Sorry, I posted a blank message first,
I have updated my bios on my striker extreme motherboard which enabled me to overclock it to 3ghz easily, I noticed now though however that i get a message after a few minutes or right away if i try to run crysis or nero recode that i get a blue screen saying "Hardware Failure, The system Has Halted, Contact Your Hardware Vendor"
I dont know whats causing it, The first time i oc'd to 3ghz (2 days ago) it worked fine even when encoding, But now HARDWARE FAILURE is displayed, Does anyone have any ideas? Maybe its a 8800 driver issue or something like that, oh and another thing when i got the hardware failure i would reset the sytem and the default bios setting were loaded, but if i tried to overclock to 3ghz it would not save the setting to the cmos even though it prompted me to save them, to get around that i re-flashed the bios, but still i need help, thanks guys

I have reset the cpu to default 2.4ghz x 4 as opposed to 3ghz x 4,
I suspected heat to be the reason why the machine stops working, when i start up the machine for the first time it is colder than it is when its running for a long time, I was playing crysis for about half an hoir with no prbolems, then i tried to encode a dvd using nero and ot had the problem, blue screen, I tried it agan overclocked and it was stable until the cpu came under load, everest read the following temp while encoding a dvd with vso converter, cpu core 1= 59celcius core 2 = 58 core 3= 59 core 4=54 degrees celcius, overall cpu temp is 47 degress celcius, now using default im currently encoding a dvd and the temps are as follows core 1=55 core 2=55 core 3=54 core 4=50
other temps at default speed such as gpu right now is 67 degrees but the gpu fan is at 1555rpm half its speed, do you think there is a heat problem, the psu heat is fairly warm and the exhaust fans air coming out the back of the pc is fairly warm.

Sounds to me you've got voltage problems with your OC. Your OC is not stable enough.
It will be on Desktop, cos it's idle, but when you run an app, or a game that uses any
cores heavily, you'll get your OC failure. The hardware failure is a related problem to your
OC. What's you voltages for CPU, RAM, North Bridge, South Bridge, etc? And what
multiplier are you using for the OC? You'll have to be more specific on your OC, so
best thing to do is get the details on here so we can have a look.

I might not be on the for the rest of the night, but there'll be a few folks on here
who'll help you out as well.

Also check these links with regards to OC'ing:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/forum/16/overclocking/

That's all the posts/threads for you to browse through. Althought you might've already
done this?

Tam...

Everything is set to defualt now, but the voltages were as follows im not 100% but im pretty sure it was like this,
cpu core= 1.3875v or maybe auto , NB= 1.55V SB 1.55V , DDR <2.0V, HT= 1.4V
Those were my values, i cant remember if i put my cpu core and memory to auto but if i did it would probably explain why it stops working,

Man your CPU volts defo to low for your OC. Everyboard is different, respect to that.
But that voltage is just to low for an OC. Start it at 1.45v at least.

Ok, i think youre right there ill try raising the voltage to 1.4v and higher

I tried taking the voltages up to 1.45v up to 1.575v, it seems to still get the hadwarefailure message, i try to encode a dvd and there it is that f**king annoying message, the funny thing is when i set the memory, cpu vtt and ht to auto it would boot up, only when these were at auto would it boot into vista, my memory which is ocz platinum 4gb pc8000 1000mhz running @ 800mhz was at 2.2v, would the problem be with the cpu voltage or maybe a hardware problem like the memory cause it wouldnt boot into vista if i set the cpu vtt, memory voltage or the ht voltage,

Set your Ram volts to 2.2 or a wee bit higher. Your volts for your CPU was defo too low
regardless.

You can also try increasing the RPMs of your CPU, GPU, and system fans. Either use hardware controllers, software, and or BIOS settings to do so.

Some video card software allows you to over-ride and set new GPU fan/temp profiles, and freeware software like "speedfan" and others allows you to over-ride and set new CPU and system fan settings. For example, you can set the fan(s) to run at faster RPMs at lower temps.

For absolute maximum cooling you can also plug the fans directly into 12V (with appropriate adapters or re-wiring), but generally that will be very noisy.

I tried raising my memory voltage to 2.25v and my cpu to 1.4625v, i left everything else on auto, the memory has voltage protect and a rating of 2.1v at 1000mhz, will the higher voltage make it unstable, it seems more stable at 2.25v mem it encoded a dvd using nero for a longer time but it still gives an error bsod message,

You're OC'ing your ram, so yea you can ramp up the volts a wee bit

im encoding using vso convertxtodvd and its about 3/4 through or 11mins and nothing yet, nero causes a problem after 2 or 3 mins if im lucky, i was playing crysis full settings for ages no proble using the crysis editor, hmm, nero is heavy especially when encoding or else its just the ram voltage problem,

VSO finished coverting succesfully, but mind you it only uses around 35-40% of cpu cores as opposed to 75-100% cpu usage on nero.

Yea you're getting near a stable clock. Although I suggest using Prime95:

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103

And even memtest;

http://www.memtest86.com/

CoreTemp to monitor your temps:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1494


and even just doin a quick bench on Everest would suffice how stable your
OC is. In other words, if i feel my OC is gonna be unstable, Prime95 would maybe
get me up to 5 tests, where as a quick cpu bench on Everest will either give me a
BSoD and save me time waitng on Prime95 crashin at a later stage. If Everest succeeds
the full bench mark, then I'll go on straight to Prime95. That way I have a rough idea
of how stable my oc will be.

By the way, it would be a really good idea to at the very least backup your system before you do any more OC experiments.

When I'm debugging something I clone the hard disk to another hard disk, take out my original drive, and do all the debugging using the expendable backup copy. That way if something goes terribly wrong my original data and OS remain intact.

Good valid point and constructive suggestion there John

I had the dimm voltage set at 2.25v and ran everst benchmark, after 16mins the error appeared again, the benchmark was using 100% of the cpu all of the time, i tried to restart and i got a post failure message so i upped the ram dimm voltage to 2.30v, ill run the benchmark again. cpu voltage is at 1.44v

With 1.55Vcore you should be able to hit 3.6ghz mark. Anything above 1.6V would kill your cpu, plus temps would be too high for air cooling. As for the ram, I had to give 2.54V for my ram to run at 1266mhz.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t203/__MD__/QX9650/QX9650_max_on_air.jpg

Also, try this:
PLL - 1.62V
VTT - 1.45V
NB - 1.5V
SB - 1.6V
1.2HT - 1.55V
CPU GTL_REF +20
NB GTL_REF +20
DDRII Controller +20

cathal ferry said:


Ferry,

I think you need to back up a bit here.... I think you are trying to put the carriage before the horse.... not gonna work...

The reason I said this is that with your statement above......... It doesnt look as if your system is stable even at stock speeds. Even though it may perform ok with one application... and then fails with another mean that the system is stable. Being "stable" means that your hardware and software are working properly without any crashes... After you reseted your system back to stock speeds.... you say that it functions just fine with crysis but in the same sentence said that Nero causes your system to crash.... then you went on to say you tried it again at OC'd speeds and it failed again... did you think that by overclocking the system would magically allow Nero to run correctly when it can run properly at stock speeds???


Get back to basic... get the system back to complete stock speeds and settings... even if you have to reload your OS and apps.... You need to find out if your system is stable both "Hardware" + "Software" before you can go forth to OC'n. Test all your software that you will be using at the stock hardware settings and software configs.

Once you are absolutely sure that your system is "stable" with all the hardware default settings... AND that your OS and your required software apps are good to go...... THEN you can go forth with OC'n.... and to remember what works and what doesnt work before changing the next settings. Dont change too much settings at once. It'll just confuse you.


The only reason I bring this up is that i'm not really sure that you got a stable stock system in the first place.... you kinda say so in the statement above. You reset your system to stock... test crysis which worked.... then test Nero which FAILED.... then you jumped into OC'n and said Nero failed again...... see what I mean ???????

Personally I feel that you may have a marginal component... either memory or the motherboard.... The easiest to eliminate one of these components is to test your memory... try testing it with memtest.... this is where you create a boot cd and boot it up on this cd and it starts testing your memory outside of the OS..... I think it uses a small linux program to do this.... If it is not hardware..... then you should start to look at the OS or the individual application itself... example is why would Nero fail and crysis works.... maybe a reinstall of Nero could be the fix.... who knows...... bottom line is to get a stable system at stock settings for both hardware and software...


It's just a suggestion and opinion.....

Sorry G.G , i made a mistake there, ooops sorry, i reset everything to default as i said but i made the mistake of saying i was running crysis and nero under stock conditions when i should have said thats what happens to the system when its overclocked to 3ghz, it runs fine stock, i encoded a dvd today using nero at stock, Once again sorry about that, you are very observant and thats great advice, thanks and sorry