Cannot overclock very far with XP... help?

Hey all.. for some strange reason, my PC won't boot when I try to push my chip much passed 2.3 ghz.. I'll get to Mup.sys and it'll just reboot instantly. or windows once gave me an error saying it couldn't load because of some sort of kernel problem. wasn't even a blue screen error, it was black screen, white letters.

any ideas of what could be the problem?

also, right now I have it at around 2.25 ghz, and when I run 3Dmark 2001, the high res tests freeze up till the end, then it starts up the next low res test which goes fine. back to high res and I'm staring at a picture for 30 seconds.

However all my games are running fine, quake 3 is great, so is tribes 2..

any help would be much appreciated!! thanks in advance

Power supply description and voltage readings would help...

Stable power is VERY important for a successful overclock.

Why do you think its an OS problem? have u had it higher under any other OS? It could just be you are reaching the limits of your chip, as things tend to get a bit screwy when pushing it too far.

Although saying that it may not be your cpu, could be something else such as the PSU if its a cheapie...

Not an OS problem. Ur O/C is probley stressing something too much. Could be alot of things, insuffucient PS or cheap ram/poor hdd etc. How high is ur FSB?

how do I know if my PS is cheap? I got this case + the power supply (300w) for 40 bucks at a computer show... it's always seemed to hold up over the past 2 years. I don't really wanna throw 90 bucks away on a new PS when I won't hardly even notice a difference.. will I?

I figured it was the OS because it was freezing while loading.. wouldn't that be an OS problem? it also gave me an error message saying unable to load kernel something or other. And now even when I have everything running, 3DMark2001 runs choppy..


My voltage settings are at whatever the default settings are for the NF7-S rev2... I dunno anything about that stuff so I just leave it alone..


when it wouldn't load, I had the fsb at 190 and the multiplier at 12.

they say that a higher fsb + lower mult is usually more stable, right?

A 300 watt Power supply is fine for most non overclocked systems, you really need a quality power supply for overclocking.
Try locking your AGP bus at 66. 85 is stressing the PCI bus.

Waht ram u got? Wouldnt 190fsb hurt cheaper ram and cause corruptuton?

A case with a power supply for only $40 is more than likely going to be a cheapie power supply. For pointers about power supplies, see Larva's sticky. On my old setup, when I changed my power supply from a cheapie 300watt one to a quality 400 watt one, I noticed a dramatic increase in real world performance at the same fsb and multipier etc. When overclocking a cpu, there comes a point when pushing any further results in the type of problem you describe unless voltage is increased. In conclusion, I'd say the problem is not with WinXP, the problem is your power supply and/or voltage settings for the cpu.

You mentioned that your power supply and case was $40 two years ago. Since a good quality 300W is $40 by itself, I would have to guess that the one you are using is just so-so. Also, the age is a factor. Two years ago, a 300W power supply was rated 10-12amps on the 12V line. Today a good 300W will have around 15amps on the 12V line. This makes a big difference on today's motherboards which use much more 12V than those two years ago. You have some nice computer parts in your system, but you might be asking them to run on lower grade power than they deserve.

If you don't have it already, download Motherboard Monitor 5... http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ ...and monitor your voltages and post back if they are outside of these ranges (high or low):

For stability, 3% from nominal is good, 2% is best.
12V ==> 11.65 to 12.35V (3%) ==> 11.75 to 12.25V (2%)
5V ==> 4.85 to 5.15V (3%) ==> 4.9 to 5.1V (2%)
3.3V ==> 3.2 to 3.4V (3%) ==> 3.23 to 3.37V (2%)

ok will do! thanks for the suggestions, will post back soon