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Biostar TX5E CFX-SLI frustration #1

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Bulooka

Registered
Joined
Jan 19, 2012
About a year ago, I purchased a system. Thus far, I've had no issues. The specs are:
Mobo: Biostar TX5# CFX-SLI (p55)
CPU: Intel i3 540 Clarksdale
Ram: 2 x 2gb Corsair @ 1333mhz
External Video: HIS Radeon HD 4650
Power: Corsair 400W
CPU Cooling: Coolermaster Hyper tx3

I've been reading up on mzs_biteme's forum for his i3 overclock, and have been religiously reading this article: http://www.overclockers.com/3-step-guide-overclock-core-i3-i5-i7/

Today, I decided to give a little boost to my cpu baseclock. When I entered the BIOS after the initial restart to change the baseclock, I scanned the memory speed settings and the vcore settings. Both the memory setting and the Vcore setting were set to "auto" which sounds like its the stock settings.

here are my stock settings again (don't mind the Biostar manual stuff):
6f6bb016_Screen1.png

-As you can see, my CPU is set to 133X23 while under load (but its not under load in the image). To start, my goal was to incrementally increase the baseclock by 10, so I boosted it up to 143X23 (in my motherboard settings, I can't change the multiplier, only the bclk).

-After doing that, I went to the vcore setting and changed it from AUTO to 1.264v (1.264v was the smallest increment I could raise it by). I kept the RAM at auto, because I figured it would automatically level out at a safe setting in relation to the bclk and vcore.

When I hit f10 to save the settings and exit, my computer briefly turned off and then it restart. When it turned back on, there was no beep from anywhere, the screen was black (my monitor didn't pick up any source), and my CPU cooler fan turned on, but it didn't seem to spin as fast as the RPMs usually do.

I pulled out my manual to reset the CMOS, then tried restarting it. Nothin'. The manual says to unplug the AC, put the CMOS in the reset position for 5 seconds, plug in the CMOS back to normal position, and power it back on.

I spoke with someone and they mentioned to keep the AC plugged in while resetting the CMOS, but nothing happened again. I have yet to try their second method of turning the computer on while the CMOS is in reset position, then putting the CMOS back into normal position (I will probably try this when I get home).

In the mean time, I hope that someone is able to shed some light on what went wrong and how I can get back to factory settings properly. Please let me know if more information is required, as I will be happy to supply it.

Thanks
 
Bump.

Just tried taking out the Mobo battery for 15 minutes, unplugged the computer from the wall and turned off the the power supply. Still same Issue. Computer will turn on for about 5 seconds then will restart itself and idle with no connection to the monitor. Both LED lights are off, which, according to my manual, means that there is an "Abnormal: CPU/chipset" error. Taking out the batter for an hour and seeing if that does anything.
 
Pull power from wall outlet.

Remove ram and video card.

Remove CmOs battery and jumper CmOs clear jumper to pins 2 and 3.

Wait about 15 mins.

Put CmOs battery back in and jumper Cmos back to pins 1 and 2.

Replace Ram and Video card.

REconnect power supply to wall outlet and reboot to bios and enter and load optimized defaults or similar. Reboot and you hopefully are back to operational again.
 
Nothing happened. Still black screen. Mind you, I didn't mess with ANY other settings. Only the Vcore voltage and the baseclock. The multiplier is grayed out at 23, so I can't change that even in manual overclock mode. I tried unplugging everything in the order you said, RGone, and we didn't get any results :/ I'm not sure what to do. Thanks for your help though. Any other thoughts?
 
I have the same mobo and same cpu, haven't tryed OCing yet. I have succesfully used the cmos jumper. All I did was pulled the power cord from PSU, turned PSU off, and put the cmos jumper to pins 2 and 3 for 10-20 sec. I put it back to pins 1 and 2 and all was fine.
 
Oh and u can set the multi between 9 and 23 but first u need to disable Intel speedstep in the bios.

Have u ever had a cmos checksum error?
 
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yeah, I've tried every possible combination. It's just my luck that hardware would be damaged after such a small modification.
 
I was not. Not until I took out a stick of ram. I had 3 sticks in there, and the machine would run fine until I plugged in a usb peripheral or something...but that wasn't an issue because I would only use the computer for gaming. I took out a stick of ram, putting the system at 4gb, which made the rig run like a dream. No errors after that.
 
Nope. Sounds like I fried the motherboard. I checked with a few other forums and when I kept the power cord attached to the computer while it was off and tried to reset the CMOS, it must have fried the motherboard. I thought the boards were a little bit more trauma resistant than that, but I guess not. Time for a new mobo. Worse part it, its an 1156. I should probably upgrade to an 1155 haha.
 
I'm new when it comes to trouble shooting problems like this in fact I just bought this mobo and cpu it is my first build, very happy with it. What I think im trying to say is, i'm new but what I do know about these mobo is that the bios chip is known to fail. Maybe you just fried the bios chip not the entire board, you might be able to get a hold of biostar and ask for a new bioschip if its still under warranty and that u dont tell them that u tryed overclocking with the board.
 
Purchased the rig from Newegg over a year ago, so unless there was a 3 year warranty (I don't think there is) I probably wouldn't be able to. I'm giving them a call for sure tomorrow.
 
About that upgrade idea and the main reason why i bought an 1156 platform to begin with. Is the fact that the base clock, aka bclock, is so locked down tight that u might get lucky and get 10mhz gain on the bclock, if that. But if u have a k series the bclock dosn't matter much cuz you'll have more control over the multi than the bclock anyway.

So basicly the primary way to overclock on the sandy bridge platform is by multi, u can mess with multis A LITTLE on processors with turbo boost and not a part of the k series, for example take the i5 2300 stock at 2.8Ghz I just saw a thread were someone was able to get it up to 3.6Ghz by increasing the bclck from 100 to 107 and the turbo multi from 31to 36, but when he would increase the bclck from 107 to 108 the system wouldn't even boot.
 
Ok, I'm starting to think I did the same thing u did.

Ok, so what I did is I put my multi at 15 and set the bclck at 150 did a 5min stress test: pass. Then I went in the bios set the bclck @ 160, which i'd expect 160 is stable anuff to at least reach the welcome screen in win 7. The other thing I mest with is vcore, stock is @ 1.272v but the bios allowed me to go up to +1.26v, I thought this would be the actual voltage it wolud be set at. Now i'm stating to think it tacked on another
1.26v. Now the system won't go in to the mobo logo.

So I think I just fried my CPU, now im out 100 bucks!!! :mad:
 
Vcore was the biggest confusion for me. Some people claim that they're pros and say that Vtt = Vcore and some say its different. I only increased my Vcore one click and it fried my CPU, which shouldn't happen regardless...or so they say...
 
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