1st timer to overclocking

[edmond]

Hi all and thanks in advance to all who offer me some help as I stated in the title I am totally new to overclocking so please bare with me as I make a fool of myself in my quest to learn. Now what I am after, I have a home built machine myself and a friend who was little more knowledgable than I put it together, everything went well but I am now having some problems which I hope can be resolved through the medium of this forum first the specs :
AA8 DURAMAX MOTHERBOARD, SOCKET LGA 775 MB
CORSAIR TWIN 2X 1024GB DDR2 XMS
Intel Pentium 4 520 "LGA775 Prescott" 2.8GHz (800FSB)
ENERMAX COOLERGIANT 485W PSU
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON X600 PRO 256MB PCI EXPRESS
LIAN LI PC SILENT ALUMINIUM CASE
1 160 GB SATA 8MBCACHE HD
2 60BGB EIDE HD

The problem...my pc constantly freezes for a minute or 2 at a time sometime it recovers othertimes it crashes totally. There are little red specks on the desktop screen also.The pc is not overclocked well not technically as it is running off the settings supplied by the guru program. I would like to overclock it and have been told the specs I have are ideal for overclocking, but as I know nothing about it I would be loathe to start fiddling without advice ok so thats me my first post on this forum....long winded I know but I hope to achieve at least stability with my pc if not a little more. as I said at the beggining thanks in advance to all those who offer thier advice

 

[ewhenn]

Not to sound silly, but you might be better served by getting your pc fully operational without error before you venture into the realm of OCing. A PC should work properly at spec, if not, there is something wrong with it.

 

[edmond]

I agree, so any ideas on wht is wrong ?

by the way here are the readings from cpuz:
core speed 2849.1mhz
multiplier x14.0
fsb 203.5
bus speed 810.4mhz

 

[ewhenn]

I dont use it, but isn't that UGuru dynamic overclocking (correct me if I am wrong)? What happens if you turn that off, and keep all of your bios settings at spec? Updating your vid card drivers/chipset drivers, might help as well. Can't say I ever ran into a problem like this before. It seems like you have quality components, so that shouldn't be a problem(unless you got a dud somewhere).

 

[edmond]

I'll have a go at that now and see what happens, the drivers have been updated and rolled back a number of times as I thought that was the problem myself, when you say a dud somewhere ...component related I assume....but which is the most likely to be at fault ? sorry to be such a pest but it really is starting to get to me as I have tried all I know limited as it is

 

[Terminat.]

The UGuru sounds like the problem - it 100% certain sounds like your vga card is either being overclocked too far or is too hot: when I overclocked my 9800 Pro too far, red specks (artifacts) appeared on the screen and it froze. Switching off the UGuru settings should put it back to normal

Or else, your vga card is too hot, though X600 stock cooling should be more than adequate.

 

[edmond]

Ok I have uninstalled the Uguru facility and it is still the same freezes momentarilly and some artifacts(sounds better than red specks) it is most likely a graphics card problem, but could the card be faulty without showing other faults ? By the way I am really impressed by the fast replies, thanks a lot

 

[austinbmxnig]

What kind of power supply do you have?

 

[JCLW]

ENERMAX COOLERGIANT 485W PSU

What are your system temperatures and voltages?

 

[edmond]

Hi a friend has suggested my problem may be windows 2000, he feels it may be incompatible with pci express, any ideas on this would be appreciated.

 

[edmond]

sorry temerature are fine, the pc has not been overclocked...and I have taken off UGuru. thanks

 

[Falkentyne]

Hmm....
Windows 2k on a PCI-E system...don't think I've seen that.....

Problem is definitely video related.

You could find out for sure by swapping your video card for another (not another X600 Pro--that card sucks, anyway--at LEAST get an x800 pro!) and seeing if the artifacts remain.

You can do a search on the forums or even on futuremark, for windows 2000 and pci express, for any issues.

 

[ewhenn]

Try to decrease the power load of your system and see if that helps at all. Unplug the Molexes for your extra HD's/CD-ROM. If it is power related, it MAY help some of the symptoms go away. Also, if your vid card does have a Molex (PCI-E has enhanced power supply now right?), the connector is in tight right??

 

[edmond]

Hi all just a quick update, eventually got so fed up today and called ATI support in Canada, I'm in Ireland...anyway after 45 mins on the phone the support guy decides it could be a faulty card, so I went out and bought a new card...PCI not PCI express and its working fine, well sort of fine its a little slow and the mouse cursor jumps around when its stressed I do some video editing just for home use as a hobby and when I'm running video editng software the graphics seem a little stressed, but at least its staying on now..no blacking out freezing or crashing....fingers crossed. ewhenn the vid card I have does not have a enhanced power supply and as I have a 480 enermax I should have thought that powerful enough since I only have 3 hd and a dvd internal + a dvd external firewire.
Thanks again for the replies