Computer freezes after CPU overclock

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nissanman

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Hi all, my computers bios has these options for overclocking my cpu:

Default
124Mhz/31Mhz
133Mhz/33Mhz
140Mhz/35Mhz
150Mhz/37Mhz

I am curruntly using the 133Mhz/33Mhz setting which for this processor is its default speed(Intel Pentium III 800Mhz). I recently decided to overclock my cpu. I increased this setting from 133Mhz/33Mz to 140Mhz/35Mhz. This took my cpu clock speed up to 840Mhz. My problem is this, the computer starts fine but for some reason the computer is constantly locking up to the point where i cannot move the mouse and have to restart the computer. Why is it that the system is freezing all the time like this with such a small overclock? It runs fine in its default mode. Overheating doesnt seem to be the issue because the heatsink is barely warm when it freezes.

My System Specs are as follow:
Windows 98 Second Edition
Intel Pentium III 800Mhz
192MB SDRAM PC100
10GB Seagate ST310014A Hard Drive
32Mb Nvidia Geforce 256 (DDR)
320 Watt Icute ATX Power Supply

Thanks, Nissanman
 
cpu's can become unstable when overclocked, change it back to normal and it will run fine again. you will hardly notice any difference with a 40MHz increase anyway :)
 
Hi again, i was wondering if it cud be the ram. I hear that overclocking the cpu fsb also overclocks the ram, maybe my pc100 ram cant handle running at a higher speed?, Could this be one of the reasons? Ive read on the internet where people have overclocked there p3 800 like this and it runs fine for them. :haha:
 
I could be the ram. There is lots of PC133 out there if you want to continue your experiment. The only thing is that it's hard to find at a reasonable price.
 
ok, ive brought some PC133 256MB ram for this computer for 10 dollars. I'll put this ram in and try again and let you know what happens.

Cheers, Nissanman
 
Well, the computer still freezes even with the PC133 ram. Is it possible that although the heatsink isnt warm, the cpu could still be overheating? :D
 
Yeah, overheating can still be an issue because overclocking will create a large amount of heat, instantaneously, which, wont have time to get to the heatsink so to speak, and with only a pent.3, its not advised to OC, as the technology wasn't really able to, they just sorta threw it in there, my sister's pc is a pent 3 and she wanted it to go faster, so i bought her a new processor, board, and ddr 2 ram, which cost me roughly 300 dollars, it doesn't take much if you know how to install it yourself, just get a cheap amd processor, nd a board(processor can be as little as 80 bucks, and board, well, 50 really, and then ram, well i payed 110 for 2 gigs ddr2, so you can get like 512 dual channel for cheap if you dont have a lot of cash on hand), but anyways, OC will create unstability as the other guy said, and it will force the processor to do **** it can't really do, so i wouldn't try anymore since it doesn't take much for a processor to literally melt, trust me, i've done it... :( me and my buddy overclocked his processor to see how fast he could get it, and it melted, literally, just incinerated, nothing left. just a line of liquid processor on his board, and last temp we saw was 65 deg. celsius lol
 
Like Infested_Raynor says, it could be that the heat isn't getting through to the heatsink quick enough, in which case you might want to try applying Arctic Solver thermal paste but it depends on whether you want to put more money into your pc for a 40MHz speed increase :)
 
hmmm, i was wondering if it is possible that my video card may of been causing this? I use to have a GeForce 256. Since then i have installed a better card, old but better, a GeForce4 MX4000 128MB. I heard that increasing the cpu FSB also increases the AGP clock. Could it of been that the old 256 was unable to handle faster AGP speeds? I am yet to try the overclock again with this video card.

My System Specs are now:

OS: Windows XP Home Edition SP2
RAM: 320MB RAM
HDD: Seagate ST310014ACE 10GB
Video: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX4000 128MB
CPU: Intel Pentium III 800Mhz
320Watt Icute Power Supply (ATX)
 
Also, i have found a Pentium III 1Ghz cpu that i am thinking of getting, How much of a performance increase should i expect upgrading from a p3 800mhz to a p3 1Ghz?
 
You cannot really expect much difference. Instead of spending money on upgrading your old computer, why don't you just build a new one. You could build a better computer for about $500.

Motherboard: Asus M2A-VM---> $70
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ AM2---> $95
RAM: Corsair DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz Value Select 2GB---> $45
Video Card: Asus EN8600GT SILENT---> $130
PSU: Antec TRUEPOWER TRIO 430W---> $75
HDD: Seagate Barracuda (ST3160815AS) 160GB---> $60

This is a decent PC that will allow you to do much more than you can do with your current one. Not only that, it will allow you to get things done faster.
 
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