Overclocking woes - help needed

[Holy Cheese]

Hi gents,

a tale of woe for you here, caused by my own stupidity.

My PC has the following specs:

QX6700 quad cpu 2.66 Ghz

Asus Striker Extreme MoBo

Asus 8800 Ultra 786 Mb GPU

Vista 32 bit

So what happened? Yesterday I installed YBBN, and spent some time looking around and flying an approach to Runway 01. I was getting fps on the ground at about 4 - 6 after using the recommended settings, and when flying the approach to 01 I was getting a magnificent 1.9 fps (yes, 1.9, not 19). As I was looking around at other posts here on the site, I saw Russ's specs in his sig showing his Q6600 was oc'd to 3.4 Ghz, and after having a look at some posts on the web I decided to have a try myself at overclocking.

Disaster! I used the onboard Asus AI Booster tool (I can hear Maurice King laughing from here  ) and set the FSB from 266 up to 300 (not sure if this is Mhz or Ghz). This seemed reasonable since I had been reading posts of people having set up as far as 400+. Also, in the Asus instruction book it says there would be no danger, simply pressing any key at re-boot would cancel the new settings. Piece of cake, this is, I thought!

Re-booted, with the result that nothing happened! Well, the Striker Extreme logo came up, saying the usual press Del etc etc, but it would boot no further than that. A second attempt to boot produced a very long single beep out of the speakers, for which I can find no code, but I suspect is an overheating warning. A third attempt to boot say the Asus Striker Extreme logo drawing, but this took about 2 minutes instead of being instantaneous. I cannot access the Bios to reset anything.

My question is regarding the Clear CMOS concept. According to the mobo's manual, I should have a button on the board where I can clear the CMOS and reset factory defaults. What I cannot find out anywhere is what this will affect? Am I likely to lose any data by doing this? Will I have to reinstall Windows?

Any help in getting out of this pickle would be much appreciated.

Please note that I am fully aware that this is entirely my own fault, I am not trying to imply any criticism of YBBN here or implicate it in my problems in any way.

Thanks in advance

Jack

[Owi]

No worries, mate!

Sorry - sadly, in this day and age - first I have to advise you of the usual disclaimers from the application of my advice/help.

If you're OK to open up the case of your PC: somewhere inside on the motherboard, you will find a button-battery (about the size of a 1 Dollar coin).  This holds the BIOS data in the CMOS.  Carefully remove this battery and wait for about 30 seconds before replacing it (same way up that it came out).  That way, the BIOS data will reset to defaults, erasing any bad overclock settings you have set.  You should not lose any data (so long as you are NOT using a RAID setup).

This might not be exactly correct or optimal for your system, but it should allow the system to start up again and then you can tweak it back to where it used to be.

Good luck.

[Atomic_Sheep]

And yes it is in Mhz.

[Holy Cheese]

Thanks guys - I'm ok messing around in the case, I built the system myself. Just know nothing about overclocking 

I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Cheers

Jack

[Holy Cheese]

OK, took the battery out of the mobo, was able to boot again and load defaults. All seems well!

That was a scare, won't be doing that again in a hurry!

Cheers

Jack

[Atomic_Sheep]

Join overclockers forum. They have plenty of tips on overclocking. Based on my reading, taking out the battery/resetting your BIOS is common practice when overclocking. Just read a lot of tutorials on how to do it for your specific CPU before you try anything. There's a lot of nuances to it that you must be aware of before you start screwing around with the comp. Try searching google for people with a similar setup to yours that have successfully overclocked their and have a look at their BIOS settings to get some good ideas as to what to aim for.

[Holy Cheese]

Thanks for the tip, Atomic Sheep. I'd read a couple of posts on the Overclockers forum earlier in the week, might well be worth signing up there and giving it a more controlled and informed whirl. My pc is not that old, and her indoors will not let me spring for a new build just yet, so I'm pretty desperate to try to get better results out of what I have. YBBN looked unbelievable from what I saw when I installed it, and would certainly like to be able to go and fly there 

Cheers

Jack

[Phil Manhart]

Another heads-up for you, instead of removing the CMOS Battery you should use a jumper (in 90% of motherboards). Look in your motherboards manual (download one of you have to) for a jumper that will be called something similar to JBAT, something BAT, or something to do with the CMOS/BIOS. It will be described as clearing the CMOS.

You will move the jumper (again 90% of the time) to pins 2 and 3 for around 10 seconds, then move it back to pins 1 and 2.

This is much safer than pulling the battery!

And if you are really overclocking your rig, you will be very good at this by the end of your journey...

Phil

[Atomic_Sheep]

Just take your time and learn as much as possible before you jump head first into the deep end. As you said, you're not planning on an upgrade soon so any mistake can turn that choice into a necessity. Don't get me wrong, lots of people are overclocking successfully but you just gotta know what you're doing like with anything. I can't say I'm an overclocking expert and in fact I've only overclocked once before and ended up in the same position that you found yourself in and have never tried it since until now that is. I've been looking into the matter for quite some time and only after a few weeks of looking around have I managed to acquire enough knowledge about it to feel comfortable enough to start creeping those sliders up. My goal isn't that high in comparison to what some of the guys on my CPU are pulling so I'm pretty comfortable with what I plan on doing but none the less... but you really have to find out as much as possible about your hardware so that there are no nasty surprises. Watch videos on youtube... there are a few good ones on guys giving tutorials on overclocking so it gives you that confidence to try a few things out.

P.S. I believe the long beep you were hearing was the cpu not being recognised but I'm just guessing here. I was hearing a bunch of intermittent beeps and I was told it was memory not being recognised but a long beep I would imagine in your case would have meant no cpu. I'm sure if you do a quick search you'll stumble upon this info. Good luck, hope it all works out and you get your fps up.

[Griphos]

Do educate yourself (easy to do with the internet and so many people overclocking).  And every system is different, so just plugging in someone else's settings rarely works, imo.  The key, and I do think this is the most important thing, is to change things one small step at a time, test thoroughly, and then change again.  You have to sort of sneak up on the maximum settings for your system.  You go until the last change reduces stability or increases temps unacceptably and back it up one.  Doing it this way may get you BSODs, but shouldn't get you to where you have to reset CMOS again. 

So, you'll need to learn what each change you might make really does, what other settings are connected to that change and will have to be changed in concert, and what effect those changes have on your system.  Overclocking is effected by and affects memory and gpu settings as well.  And the quality of your memory or gpu can seriously limit or facilitate what you can accomplish with the cpu.

You'll need something like RealTemp to monitor temperatures, and something like Prime95 (my favorite because of its flexibility) or some other stress program to test the stability of your system after changes.  Don't be greedy, and you'll get a significant boost to current operating speeds without spending any more than a significant number of hours learning and testing, and without reducing stability.  Don't expect miracles, but real improvement is doable.

[Holy Cheese]

Thanks all of you,

I think I will indeed do a lot more reading and then do some more tests. I've already got CPU-Z, RealTemp, Prime95, GPU-Z and MemTest installed on my PC.

Normally, I don't have too much of a problem running FSX, I get a good 30 fps in PNW (outside of Seattle) with the recommended settings as well as a very smooth flying experience. But I'd really really love to be able to go to YMML and YBBN and experience smoothness there without having to switch everything in the control panels off and have no AI either - both of which kind of defeat the object of having the scenery for me.

I know that going down the oveeclock road is a bit of a risk, and it's something I've avoided for many many years, but this is just too tempting!

Jack

[Phil Manhart]

I'm glad you've decided to join the ranks!

Since the early days I've been overclocking to get more bang for the buck. Nowadays they have made it so easy that anyone can do it with a few hours of prep and reading. Some motherboards (check out MSI's OC Genie) even will do it for you... and don't forget the newer Intel chips have built in automatic overclocking (Turbo Boost) if the motherboard supports it!

Phil

[Holy Cheese]

The trick seems to be in reading the right thing, Phil - my escapade of yesterday was the result of doing exactly something I'd read, because it seemed like the easiest way to do it. I guess I'll have to read much, although I do seem to have found a good article on overclockers.com which explains what all the different steps are.

tha's one thing I've never figured out though - if all this hardware can be overclocked so easily, why the h**l don't they just supply the things at the higher settings???

Hopefully I'll build up some knowhow before I get round to upgrading my system, then I'll definitely follow your advice and make sure I get hardware that can be easily improved.

Cheers

Jack

[Phil Manhart]

if all this hardware can be overclocked so easily, why the h**l don't they just supply the things at the higher settings???

It's the trick in manufacturing the chips that causes us to have different versions.

Here's a basic example:

A yield of chips is created with a target of 2.0 Ghz, of the chips only 10% work near flawless, 30% work great, 50% work ho-hum, and 10% have failed to meet quality standards.

The 10% is shipped from the factory at 2.0 Ghz because they are nearly flawless and will run at that speed and slightly higher with no failures.

The 30% won't run above 1.8 Ghz without some random failures, so it is clocked at 1.5 Ghz and shipped.

The 50% is clocked at 1.0 Ghz and shipped as budget chips because none of them were able to to be clocked over 1.5 Ghz with no failures.

The 10% that failed is a complete loss of that yield and will be considered in pricing the other 90% of chips that were produced.

In reality, the yield percentages are much lower.

So that is why us overclockers buy lower clocked processors because we know that there is "overhead" in the chip, allowing for higher clock speeds. Some other things are different, like different cache sizes (just Google it) and little things here and there, but by and by the brains are the same.

Phil

[Owi]

Hey, mate.

Glad to see you've gotten back up and running.  I agree with most of the other posts before - there is always more than one or two ways to skin a cat but I wanted to provide you with the most basic method.

Don't worry, I'd say I'm an experienced-novice overclocker myself.  I've managed two pretty good overclocks on my current and two previous systems, so I've been through the mill as most will in learning how to overclock.  And you know what? - just like flying, I'm always still learning more.  Because every system/setup requires different techniques, it's a massive learning curve but lots of fun, and sometimes not-so when it goes wrong .

Cheers and good luck.

[TenBlade]

It should have a clear CMOS button on the back where all the usb´s etc. go.

I got the Striker II Extreme ROG and have found a nice BIOS setting, see spec.s below. There´s also a great ASUS site (from which I got my BIOS settings), you simply pick your mobo from the drop menu, and you´re lead to specific forum. For STriker Extreme: http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?board_id=1&model=Striker+Extreme&SLanguage=en-us

Bjorn