Main Rig O/C'd too much?

[Aguiluz]

Last month, I blown up my main rig- out of the blue!

When I Investigated the problem, I found out that on my old O/C'ing records, I got my Rig's Processor to 3Ghz, and the Radeon to 340 MHz core and 265 MHz Ram. When its getting hot, I added a Drum Fan lifted from a Car Aircon.

It was running fine, and then, when I cleaned it out, I reassembled it, Then, It wont post. I also noticed (using a stethoscope) that the PSU gave a small "thunk" sound everytime I plugged the Rig.

P.S: When I turn it on, there is no beep, no video.

So, my questions is:

- Has my O/C ruined the Rig?
- Is the PSU jittery?
- Should I replace the PSU?
- Would you survive on 256 MB of RAM? (I did )
- Did the Drum Fans (12V, 6W, 2A) help frack the PSU?

[[email protected]]

Re: Main Rig O/C'd too much?

When you turn it on, do the fans spin up?

From everything you described, it sounds like your power supply crapped out. If nothing happens when you start it up, then it is probably the psu.

If the fans spin up and then the system stalls (nothing comes up on the screen), it is probably the motherboard.

Besides, it might be in your best interest to upgrade to a larger psu. 325w is pretty small and not meant for overclocking.

You can survive on 256mb of ram if you aren't gaming or doing anything else besides word processing and internet surfing. I'm building a new rig towards the middle of summer so my old rig will be parted out. If you want the Corsair XMS DDR 400 1gig dual channel kit let me know. I'd be more than happy to sell it to you at a good price.

In my opinion, you should not be overclocking with this system. I would suggest that you upgrade your ram and you should see a major increase in performance.

[Aguiluz]

Re: Main Rig O/C'd too much?

When you turn it on, do the fans spin up?

From everything you described, it sounds like your power supply crapped out. If nothing happens when you start it up, then it is probably the psu.

If the fans spin up and then the system stalls (nothing comes up on the screen), it is probably the motherboard.

Besides, it might be in your best interest to upgrade to a larger psu. 325w is pretty small and not meant for overclocking.

You can survive on 256mb of ram if you aren't gaming or doing anything else besides word processing and internet surfing. I'm building a new rig towards the middle of summer so my old rig will be parted out. If you want the Corsair XMS DDR 400 1gig dual channel kit let me know. I'd be more than happy to sell it to you at a good price.

In my opinion, you should not be overclocking with this system. I would suggest that you upgrade your ram and you should see a major increase in performance.

The Fans spin. The drum fan seem to run quite slow.

I hope it isnt the board. These are expensive!

My 256 MB of RAM IS used for gaming. I play Red Alert, NFS: Most Wanted and other games.

I will soon resolve this problem, but I would send my rig to the shop first to be sure. Maybe its only the PSU. I have eyes on the PC power and Cooling 650W.

[[email protected]]

Re: Main Rig O/C'd too much?

Alright fine, you can run anything with low amounts of ram, but how long does it take to start the game? It all depends on patience - and I don't have much.

It really sounds to me like it's the board. If the fans run, then the PSU is somewhat working. The PSU wouldn't be causing the system to totally not boot unless it is dead (possible).

In this system, you don't need a super board. You can get something decent for way under $100. It all depends on the features you want.

[Ripp3r]

Re: Main Rig O/C'd too much?

The "thunk" you get from the PSU when you plug in the power cable seems similar to the problem a friend of mine had when he built up his PC. His motherboard was shorting, as he hadn't used the spacers, and every time he plugged the PSU in, it would make a weird "thunk" noise, but nothing else would happen. After the spacers were placed in, everything worked fine (took me ages to figure out it was the spacers... I ended up rebuilding the system with him before I noticed, heh). So it may be something as simple as a short in the system.
To be fair, both my old (Q-Tec 400W... it was cheap...) and new (CM iGreen 435W... again, kinda cheap, but works great, reliable rails) PSUs make that thunk sound when plugging them in. Same happens to every other computer I've ever had or touched. Sometimes it's louder, sometimes quieter, so it might not be a problem with the PSU.
Also, LGA775 mobos are getting quite cheap. If it is a problem with the motherboard, you can likely find a pretty cheap ATi or Nvidia chipset board, with on-board graphics, and buy some DDR2, and set yourself up for a Core 2 Duo upgrade later on. Always gotta look on the bright side ;) Even if you don't have the money to do so (that's my way of doing things).

[haggis1606]

Re: Main Rig O/C'd too much?

Sounds like a shorting out problem as the other guys suggested. I had a couple of case cables that I hadnt plugged in touching the metal case once. It would just clunk when starting and reboot.
256mb of ram is a very small amount when compared to your 3ghz processor. You could keep your processor at stock speeds and stick 512 or 1gb of ram in the machine and probably see a much larger performance boost than just overclocking.