently with lockups on my 4-year olds computer--and after close physical inspection found a capacitor with some nasty residue on it. Over time everything breaks down, unfortunately. Hopefully your problem is better solved than replacing a major component.

 

[bhowell]

The problem in this case isn't one of wear and tear or overclocking. I built this computer on paper in Feb of 06 and bought a piece or two at a time until I had a complete system 6 days ago. The system hasn't been put together until 6 days ago. I don't overclock either..1.) can't afford to blow a part due to a mistake and be without the system for an undetermined amount of time until I can get a replacement piece...and 2.)while my technical abilities are pretty good, my overclocking experience is nil.

I have ruled out the memory and Raptor drive being the issue so far. Going to try just using Vista or XP 32 and see if that does anything. If not, will try to borrow a PCIe video card from a friend and see what that does.