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5 months of computer overclocking hell by KK

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KnownKiller

Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2002
Location
Macomb Twp, Michigan
I'm writing about my past 5 months of Computer Hell in hopes that "The Computer Overclocking Gods" might read it and see that i have suffered enough tourment and lift this evil Curse I must be under , or atleast by writting this out... end this distructive "expensive" path i have lead with my computer.

The destruction all started when i finally went water cooling.. Finally, water cooling it was thinking to myself... After years of reading about it i finally got the balls to attempt it and the money to blow. I spent like 400 bucks on a good setup at Crazy PC. I was soooo freaking happy i had a smile on my face from ear to ear all weak.. It was like surreal.. Finally.. Once i went to the store and grabbed my first gallon of Distilled Water it was like i finally realized i was moving on with my overclocking days and going were few have gone before.It was like wow.. Felt like i graduated from High School or something.. Got my degree in Computer Overclocking..hehe.. So excited and happer then i ever been in years.

Well before the fun started i decided to apply the vcore mod to my Kr7A RAID since i had water cooling now it would handle the extra volts easy so i could get the best overclock with my New AMD XP 2000+.. Well The volt mod went wrong i thought...The system kept locking up.. I did it right i thought, connecting the 7 and 9 pin together with a 47K resister.. It could of been one of meny things since i was trying a bunch of things at once with trying to overclock the ram KingMax PC2700 and also unlocking the 2000+.. So i thought ok i would just take off the wire from the volt mod as to take that out of one of the possable problems.. Since it was so easy to re-apply.. I didint want to tkae the M/B out since it would be soo hard with the water cooling in there an all.. So i started to pull the wire thinking it would just come off easy since i thought the solder job i did wasnt so strong... Not.. I end up yanking the wire off along with the pin on the chip!

I start to panic and try to boot the computer again and nothing.. So since only one side of the pin was broke i just push the pin down in hoping that it would still make contact with the pad on the M/B... SO then it boots.. I'm like thank god. But still the system wasnt stable so i take everything out and try soldering the pin back on the motherboard... but the pin totally breaks off.. @$@@%!! So then i think its dead.. I tried to fix it but the system wouldnt boot.. After a few attempts with the soldering gun i get the system to boot before the night is over. I think hell yes... back in business... NOT.

Intsall the whole system and the same probs are happining.. SO it must be that pin.. So thought why not just connect a wire to a ground wire on the P/S to where the pin was broke cause all the pin was, was a ground.. Well that worked and i was happy. I still was having probs so then i throw in an old 1200 Tbird and POP! THe damn thing dies on me!! I fired the chip.. So not knowing what went wrong i take out the CPU from the other computer. A 1400 Tbird and guess what... You guessed it.. 2 dead CPU's in one day. Wow i never killed a AMD CPU till that day.

So in a panic i run to a local store to buy me a new M/B. The Abit AT7 RAID.. Get home try that out... Man i loved that board.. It was sooo nice! Though i was ****ed cause i couldnt get it to overclock past 140 FSB.. Unknowing of the +33 setting in the bios i take it back... But not until i almost fried my 2000+ CPU cause the water block wasnt seated right.. Only half of the DIE was touching the block. THat was close cause if i didnt have a new Digital Doc 5 i wouldnt of known that the CPU was cooking at 169C!!! After about 3 boots i believed the Digital doc temp reading and took the CPU out. At first i thought that the Doc 5 was just messed up from the Power prob i had when i tried to fix the volt mod.

I thought my 2000+ was bad now cuase i was trying it out in the only other M/B i had that was in the 2nd computer.. The IWILL KK266.. It would error and lock solid every 5 mins. So i thought the damn 2000+ Cpu was f'ed now 2.. So ofcourse i go back to the store and exchange the Abit board for the 2100+ :) And ordered a Epox 8K3a+ raid from newegg overnight shipping.

I was thinking damn ... this is the first time i ever was force into an upgrade from destroying computer parts... hehe I mean really it didnt seem bad.. In the end i was making out with the newest stuff i thought... Newest CPU 2100+ and the newest chipset the KT333... I was excited cuase i already had Kingmax PC2700 at home ready for this board and could finally take advantage of it.

The day i got my Epox board i was happy with the features of the board and layout.. Having not to mess anything up anymore with volt mods since it had all those features bulit in..So i was confident with the thought that the storm was over and i'd finally have something running and most important... Finally get back to playing Q3A FFA once again. Well you wont believe this one..

I get everything hooked up water cooling and all and power up and i hear the boot and i'm thinking thank god! Its working.. All of the sudden not even 5 seconds into the bios everything locks up and the power goes off!.. Holy crap i'm thinking... Well actually i'm thinking something else. I tried to turn the power on and nothing... I tried over and over in a panic.. Nothing... .Nothing... Dead board no power no lights no beep... just dead. OHHHHHhhhh no!!!!!!
:mad: I grab the KR7A and throw the memory in there thiking that it might be the ram for some odd reason since i already fired everything else why not the ram... Well you guessed it... No power at all... SO i'm thinking ok the rams dead... The damn Epox 8K3A+r killed my ram. I still dont understand that one.. The only thing i can come up with is that maybe some ****ed off employee of Epox thought he might have some fun and booby trap that board by raising the voltage on the ram to 3.2 volts which could possably fry the ram instantly. I couldnt do anything though cause i modified the damn ram by adding my own custom heatsinks to it..Which ran fine in the past that way.. Probably was just the damn P/S going, and on that idea i just tossed that P/S since it could of been messed up when i crossed a ground wire when i attempted to fix the volt mod previously.So I ran to Comp USA and bought a brand new Antech 430 WATT True Power P/S..When i bought that the salesman was trying to warn me about buying the extended warrenty cause he said that he had seen about 5 of those Antec true power P/S's in the back that had been returned.. But i just blew him off thinking he was just trying to make his quota and sell the damn extened warrenty.

So in desperation for a quick replacement of ram i find Crazy PC that was local to me in Michigan.. Which i didnt know before and it so happends that they have Kingmax PC3200... I thought perfect! THat stuff is rated for 200 FSB... Called them up and drove an hour and a half to get there in trafic to pick up 2 sticks of PC3200. Another 200 bucks spent.. ..The damn ram sucked and i couldnt get them stable at 170 max settings... So i thought that maybe it was the Epox M/B.. So i call newegg up and order a Abit KX7... what i should of bought the first time but i wanted the high voltage settings the Epox had. So i got an RMA for the epox and tried out the Abit board.

It still sucked... The ram wouldnt do over 170 Max settings. So i decided that those sticks will be returned cause there not even cloce to doing what there rated for of 200 FSB.So ofcourse i had to wait over the weekend and i was getting board. So you know what i did.. I read up everything i could about doing a volt mod after hearing so many that done it to get memory to overclock high into the 200's.. So i attempted it with a 47k Pot resister i had layin around. Well the first boot attempt didnt post. SO i thought ok i will just adjust the pot a little tiny bit and see it it will post.. Nothing. So i desperation i go and turn it all the way counter clockwize and pop!!! I thought oh @$%!#!.. Dangit! i just fried another thing! Again... i cant believe it. What luck... I tried and tried to talk myslef out of doing the vdimm mod nothing that there was a change to fry the ram but went for it anyways.. Atleast i only used one of the sticks of Kingmax 3200. I thought i was carefull and took my time and checked everything out first with a multimeder. But thats the luck i have been having. Shouldnt of tried it cause i was going to return it anyways. So i only returned one stick that was good.

WEll if that wasn't enough to make anyone want to quit playing with computers a few days later that brand new Antec 430 WATT True Power P/S desides to go out on me dying a slow death. I noticed that day cause when i turned the computer on the water wasnt flowing threw my water lines and the pump was sounding wierd.. I turned the power off and then turned it back on and the same.. I did that about 3 times and then nothing.. The damn brand new P/S was dead and took the water pump with it!.. it must of cooked it or something. The water was a weird color of grey and left a film on the water lines. That water pump cost me 89 bucks from Crazy Pc. Thank god i didnt have the computer running when that thing went or i would have another dead new CPU on my hands.

So now i'm running the system that had water cooling with my trusty MCX462 Swiftech H/S.. I havent really tried lookin for a new pump yet cause of other things like ram right now.Speaking of ram i ordered some Samsung Original 256MB PC2700 from newegg a few weeks ago.. You know my luck...

The day i decide to buy some Samsung Original from newegg is when the days of good overclocking with that ram are basicly over... After everything i have read about Samsung i thougth forsure that my days of bad ram would be over... All i want is something that would run 185-200 turbo timings and what happends... By buddy gets ahold of me the day after i put my order in at newegg that theres new batches of Samsung that aren't good overclocking at all. After reading into it i find out that sticks with DTL in the model number are not what you want.. You guessed it... What did i get???? DTL sticks from newegg! When there site says that they sell CTL sticks.

So i try them out and come to find that they 2 wont do anything over 170 max settings stable! Crap! At the time when i bought the sticks they were highly talked about and it was a toss up between them and Mushkin PC3000 Sticks that i tried to buy that weekend from a dealer i knew at a local computer show... But guess who beat me 2 them???? My best friend hehehe.. That douchebag! I sat there talking about how great those Mushkin PC3000 Stick were and he heads there the moment they opened that weekend and bought the last 2 in the whole show without even telling me about them. SO thats why i bought the Samsung Original online since i couldnt get the Mushin and i couldnt pass the Samsung since everyone online has been talking about them it seems forever and saying the magic words of 200+ FSB..

So that monkey is still on my back and i cant shake it... No luck with a sure win Samsung sticks. I called newegg and got an RMA number and proceeded to find something else to buy. Mushkin was what i was thinking... Pc3000..

I called Mushkin and talked to a very nice guy on the phone there and asked him what he recomended that would give me the best shot at 200 FSB or close with maximum settings. After spending about a half hour on the phone he made it clear that his top choice was the 512MB 2100 High Pref Level 2 cas2 2-2-2. I was like wow really... He said it was on specail right now at 199 and he tried a stick himself ina computer and it worked at 200FSB no problem.. So i spent a few miniutes thining it over and checkin out there site and seen a reveiw posted there for the 2100 stick. He also said that the stick was the best thing he ever seen and it was doing 185 max settings i believe and would work at 200 FSB and had benchmarks and everything.. Not knowing the voltage he used i thought maybe there room for more... So i couldnt up Mushkin and ordered a stick of 512 right away with free ground shipping..

Welp... i finally got that stick that week on Friday and it sucked!! It wouldnt do 166 Max settings stable! Wouldnt even post at 190 slowest settings.. So i'm ****ed about that... After reflecting on that choice i cant believe i would be soo gulable in paying 200 bucks for a stick of 512 2100 when i can buy a top brand like Cosiar or Mushkin 3000 512 for way less then that.

In the mean time freakin Newegg finally does right and seperates the CTL stock from the DTL sticks... So it would be a sure shot at getting a stick of the best overclocking Samsung Original 256MB stick out there.. I battled the Fiance just to buy some more ram.. Hell i mean if you spent all the time i did the day before trying to find some Samsung Original online and not find any besides Newegg you would have to buy it 2! heheh.. Hell i even tried Samsung disributers and calling a ton of online sites that siad they had samsung sticks to see if they could tell me if they have the model CTL and they wouldnt even bother with me. SO those sticks are still on there way here... Ground shipping from across the USA sucks.

Yesterday i decide i have had enough with AMD and VIA and after reading soo much from people at forums and from a friend online that the Pentuim 4 1.6A chip overclocks like mad over 2.5Ghz even higher to 2.7 i said no way... I might want to try that out. I mean i'm sitting here messing around destroying everything i have with volt mods and water cooling when all i need is to spend 140 bucks for a 1,6a and another 150 for a Abit IT7 m/b and fly higher then i could with what i got now. So after thinking about it and doing a ton of reading i decide to call New egg up and see if they would return the Epox board i bought from them that was 2 weeks over the 30 days and the Abit KX7 and use that with the refund i'm getting from the DTL samsung sticks and buy it up and be done with it... NOT... newegg wont budge at all... Figured, nothing is working out anymore for me... No luck no breaks.
So i guess i'll have to settle with my AMD 2100+ overclocked to a weak 1930 with water cooling if i ever get a new water pump for it.

Well if anyone has read all of that i'm shocked and thanks for caring enough to read about my past few months in Computer overclocking hell... heres a total of what was trashed by me... You can say the total death toll....

AMD Tbird 1200= fried
AMD Tbird 1400=fried
AMD XP 2000+... lived to see another day.. hehe thank god!

Abit KR7A-133 Raid= dead. Broken ground pin on the HIP6301CB chip that regulates the voltage to the CPU.. Without it no boot

2- 256MB Kingmax PC2700= Fried on the first boot with the Epox 8K3A+ raid board... possably the fault of a dying P/S...never will know.

1 stick of 256 Kingmax PC 3200= fried it good with a faulty vdimm mod using a 47k pot.

1 Enhance 350 Watt P/S.. thing died on me.

1 brand spanking new 4-5 day old Antec 430 WATT True Power P/S... That thing died slowly taking the Water Pump with it.

Oh yeah... heheh. I also had a D-Link Nic go on me as well durring that time... no biggy though cause i had another one and there cheap.

Welp thats all... I hope in doing this it will somehow right off all the bad luck i have been having the past 5 months and i can finally move on with a stable sistem... AS long as newegg sends me the right ram this time, meaning the 2 sticks of 256MB PC2700 Samsung original CTL model that will overclock as good as i have been hearing... Thats all i hope for! THen i can finally concentrate on a new water pump and get back into Q3 with a super gaming machine!

heheh hell thats the longest dang post i have ever wote in my whole life! heheh.. wow! Massive.

Share your traggities in computer hell if you wish ;)... feels good to get all that crap out.

KK
 
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Man! this is really a horror-story!
Respect for your courage for even going on overclocking ;)
 
KK,

Feel so sorry... what a story!!! You deserve 100 years of good luck after this.
Made me remeber when I scratched my first celly tualatin when attempting to remove the IHS,... and those 'sweat moments' right after a mod when you power on for the first time.

Regards and keep on O'cking.!

FTC
 
hehe yeah true.. believe me.. the thought has crossed my mind a few times... Though you learn from your mistakes and it will make you a better "Patient" overclocker in the long run :)

If I would of followed my instinks and not tried to rush so many things i would of been better off.. :)

Though i have been an computer junkie and overclocker since i got my first real computer the Pentium 120. Hell i mess with computers more then i do anything on them. I'd get board fast if i didnt overclock a little

:D

Oh yeah the worst thing was having raid on the second computer as a source of fast back up and that raid rent... That hurt bad.. 8 years of backed up stuff, programs, pics... oh yeah... prob over 20 gigs of porno!... lol.. now that was a little hard to muster..

NEVER USE A RAID SETUP AS YOUR BACKUP STORAGE! HUGE NO NO!
 
man, get some money together and go p4. that sucks about what happened, but with all the money you spent, you could have a kick *** p4 system right now. where are you from in michigan? i am from toledo, and i dont think it would of took me that long to drive to crazy pc from my house.
 
You deserve to be "OC Poster Child" after all that man!!!

I hit my first rush of real bad luck last week: I killed a chip, and then missed ONE power cord during a thunderstorm- 3.4ghz in two days!

I am HOPING that is it for bad luck for me for a while!

BTW: it wasn't the FIRST time I've had losses, just the worst in a short period.


Glad to see you aren't giving up though!!!!
 
I think I am quite lucky then! The only chip I killed was several years ago, a K6-2 500MHz, top of the line, tried to get it to 550, BANG!
 
man dude i read that whole thing and i am so sorry dude.

i myself had had my share of very bad luck. all because of newegg. i will never order a motherboard from that site again and after many a time they finally let me get my whole refund back rather than just givin me different boards.... let me go through the whole info.

First got epox 8kha+ w/ crucial 2100 (from crucials site)
Everything was runnin just great for 3 weeks. was doing 166fsb aggressive timings so i was very happy. i decided to get a thermaltake ramsink just for the hell of it cause i was runnin at max vcore. i new the ram was great so i took off the warrenty sticker and put the sink on. Second i stick it back into my mobo a capacitator somehow catches on fire. killing my mobo and my ram in the process... bye bye $150 ram.

Next ordered MSI KT266a... never showed up from newegg. they gave me some intel board instead. by the time i got the board the kt333 chipset was out so i decided i would have a swing with that.

Samsung 2700- ordered it from newegg. Would never do anything but the but spd settings. even on a non overclocked cpu with 3.2 vcore going into it.

Epox 8k3a... i got it in and there were 2 pci slots MISSING. yes. the geniouses at epox forgot to solder them in.

Epox 8k3a+.... had it for around 1 month. Was incredibly unstable even non overclocked.

Asus A7v 333- The geniouses at newegg gave me a goddamn refurbished board. There was no retail box on it. i thought what the hell as long as it works.... well it didnt post.

by this time i was really really mad at newegg so i called and spoke w/ one of the managers. i FINALLY GOT MY MONEY BACK.

went to mwave.com and ordered the Abit KX7-333. Best board ever used. 100% stable.

However i still had the samsung 2700. I requested a repair from newegg and i should be getting the new ram in on Friday. However seeing how i dont want to take any chances that i get DTL ram, i also ordered a stick of Corsair XMS3200. Luckily, i am also building a computer for my dad this weekend. i am going to put the XMS in my machine and the samsung in his intel.

well there are my tragedies in computers. i dont think i am ever going to watercool cause i realy dont see the point and it could only be dangerous... i mean i recently sold my friend my 1900+ and he uses his computer with vantec stealth case fans and a 40cfm sunon on a AX7 and gets very respectable temps at 1.8v (44C Load). his computer is near silent.
 
that sux bro. luckily i haven't had anything bad really happen.
i think you need a hug. **HUG** :p

cheer up, there is always tommorow
 
Yeah, next time just take your time.. sorry about that man.

The worst thing that ever happened to me was when I killed my dad's cpu! I was installing a bunch of stuff for him, then the AX7 was almost impossible to get on. he came over and tried getting it on, but couldn't either. Eventually I was able to get it on, but I guess it crushed the core.
 
i guess i am the only one who thinks the ax7 is a easy heatsink to get on lol. i have installed many on computers for friends and reaseated mine around 20times when trying to unlock. all of this was done without a shim and never had a single problem lol.
 
Emericana said:
i guess i am the only one who thinks the ax7 is a easy heatsink to get on lol. i have installed many on computers for friends and reaseated mine around 20times when trying to unlock. all of this was done without a shim and never had a single problem lol.

I think the AX7 is very easy to install, it only takes me a matter of seconds to do:D. The only hard part is uninstalling but thats because I have to take off my 120mm fan adaptor to get the hsf off.

Sorry about your lose known killer, don't feel bad, when you are a hardcore overclocker and performance maniac things like this happen. So far I have been pretty fortunate. Have put to rest 2 motherboards, an 8k3a+ and a DFI. The 8k3a+ was severely smoked.:mad:
 
hmm

The best I've gotton out of my Samsung 256MB PC2700 (no name generic module, SEC chips) is 200MHz at cas 2.5. It takes a bit of luck do do cas2 past 160 or 200 at any settings. Sounds like luck is in short supply for you at the moment...

I have to agree with your comments on the 1.6a. I bought an Asus P4S533 SiS 645DX board and a retail 1.6a along with the generic Samsung PC2700. Running 2.5-2.7GHz is tough, but 2.4GHz (150 FSB) is ease itself. I run 1.55V and enjoy perfect stability at 2.4GHz and generate 45C max with a retail Intel 1.9GHz heatsink/fan. The 4:5 cpu:memory multiplier present in the 645DX produces 187.5Mhz (375DDR) at this frequency.

My cpu does check out shortly though, with even 2416MHz causing noticeable instability even with 1.7V. My cpu rarely locks at 1.5V at 2.4GHz, never locks at 1.55V at 2.4, but won't have anything to do with anything above 2.4 regardless of how much voltage I throw at it. (P4S533 will put 1.9V on it). But I am happy with a easy 2.4GHz with 1.55V/45C loaded temperature with the (silent) Intel fan.

The P4 did overload my SX830's original PP-303x 300W power supply (Antec PS's are crap, IMO), but is running fine off a Spakle 300W unit, even with the GF4. I may upgrade to the 350W Sparkle as cheap insurance, but the 300W unit (3.3+5V of 200W) is very strong.

I build for Quake3 performance as well, we have played many times (well, you were playing, don't know what I was doing... ;)). Even at a modest 2.4GHz my rig produces 240 fps with a GF3 at 240/540 or 260 fps with a GF4 at 300/650 in 1024 32bit color on the v1.30 demo four :) The 1.6a is an awesome value, great fun, and an overclocker's dream. Just be aware that 2.7GHz may require just as extreme of measures as the AMD's do at 1900... Even so it is a very satisfying setup even at 2.4GHz, especially if Quake3 is your area of interest.

regards,
larva
 
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:( :( :(

Damn, thats a sorry tale.

I may be able to give some tips on how to save £££ in the future.

1 - Durons.....if your testing a waterblock voltmod or heatsink that may cause damage go buy a duron 600 and test on that for a few hourd/days. If you kill it, who cares just buy another. You dont want to kill a expensive Xp.

2 - One step at a time. If you want to unlock your CPU voltmod it then increase the FSB drop the multiplyer and overclock it, dont do all that in one go. Take things slowly, unlock the CPU and test it carefully once your sure its ok pop in a duron volt mod and test that out. Then put the unlocked CPU in choose a 6x multi and slowly increase the fsb untill you are unstable. Then increase the multi to overclock. If you do it all in one go you wont know whats not working and why, and your much more likely to kill something.

3 - Good PSU. without a good PSUyou wont get a good overclock..period. I recomend any PSU based on the fortron scource 400watt (such as a sparkle 400) simply the best overclocking PSU avalable.

3 - Dont run before you can walk. If you have never soldered in your life dont do a volt mod, or at least do some good practice before hand on a dead/cheap board, the same goes for CPU unlocking and other hardware mods.

4 - DONT RUSH... Stop and think, then think some more. Before you hit that power swich make sure you havent missed anything, one slight mistake can cost you dear.

When overclocking you canexpect to kill some things. Ive killed two 8kha+ (running 3.2v and running over 200fsb makes them die after a few months) and ive done about 3 durons (mostly experimenting with waterblock mount designs.
But if your killing things asoften as KnownKiller is then you should seriously look at why your killing things and take steps to avoid it in the future. In KK's case id recomend thinking about purchases allot more carefully and researching more and then once you come to overclock/mod take your time.
It takes me several weeks to overclock a new motherboard/CPU system to the max, you probably try to do it in a day.
 
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