Too much?

djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
edited December 2009 in Hardware
I have been playing around with overclocking for the past couple of months. I have an E8600 (core 2 duo 3.33Ghz) and have managed to get it up to 4.15Ghz with no problem, via BIOS. Currently running 3.8, i tried to get 3.85 and i got BOOTMGR error on startup. Restarted and i got something like CHECKSUM FILE HEADER error (not sure of exact words). I'm guessing i may have got the voltages wrong, but what causes these errors? Why am i getting these messages, and the inability to boot (we get past POST, but then the error messages start...)?

Comments

  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    Just because the system can POST, does not in any way necessarily make it stable. The symptoms you describe could be caused by an unstable CPU, unstable RAM, unstable northbridge, or any combination of the 3. "Wrong" is not exactly the correct word to use when referring to overclock voltages... you may be able to stabilize a part by giving it a lot of extra voltage, but it may be more wrong to feed the part a ton of extra juice than it is to have the voltage lower.

    Overclocking is a fairly delicate balancing act. You need to do a lot of reading up on it to even begin to understand how everything fits together, especially if you have a good overclocking board (one that offers you control of a lot of the behind-the-scenes settings). Expect to spend a lot of trial-and-error time stabilizing your PC if you want the highest possible speed.
  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    edited August 2009
    Thank you lordbean. I appreciate your input. I understand that overclocking is down to fine tuning, i really just wanted to what it was that caused these error messages.
  • MAGICMAGIC Doot Doot Furniture City, Michigan Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    Well for one thing you're going about it backwards. You need to reset it to stock speeds.

    First things first, what kind of memory do you have? I see you have ddr2 800, but what brand/model?

    Set the memory voltage and timings to the stock settings, back the multiplier down to 6, and start moving the FSB up by 10 at a time. When you get up near ddr2 800 start to run orthos to check for stability. When you reach a speed when you cannot boot into windows, or orthos fails you have either reached the speed limit for your memory or the fsb limit of your mobo at stock voltages.

    WARNING: Increasing voltage to any component beyond the stock specification can damage it. Its up to you to research the limits of your hardware and keep it in a safe range given your cooling solutions.

    From here you can try adding some voltage to the memory, try booting and running orthos again. If it doesnt help back it back down, and try to add some chipset voltage and test again. If either of these options find stability you can try to push it farther but start increasing fsb in increments of 3-5. Keep track of at what fsb you have to add voltage. Test and increase voltage as need, but keep track of your temps on your chipset and memory. When you get to your highest speed you have found your FSB ceiling. I cannot be certain but i imagain with ddr2 800, your memory will be stoping you.

    Now, set the FSB back to 333 and voltages back to stock. Reset the multiplier to 10. Now increase the FSB again in the same manor, testing every step. Make sure you are increasing the voltages as need be to memory and chipset based on your fsb testing. If you hit a cpu speed where you cannot boot or you fail in orthos you can add voltage to the cpu and attempt to move on.

    Now if you reach your FSB limit stabley, thats pretty much your highest speed given your components. If for some reason you are not ablt to hit your FSB limit with your cpu you can use a multiplier to keep your cpu at its stable speed and increase you FSB to its limit.

    As you can see there are many points of failure you can run into overclocking a system. Doing it in steps like this makes it so you can isolate weak points in your system. It is more time consuming, but is less time comsuming than setting your fsb to a random number, with random voltages and posting on a forum "what am i doing wrong?".
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    djmonsta wrote:
    Thank you lordbean. I appreciate your input. I understand that overclocking is down to fine tuning, i really just wanted to what it was that caused these error messages.

    I told you what could possibly be giving you the error messages right at the start of my post. Any of the 3 parts listed, when unstable, can corrupt data as it flows through the system, resulting in unexpected errors such as the ones you describe. Refer to MAGIC's post above for a good way to begin going about overclocking.
  • MAGICMAGIC Doot Doot Furniture City, Michigan Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    And, really what i said is just a broad overview. There are many other points that could be hit on from advance bios options to different bios versions to memory timing adjustments. Your best bet is to hit up a good extensive guide such as the one on Hexus. It touches on many important topics and will give you a starting point for further reading.
  • djmonstadjmonsta London, UK Member
    edited December 2009
    Just a little update, my previous stability problems were while running XP, since moving to Windows 7 I've had no problems getting it to 4Ghz and keeping it there!
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