BleepingComputer.com: Tiny Overclock gone wrong

I have an ASUS P5N-SLI board and an e4500 dual core, 2.2 GHZ. I have looked at my temperatures and they have never gone above 60 C. I have the stock heatsink but was not looking to go that high. I also have a 550W PSU.

I've never been into overclocking as I fear it would ruin my computer. Today I saw a few examples of how far people overclock their processors (like %40 or more???) So I thought I'd give it a try.

I went into my bios, the overclock settings are under "Jumper free Configurations". You could enter in custom numbers for the FSB and such, but I chose a preset amount, it said "Overclock %5."

Upon restart the computer ran fine. The BIOS reported the system clock as being 840 Mhz (instead of 800). I run Debian Linux, XP pro, and vista. GRUB loaded (like it always does) and I chose Vista/Longhorn loader. It went through its typical boot order, ie vista chooses XP and then XP loads.

The system was fine, and I got to my computer to hit properties, it said what was expected. e4500 at 2.2 GHz and 2.31 GHz. However the computer then locked up.

I restarted and it would not make it past POST. I went into the BIOS and found that the computer would not read USB devices. Fortunately I had a PS/2 keyboard which it accepted and I reset everything to default using the "master default" button, ie factory settings.


I rebooted and GRUB loaded. It went through the boot menu, vista loaded XP. I was then greeted by the famous "Bootmgr not found or is corrupt" message. I tried booting into Debian, but it would not recognise the USB mouse so I had to restart.

I tried booting off of a liveCD of puppy linux but it hanged at loading the kernel.

I only set the overclock settings to %5. Is my processor kaput? I've read people online setting their processors to 40, 50, 60% and it being stable.

I am running memtest86+ right now off of a GPARTED cd. It has not reported any errors, but the point is that the processor is obviously doing something so I don't think that's the problem. Memtest86+ just finished and reported nothing wrong.

I am able to boot into GPARTED. It showed a flag on the first partition, the one that XP is installed to. It reads:


/dev/sda1

Accounting Clusters....

Cluster accounting failed at 11466 (0x2cca): missing cluster in $Bitmap

It then lists 11 other messages of the same thing.

It ends with

Filesystem Check Failed! Totally 12 cluster accounting mismatches.
ERROR: NTFS is inconsistent. Run chdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE!
Unable to read the contents of this file system.


Is that any help?


The other partitions, NTFS and ext3 are not listed as having problems.

Should I try flashing the BIOS? The CMOS jumper? I don't know what to do here, I am totally lost.

If my post showed signs of a dead processor, please tell me as I was planning to upgrade it anyway. My next option is to take it to a local computer store (It's not a ripoff like best buy but I really would rather do it myself).

Thanks for the help and replies.

I would try the bios jumper that should if nothing has gone haywire set it back stock settings.

OldPhil, on Jun 15 2009, 09:26 PM, said:

Do you mean the CMOS jumper?

A 5% OC should not have had that effect .
The thing about a OC is it really depends on more then just the CPU as to how it will work.
The other 2 things it really depends on is the video & memory.
If you are using onboard video how the memory reacts to being OC'd will really affect the video.

If you heve an actual video card a OC is more likely to work.

Any way it's done a 5% OC shouldn't have caused an issue if it was done right.

In order to do a OC properly with a "core" CPU you first need to disable "Speedstep" & set the C1E to disabled.
You then need to set your multplier to 11 manually
Then if you want a 5% OC you can set it to 5% or manually set the FSB to 210 ,

You should be able to get a 20% OC [2640MHz or 2.6GHz] on stock cooling & voltage with no problem.

I have a 2.66GHz running at a 20% OC for 3.2GHz on manual settings.

What kind [speed] memory do you have ?

Oh yeah, The other poster ment reset the ,or clear, the CMOS .

This post has been edited by fairjoeblue: 15 June 2009 - 10:10 PM

fairjoeblue, on Jun 15 2009, 10:09 PM, said:

I admit I was going a little crazy at first but I have checked some things and I believe the hard drive is at fault. GPARTED reported that the first partition of the drive is mucked up. The computer boots into gparted and runs memtest86 fine so the processor/ram is obviously working. I have downloaded WD's diagnostic tool and am running that atm. Also I set the bios back to default using the system menu (will try the cmos jumper if this doesn't work).

I have an EVGA 9800GTX (lol I wouldn't have tried to OC with integrated), and 2GB 800 MHZ DDR2's from G.skill.

I can only assume that the overclock profile was the reason the drive messed up, next time I will try doing it manually as you have listed here.

On the "You then need to set your multplier to 11 manually" part,

The multiplier for a E4500 is 11 , maximum.

If you OC a different CPU it need to be set to the max for the CPU.

[Mine is set to 10]

BTW, G.Skill PC6400 [800MHz] is very overclockable.

You could probably go past a 20% OC if you increased the vcore [CPU voltage] but then you're taking a chance on damaging the CPU .
That's why I haven't pushed mine higher.