no longer able to run stable overclock

[athenaesword]

hey guys, my 2 month old rig used to be able to run a 3.7ghz stable overclock (tested with prime95 for 24hours). now i can't even boot at 3.2ghz.

i'm now running it default at 2.66ghz until i can identify the problem.

rig: e6750/ 2gb crucial ballistix ram 800mhz/ gigabyte p35 ds3l

i've tested the ram with memtest it seems to run fine. not sure why i can't overclock anymore. would appreciate it if you guys could chime in the possible reasons for this so i could weed out the problem. remember it used to run at 3.7ghz stable up till a week ago when it started crashing on me whenever i overclock it.

only recent addition is a mybook 500gb external HDD which is always plugged in. is too many usb connections a possible reason?

edit: i've tried loosening ram timings and uping core voltage to no avail.

[clocker]

Were you running at boosted voltages before?

[athenaesword]

Were you running at boosted voltages before?

yeah 1.45 or so. i'm using thermalright extreme 120ultra. was told that as long as i kept below 1.5 i was good.

[mr. nails]

why not run @ default settings & see if ur pc even works @ all to begin with? what's it do for u to know it's no longer stable? can't boot to windows? i think i read that right.

also, extra usb connections will not hurt u booting an oc'd cpu.

[athenaesword]

why not run @ default settings & see if ur pc even works @ all to begin with? what's it do for u to know it's no longer stable? can't boot to windows? i think i read that right.

also, extra usb connections will not hurt u booting an oc'd cpu.

didn't i state in my first post that i'm currently running it on default 2.66ghz?

well it doesn't boot to windows. if i try to boot it up with OC settings it automatically restarts without even starting to load windows.

[clocker]

I've read (here, I believe) of similar results with overclocked e8400's...some of them seem to "degrade" after a while and will no longer support speeds they once did. Higher voltage is usually blamed as the culprit.

Not sure if this enough evidence to claim a trend (or whether it's applicable to your series chip), but the phenomenon is not unheard of.

All these chips are really too new- and too few- to say what might be happening.

[athenaesword]

I've read (here, I believe) of similar results with overclocked e8400's...some of them seem to "degrade" after a while and will no longer support speeds they once did. Higher voltage is usually blamed as the culprit.

Not sure if this enough evidence to claim a trend (or whether it's applicable to your series chip), but the phenomenon is not unheard of.

All these chips are really too new- and too few- to say what might be happening.

but i was using a previous gen chip - e6750, and these have been reputed to be one of the best duocores for overclocking. okay an update: my comp just hung again on default settings.

some of the main programmes open at the time:
MPC playing a HD movie
emule
utorrent
msn msgr
AVG

when it hangs it gives a blue screen with something that says physical memory something and then it restarts immediately.




update:
okay i disconnected my Mybook 500gb and wala the cpu could boot up at 3.7ghz.
i've been running p95 for over an hour now and it hasn't crashed yet. previously i couldn't even at boot 3.2, and my 2.66 crashed after running for awhile

is there any explanation for this?

[clocker]

update:
okay i disconnected my Mybook 500gb and wala the cpu could boot up at 3.7ghz.
i've been running p95 for over an hour now and it hasn't crashed yet. previously i couldn't even at boot 3.2, and my 2.66 crashed after running for awhile

is there any explanation for this?

MyBooks suck?

What else is plugged into your USB ports?

You can disable auto restart on blue screen...Control Panel>System>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Settings>System Failure> untick "automatically restart....".

And, it's "viola!", not "wala", BTW.

[athenaesword]

update:
okay i disconnected my Mybook 500gb and wala the cpu could boot up at 3.7ghz.
i've been running p95 for over an hour now and it hasn't crashed yet. previously i couldn't even at boot 3.2, and my 2.66 crashed after running for awhile

is there any explanation for this?

MyBooks suck?

What else is plugged into your USB ports?

You can disable auto restart on blue screen...Control Panel>System>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Settings>System Failure> untick "automatically restart....".

And, it's "viola!", not "wala", BTW.

i've already done that. that's how i deduced the error: bad_pool_caller in the blue screen after the physical memory dump.

google shows that it can be caused by faulty usb connections/ faulty drivers or programmes.

btw, after 5 hours of stable p95 i turned it off adn started emule, utorrent, and msn. one of these must have fucked my cpu up because i got that blue screen again.

[clocker]

How big of a PITA would be for you to reinstall Windows?
Your overclock may have corrupted the OS.