Overclock crash - recoverable?

[More Cowbell]

Stupid me! I was trying to squeeze some more power out of my 1.1Ghz Athlon processor and started messing with the BIOS. I had been reading about overclocking and thought I understood it. I found the area that controls clock speed and noticed it said "100 min - 132 max". It was set on 100 so I upped it to 110 and noticed that the system was now up to 1.21Ghz. I upped it again to 120 (still well below the max) and it crashed on startup. Now I get only a blue screen when I try to boot and no beep or anything. It powers up just fine, but it just never starts to boot the system.
1) Is this recoverable? If so, how?
2) Is the CPU fried? If so, will replacing the CPU fix my problem (I was considering simply buying a faster CPU anyway)?
3) If the system is DOA, can I still move my hard drive to another system or is it toast as well?
4) Are Athlon and Sempron CPU's interchangeable?
I appreciate any feedback. Feel free to bash me for being so stupid as to try this in the first place! I just want my arcade machine back!

[Crazy Cooter]

No problem.  That's exactly how you find the "limit" to how much you can overclock.  Right now you just have the multiplier too high for the system to boot.  Look through the manual for your motherboard and find out how to reset the bios.  Then it will boot fine.  The mobo manufacturer should have it online if you can't find it.  Otherwise post the model # here & one of us probably has the same mobo.

FWIW:  When you up the multiplier, I always go in steps of 1.  That way it (almost) always boots.  It will hang when trying to load windows when you get close to the maximum.  You jumped from 1.1Ghz to 1.2Ghz to 1.320Ghz.  I would guess you'll end up around 1.25Ghz without upping the core voltage.

I also try to maximize the memory and system bus speeds.  You should be monitoring your cpu temperature whenever you overclock.

[Minwah]

I take it not but can you even get into the BIOS?  If not and you don't see a POST screen then you might have fried it...doesn't take much with those Athlons.

I fried one once but didn't get a blue screen...just nothing on the screen.  You should be able to replace just the chip...but make sure you clock it back down!!

Edit: take more notice of Cooter...he seems to know more about it!

[Lilwolf]

How you test overclocking is started low and moving up slowly.

if you processor was designed for 100mhz... jumping to 120 is a VERY large jump...  The max you read was the max the motherboard can handle, NOT the processor.

But I hate to sound rude here, but by asking about the harddrive (which is fine btw) it probably means that you don't know enought about PC hardware to overclock safely.  Its not really for beginners.  (and then its not really for expert users either... because they usually have killed a processor or come close on their road to becoming an expert

Anyway, reset your bios (sometimes you have to remove a jumper from the motherboard, turn power of for a sec and replace the jumper...  Some new motherboards don't require the power... never heard of one having troube with power though... your motherboard manual may tell you)

If that doesn't work... replace the processor... max out what it can handle if you can find one cheap... But its usually a good time to replace the motherboard, processor and memory all at one time...  Your harddrive will still be ok, but you may have some troubles upgrading the motherboard drivers... Sometimes upgrading from one major bios to another, you don't have access to a CD for a while to update the drivers... so you have to go searching around on the drive and hope that the default drivers are still around (usually in windows or windows/system or windows/system32  but can be other areas also.

good luck

[More Cowbell]

I guess I should expand on the blue screen. That is simply my tv not receiving any signal I believe so it's not truly the "blue screen of death". I can not get into the BIOS at all, it simply hangs right from the getgo. Is there something I can do to get to the BIOS still? I'll find out what my motherboard is as well.
Thanks

[More Cowbell]

But I hate to sound rude here, but by asking about the harddrive (which is fine btw) it probably means that you don't know enought about PC hardware to overclock safely.  Its not really for beginners.  (and then its not really for expert users either... because they usually have killed a processor or come close on their road to becoming an expert

No offense taken. You are completely right, I don't know a ton about computers. I'm slapping myself for being so bold as to think that I could do it without something going wrong. Great advice from all. Thanks

[More Cowbell]

OK I believe I have my motherboard info. I thought it was a Syntax motherboard but the info I wrote down last night based on a system program I ran last night says the following about the motherboard.
VT8367-8235 Elitegroup (ECS) VIA KT266/A chipset

Does that ring a bell for anyone? I can go some googling but if anyone knows about it, much appreciated.

[TMS]

Not to stray too far from the subject, buy I have never understood the need to overclock. What I mean is that people overclock because they think it is a cheap way to increase system speed, but when you really think about it it doesn't make that much sense. The difference between a 3GHz and a 3.2 is about $30. So you buy a 3Ghz and overclock to 3.2-3 whatever now you need a bigger heatsink another fan etc.... Then you turn up the voltage to make up for the overclocking and you need more cooling and end up with a box that sounds like a hair dryer cause you got 15 fans running. So instead of spending $30 extra dollars for a chip that has been tested safe for 3.2 you end up spending just as much on fans and other ---Cleveland steamer---

[GGKoul]

You need to clear CMOS.  Remove the battery and find the RESET jumper and place a contact between post 1 & 2 or 2 & 3 for 2-3 secs.  

Try that and if the CPU isn't fried, then if should take you into the POST.

[Warborg]

Not to stray too far from the subject, buy I have never understood the need to overclock. What I mean is that people overclock because they think it is a cheap way to increase system speed, but when you really think about it it doesn't make that much sense. The difference between a 3GHz and a 3.2 is about $30. So you buy a 3Ghz and overclock to 3.2-3 whatever now you need a bigger heatsink another fan etc.... Then you turn up the voltage to make up for the overclocking and you need more cooling and end up with a box that sounds like a hair dryer cause you got 15 fans running. So instead of spending $30 extra dollars for a chip that has been tested safe for 3.2 you end up spending just as much on fans and other ---Cleveland steamer---

Well, overclocking did have more of a place a while back, but I would agree that currently it's not nearly as practical.  I've played with overclocking since the 486, and on certain CPUs it was well worth giving a shot.  But yeah, with today's processors, overclocking to get an extra 100-200Mhz out of a 3Ghz processor is hardly worth the trouble.

Now when I did find overclocking useful is back in the day...  When I had my Cyrix 486 s40 (40Mhz) OCed to 50Mhz, pretty good jump in speed at very little risk and no extra cooling.  Then the original Pentium, where I took my 75Mhz and OCed it to 120Mhz (there was a HUGE price different between the 75Mhz and 120Mhz chips) and all I needed was a good CPU cooler, nothing exotic.  Or the Celeron 300a, which would easily overclock to 450Mhz with stock cooling.  But currently, you are right...  CPUs are running much closer to tolerance, and you spend more on the extra cooling then you would on the next step up of CPU.

[More Cowbell]

You need to clear CMOS.  Remove the battery and find the RESET jumper and place a contact between post 1 & 2 or 2 & 3 for 2-3 secs.  

Try that and if the CPU isn't fried, then if should take you into the POST.

Thanks, Stewie. I'll give that a try.

My need to overclock was based on the processor that I already had in the system. Since I'm not extremely computer literate, I thought it may be easier to squeeze a bit more power out so that I could play a few of the games that stutter currently. If it was between buying a 2.5 or 3.0Ghz processor or something, I agree completely that it's worth the money to get something manufactured specifically for what you want it to be. Hence, if I end up having to replace the processor, I will go for something in the 3 range and NOT overclock. 

Which leads me to one more question...
If I can't get it running again, can I simply replace the processor and everything will run ok right from the start? I know I need to see what specifications my motherboard has, but if I install a new CPU, will it boot up ok or are there other changes that need to be made?

[SteveJ34]

Assuming you have reset the BIOS so that the motherboard is no longer set to overclock then a new proc should work.

[Tiger-Heli]

Hence, if I end up having to replace the processor, I will go for something in the 3 range and NOT overclock. 

I seriously doubt you will be able to support a 3G processor on a KT266A board, but I didn't look up the specs from the ECS site for you . . .    (See my previous post).

Which leads me to one more question...
If I can't get it running again, can I simply replace the processor and everything will run ok right from the start? I know I need to see what specifications my motherboard has, but if I install a new CPU, will it boot up ok or are there other changes that need to be made?

Okay - I doubt you did any really damage - just reset the CMOS and you SHOULD be fine again.  However, if you did do damage, there is really no way to know whether you may have damaged the mobo, the memory, or what other components until you get the system booting.

On a more general note - if you are putting in another 1.1 G Athlon, you still need the BIOS reset so the FSB is low enough to allow it to boot.  If you are putting in something faster, you may need to set something in the BIOS (see previous reply by me).

Lilwolf - As previously posted, back in the day - I overclocked my Pentium 200 to 225 Mhz by changing the FSB from 66 to 75 Mhz, IMS.  This changed the PCI/IDE bus from 33-1/3 to 37.5 Mhz.  Worked fine with my WD hard-drive, then I upgraded to a Maxtor, and it took 8 hours to load Win98.  Didn't hurt the drive at all (but I couldn't o/c with it), but it's not a fair statement to say that o/c'ing CAN'T affect the HD.

[Tiger-Heli]

Looks like your board might be able to support a 133 Mhz FSB Athlon 2400, but that is based on a Google search, which led me to this:

http://www.driverguide.com/boards/bios10/1529.html

which led me to this:

http://support.levi.cz/soubor.php?produkt=SV266A&typ=b , which is not written in English.

[More Cowbell]

Thanks for all of the advice. I will try to clear the CMOS tonight by following Stewie's advice and then advance from there as the severity dictates.

[pointdablame]

This may come off as a bit mean, so if it does I apologize.

ECS does not make a great motherboard.  They are passable nowadays, but in the KT266 days they were very low end motherboards.  You should NOT be overclocking with that motherboard, end of story.  Pull out your battery and clear the CMOS and you should be fine.

If you want, buy the highest CPU that motherboard will accept and just leave it at stock speed.  If you want to overclock, and you want to start out cheaply... go find a used AthlonXP 2100+ or 2500+ with a good stepping, and get a good overclocking motherboard.

Do not overclock with that ECS mobo again, it'll only cause problems.  I have dealt with at least 2 of them using that chipset and they work best if you just leave everything alone.  They are not meant to be pushed.

[Tiger-Heli]

This may come off as a bit mean, so if it does I apologize.

Sounded fine to me, I had forgotten about ECS's bad reputation back in the KT266 days, but your information sounds familiar to me.

[More Cowbell]

This may come off as a bit mean

Oh yeah!? Well, you're fat! 
Seriously, good point. Glad to know how much I should push this particular piece of... er.. equipment. I don't know that I'll mess with overclocking again until I understand it better.

[Tiger-Heli]

This may come off as a bit mean

Oh yeah!? Well, you're fat! 
Seriously, good point. Glad to know how much I should push this particular piece of... er.. equipment. I don't know that I'll mess with overclocking again until I understand it better.

Seriously, Warborg had a very good point.  Back when you could overclock a Celeron 300 to 450 or even 550 Mhz and save about $800 in cost of CPU, it made a lot of sense.  When you are talking about getting 1.2 Ghz instead of 1.1 out of an Athlon, you really have to ask if there's any point in it. . .

[Necro]

Bit of a tweak (save 50-200$ depending on the processor) and it only takes 2-3 bios settings?  Yeah...def worth it.  Esp. with the lower heat some procs are putting off....there's no real reason NOT to.

That is...IF you know what your doing.

[Warborg]

Bit of a tweak (save 50-200$ depending on the processor) and it only takes 2-3 bios settings?  Yeah...def worth it.  Esp. with the lower heat some procs are putting off....there's no real reason NOT to.

That is...IF you know what your doing.

True, you can squeeze a bit more...  But then again, you can of course run into weird behavior, lockups, etc.  And when pushing up the bus speed can also cause some timing issues with other components.  And for any significant OC you are probably going to have to get extra cooling, which will pretty much make up the difference to the next highest CPU anyway.  So if can be done, and you may actually get some benefit out of it, but for the most part it's best just left to the die-hards...  Lets face it, a lot of people OC their stuff just to say that they could do it...

[Warborg]

Bit of a tweak (save 50-200$ depending on the processor) and it only takes 2-3 bios settings?  Yeah...def worth it.  Esp. with the lower heat some procs are putting off....there's no real reason NOT to.

That is...IF you know what your doing.

True, you can squeeze a bit more...  But then again, you can of course run into weird behavior, lockups, etc.  And when pushing up the bus speed can also cause some timing issues with other components, and risk just general stability.  And for any significant OC you are probably going to have to get extra cooling, which will pretty much make up the difference to the next highest CPU anyway.  So if can be done, and you may actually get some benefit out of it, but for the most part it's best just left to the die-hards...  Lets face it, a lot of people OC their stuff just to say that they could do it...

[pointdablame]

This may come off as a bit mean

Oh yeah!? Well, you're fat! 

Screw you hippie!!  I'm not fat, I'm big boned!!!

</cartman>

[More Cowbell]

Worked beautifuuly. I found the jumpers and swithed from 2-3 to 1-2 for a few seconds. It booted up perfectly and I vowed never again to touch the overclock, unless.... 

I was thinking about some points made earlier as to the value of overclocking. True that the value of OC from 3.2 to 3.5 doesn't amount to much (9% increase in speed) but when you OC from 1.1 to 1.3 the increase is a bigger difference overall (18% increase in speed). So the value to OCing is definitely there for the slower machines like mine. Maybe I will look into this further now that I know how to fix my screwups. Carefully! Thanks for the help!

[GGKoul]

Worked beautifuuly. I found the jumpers and swithed from 2-3 to 1-2 for a few seconds. It booted up perfectly and I vowed never again to touch the overclock, unless.... 

I was thinking about some points made earlier as to the value of overclocking. True that the value of OC from 3.2 to 3.5 doesn't amount to much (9% increase in speed) but when you OC from 1.1 to 1.3 the increase is a bigger difference overall (18% increase in speed). So the value to OCing is definitely there for the slower machines like mine. Maybe I will look into this further now that I know how to fix my screwups. Carefully! Thanks for the help!

Glad I could help

[Necro]

Bit of a tweak (save 50-200$ depending on the processor) and it only takes 2-3 bios settings?  Yeah...def worth it.  Esp. with the lower heat some procs are putting off....there's no real reason NOT to.

That is...IF you know what your doing.

True, you can squeeze a bit more...  But then again, you can of course run into weird behavior, lockups, etc.  And when pushing up the bus speed can also cause some timing issues with other components.  And for any significant OC you are probably going to have to get extra cooling, which will pretty much make up the difference to the next highest CPU anyway.  So if can be done, and you may actually get some benefit out of it, but for the most part it's best just left to the die-hards...  Lets face it, a lot of people OC their stuff just to say that they could do it...

Actually, there are ways to get around the bus speeds thing now, as some will run the bus at an independent clock from other components, as well as additional multipliers, etc.  Also, because of the lower heat output of some of the newer chips, you can do a fair amount of OC and say well within acceptable heat ranges even with a stock cooler.

Heck some companies make this insanely easy now with 'turbo' type settings in their BIOS that will kick stuff up a bit.   Kind of humorous really.

[Warborg]

Bit of a tweak (save 50-200$ depending on the processor) and it only takes 2-3 bios settings?  Yeah...def worth it.  Esp. with the lower heat some procs are putting off....there's no real reason NOT to.

That is...IF you know what your doing.

True, you can squeeze a bit more...  But then again, you can of course run into weird behavior, lockups, etc.  And when pushing up the bus speed can also cause some timing issues with other components.  And for any significant OC you are probably going to have to get extra cooling, which will pretty much make up the difference to the next highest CPU anyway.  So if can be done, and you may actually get some benefit out of it, but for the most part it's best just left to the die-hards...  Lets face it, a lot of people OC their stuff just to say that they could do it...

Actually, there are ways to get around the bus speeds thing now, as some will run the bus at an independent clock from other components, as well as additional multipliers, etc.  Also, because of the lower heat output of some of the newer chips, you can do a fair amount of OC and say well within acceptable heat ranges even with a stock cooler.

Yes, I know you can have your bus speeds locked while OCing the CPU, of course not all MBs do that, nor would most average users even know anything about those settings.  And heat is not the ONLY factor when it comes to OCing, you realize.  Also, you can also shorten the lifespan of said CPUs, such as conditions like electromigration.  Admittedly, the shorter lifespan generally isn't an issue, cause in most cases you will upgrade well before you get to that point anyway, but it can possibly be a factor.  Point is, I'm not sure about the value of risking your equipment, and at least on newer stuff voiding your warranty to squeeze a little extra performance out of it.  I could OC my videocard core and memory speeds (going from an ATI x800xt's default of 500/500 to something like 520/540 to match the speed of an x850xt), but at the same time the gains are small enough to not want to risk stability of the $370 card itself...