Game Shut Down and Bad Start Up

[Hidegski]

I recently bought an i5 2500k and ASUS P8P67 LE mobo and was learning to overclock it. For anyone familar with this board, it has the ability to OC through a Auto OC program in the OS which I've learned is the only way it seems to work on this specific model. I let the Auto OC do it's thing for a while and it seemed to safely (prime95 tested) go from 3.3 ghz to 4.4 ghz.

Question is two parts that might explain each other.

1. When playing Rift (it looks great) I occasionally have my Win7 stop the game with a message that basically says "the program has ended unexpectedly" and then I get the option to either close it, or restart. When I click restart, the game restarts really fast I'm right back where I was in the game in about 15 seconds. It happened maybe 5 times in 3 hours. Annoying.

Is this an OC mobo thing, maybe I tweaked the graphics card to high, or maybe internet cutoff. If it was an OC related issue I would think it would have shut the whole PC down?

After this issue persisted, I manually turned the OC down to 4.2 to see if it would be more stable. Still happened and then I had to quit for the night. Since then I haven’t had time to dedicate to playing, but now when I just turn it on, it takes like 10 minutes on the ASUS boot screen before OS will run. This morning I turned it on, and my comp turned itself on and off 3 times before it decided spend 10+ minutes on the ASUS boot screen and then I had to leave for work.

I’m a total OC noob, so anyone’s thoughts and/or solutions are appreciated.

 

[T_T]

We all have to start somewhere, so don't worry about being new to OC. The biggest problem with using auto OC features is that you're not in control, and the settings that the auto OC uses may not necessarily be compatible with your hardware (unlikely, but possible).

Download and install CPU-Z, speedfan, and HW Monitor. Use CPU-Z to find out what the auto OC set your RAM to, as this may be the reason for the game crashing. Use Speedfan to check your temps, and to control your fan speeds, if need be. HW Monitor is similar to Speedfan, but no manipulation of fan speeds; it's often more reliable with temp readings, and offers a second opinion to Speedfan.

Since you were able to manually downclock to 4.2, you should also manually set your RAM to the specs printed on the packaging it came in, which is also the same specs that are on the sticker affixed to the side of the RAM module. Once you've done this, test for stability with Prime95 on "Blend".

 

[Hidegski]

I didn't get a chance yesteray to do all that stuff you mentioned, but when I turned it on (same issue). I got into the bios and I noticed that the bios didn't change the ratio, it was still showing 44. It appears that the OS bios and the mobo bios do not sync up. Could that be right. Once I changed the bios ration to 42, it started up no prob. I didn't have time to play but I did one prime95 stress test and it seemed to go longer, although all but 1 worker out of 4 shut down after about 20 minutes of running so appearently I have more tweaking to do. I'll do that RAM reset today and see if that fixes everything. I just hope I don't have to swith everything in the bios and the OS bios when I tweak everything. That would really annoying.

 

[T_T]

Specifically for the problems you've experienced is why the preferred method of overclocking is to adjust the the settings in the BIOS, as opposed to using a GUI. Using Windows-based software (GUI) can cause serious problems that, as you've just realized, require you to get into the BIOS to fix; which kind of defeats the purpose of having did an OC via a GUI.

 

[Hidegski]

What sucks is I was told you can't change something important to OCing (can't remember what exactly) in the Bios with my version of the board (LE). You can only change it on the GUI. For that reason I already emailed the saleman to see if I can take this one in and upgrade to the Pro version that has mucho less problems apparently and better OC bios features.

I'll let you know how it goes. Big thanks for the help thus far.

 

[wolfram23]

Here's a really easy test: uninstall the auto oc program and reset the bios to defaults. Set the RAM to the manufacturer rated speeds and then give rift a try.

Although, if you're failing Prime after 20 minutes you're definitely not stable. Keep in mind 4.4ghz is a high OC, even if the 2500k is able to do it, it can take time to get it set properly.

IMO, go back down to maybe 4ghz and manually increase the voltage in small increments until you pass the stress tests. Intel Burn Test is nice because it's a lot faster. Either do ~20 passes at standard stress or 10 at high stress, and if it passes all of the runs you should be ok, but it's a very good idea to also do at least several hours of Prime95.

 

[Hidegski]

By "uninstall" Auto OC, do you mean to set it back to it's default settings, or actually find the whole program that runs the OC functions in OS? You guys know more than me, but I don't know if that's a program you would want to remove. It has a lot of other funtions outside OCing. Is that safe?

 

[wolfram23]

Yeah I'm running an Asus P7P55D Pro mobo, I've tried all their little programs. They're not that great, certainly not as good as old fashioned BIOS tweaking. My guess is you're using that Turbo V program?

Anyway, yeah it's perfectly safe to uninstall. You definitely don't need most of the stuff they put on their little utilities CD that comes with the mobo. However, if it has an option to disable it, that should work too - assuming it has some other function you think you need.

 

[Hidegski]

I like the temps and cpu readings, but that's about it and I can find that else where.

The first time I OC'd I did the Auto Tune OC, but after all said and done I was unstable. I used Turbo V to knock the multiplier down from 44 to 42 and I changed the memory back to 1333 in bios (Auto took it to like 1886 I think). After that I was stable on Prime95 for like 7 hours.

HOWEVER, to get there, I not only had to change the multiplier in the OS Turbo V program, I had to do it in bios TOO or I was having issues. Once they were sync'd I was fine. The OS change didn't effect Bios I guess. Might work if I just do Bios first though.

That's the main reason I'm afraid to uninstall, but, I guess I can always reinstall if it doesn't work..... I hope.

 

[Hidegski]

Best answer selected by Hidegski.