Can overclocking ruin Windows?

Raider84 · May 19, 2004

I have been getting my fair share of BSODs while trying to maintain a stable overclock, and recently Windows stopped booting up and i had to get a friends computer to run chkdsk on my hardrive to get windows to boot up again.

Also I've noticed that my "unmoveable" section in the defragment color map has now disappeared (Im assuming from all the BSODs). Anyone else have this problem? Is there any way to fix it besides reinstalling the operating system?

georgelogy · May 19, 2004

Raider84 said:
Can overclocking ruin Windows?

Yes. I've seen it happen.

File corruption is a very real possibility when overclocking. There are some safeguards against it happening, but they don't always work. Once your processor or memory gets overclocked past its limit, it starts outputting logic highs for logic lows and vice versa, then, it's only a matter of time

Edit: That unmovable spot is probably your page file, if it has somehow become disabled it would disappear, and WindowsXP really hates having no page file.

johan851 · May 19, 2004

Like georgelogy said, instability causes hard drive corruption. That can easily screw up a Windows installation.

When you can, it's good to do some stability testing outside of Windows. Memtest86 is a good tool for that. Won't cover all kinds of instability, but it'll at least let you know how your memory is doing.

cack01 · May 19, 2004

double check that your PCI clock is locked or at least close to 33mhz.

Raider84 · May 19, 2004

pci clock? i set my agp frequency to 66, is that what you mean?

trueplaya4ever8 · May 19, 2004

pci is half of agp

ixnay · May 19, 2004

The unmovable space is your MFT or Master File Table and I dont think windows would like not having that.....

Raider84 · May 19, 2004

Can the MFT get messed up and is there a way to repair it?

cack01 · May 19, 2004

http://www.ntfs.com/quest14.htm (I'm assuming your using 2K/XP)

Captain Newbie · May 19, 2004

trueplaya4ever8 said:
pci is half of agp

...which is based upon a certain divider of your front side bus speed unless a PCI lock is used, which holds the AGP/PCI frequencies at 66.67 and 33.33 respectively. Motherboards sans PCI frequency lock will kick in certain bus dividers at certain FSB frequencies...check your documentation.

Raider84 · May 20, 2004

and why do you want to lock the agp frequency? will it not boot if its higher the 66|?

pershoot · May 20, 2004

Raider84 said:
and why do you want to lock the agp frequency? will it not boot if its higher the 66|?

AGP 2x, 4x and 8x runs at 66MHZ. if this is not locked, then it can cause instability on the BUS, as u dont want to run the frequency beyond this.

the PCI bus on your board will be independantly locked to 33.33, regardless of the AGP speed. this lock is essential, because if the PCI bus is run out of spec, this can also cause instabilities.

cack01 · May 20, 2004

Also if the PCI is not kept near 33mhz than anything connected to the PCI bus (i.e. HDD) will have a higher chance of causing errors.

Soja · May 20, 2004

Yes, I've had to reformat before due to HD corruption due to 39mhz pci.

Can overclocking ruin Windows?

Raider84

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