This morning I was messing around on my machine trying to optimize it so I could play a game I have, Counter-Strike: Source, more smoothly. I went in to the BIOS and went into the menu where you can adjust your processor settings. I increased what I think was the front side bus (FSB) from 101 MHz to 110 MHz. Windows loads normally and my CPUÂ’s clock speed jumps from 2.1 GHz to 2.3 GHz. I decide to take it up another notch and repeat the processÂ… this time increasing it to 120 MHz. After I save changes, the screen goes black, but my computer is still running. I manually reboot it and I didnÂ’t hear the normal two beeps that usually sound when I start it. This time I only heard one. After the beeps, I never saw anything on the screen. I donÂ’t know if the BIOS even loaded. What happened?
Possible problems:
- Fried processor: This is a concern I have heard about overclocking from the beginning. I have heard horror stories about them heating up and then melting. I am not sure if this is the case or not because it was only a split second after I saved my settings that the screen went black.
- Fried RAM – Tweaktown.com says, “Let me explain why, when you overclock the FSB, you are also, indirectly, overclocking your RAM. So, say for example you have PC100 memory and want to adjust the FSB from 100MHz to 112MHz you are in fact overclocking the PC100 memory to 112MHz… Now however, it is very important to buy branded, fast memory, which has been pre-tested to run a certain speeds… It could also be that your ram is well, crap (couldn’t have said it better myself Junkz). If you buy cheap, unbranded memory you will pay the price with not being able to overclock it much or in some cases not at all.” This would make sense because of the missing 2nd beep I receive when I start my computer.
- Graphic card problem – This could be the problem because my computer sounds like it is running normally (other than the second beep) when I turn it on. It would make sense that I wouldn’t see anything if overclocking affected my graphics card. Going back to the two magical beeps, I thought I should note that when I upgraded to a RADEON 9550 from some stock NVIDIA card, the beeps also changed. Whenever I start up my computer with my new card in, the two beeps were farther apart than before. Tweaktown.com says, “So, basically when you overclock the FSB you are also changing the AGP / PCI and ISA buses - some of these devices don’t like to be overclocked and will result in your system not booting or crashing.”
Possible Solutions:
- Replace my system RAM with some different RAM, and see if my computer boots.
- Flashing or zapping PRAM on my motherboard. I donÂ’t know much about this but this is mentioned in my motherboardÂ’s instruction booklet and a teacher also told me he had to do this when his computer would not boot.
HELLLP!!!!!
Possible problems:
- Fried processor: This is a concern I have heard about overclocking from the beginning. I have heard horror stories about them heating up and then melting. I am not sure if this is the case or not because it was only a split second after I saved my settings that the screen went black.
- Fried RAM – Tweaktown.com says, “Let me explain why, when you overclock the FSB, you are also, indirectly, overclocking your RAM. So, say for example you have PC100 memory and want to adjust the FSB from 100MHz to 112MHz you are in fact overclocking the PC100 memory to 112MHz… Now however, it is very important to buy branded, fast memory, which has been pre-tested to run a certain speeds… It could also be that your ram is well, crap (couldn’t have said it better myself Junkz). If you buy cheap, unbranded memory you will pay the price with not being able to overclock it much or in some cases not at all.” This would make sense because of the missing 2nd beep I receive when I start my computer.
- Graphic card problem – This could be the problem because my computer sounds like it is running normally (other than the second beep) when I turn it on. It would make sense that I wouldn’t see anything if overclocking affected my graphics card. Going back to the two magical beeps, I thought I should note that when I upgraded to a RADEON 9550 from some stock NVIDIA card, the beeps also changed. Whenever I start up my computer with my new card in, the two beeps were farther apart than before. Tweaktown.com says, “So, basically when you overclock the FSB you are also changing the AGP / PCI and ISA buses - some of these devices don’t like to be overclocked and will result in your system not booting or crashing.”
Possible Solutions:
- Replace my system RAM with some different RAM, and see if my computer boots.
- Flashing or zapping PRAM on my motherboard. I donÂ’t know much about this but this is mentioned in my motherboardÂ’s instruction booklet and a teacher also told me he had to do this when his computer would not boot.
HELLLP!!!!!
