Can a CPU overclock cause some games to CTD...

[Huxley2k7]

... But not others?

I'm stumped. The other day i reformatted my PC and decided to once and for all overclock my E6600 from 2.40ghz to 3.60. I re-installed all my games and software as you do. To my surprise, all of a sudden Dawn of War 2 has decided it wants to crash to desktop 5 minutes into a game with the Relic error report up on screen. So i rolled back from the latest garbage drivers from Nvidia (196.21 > 195.62) but still the game crashes to desktop with error report.

Okay, so i jump on to Fallen Earth and play a bit of that with a friend. It's fine, until i adjust some graphical settings in-game and it CTDs with an error report. What's strange is the game doesn't crash while im playing, only when i adjust the graphics in some shape or form (at least i think). Which is leaving me stumped. I'm pretty sure this game has its fair share of bugs as well, so im not too bothered about that.

Aliens Versus Predator however runs fine, i have played for at least an hour at a time with no CTD's.

I'm stumped as to why DOW2 has now decided to crash on me when i am running exactly the same system as i was before, minus the overclock. But im thinking if it was the CPU overclock the game would hard-lock/freeze and not simply CTD with an error report 5-10 minutes into a game. And also AVP would crash, especially since that game was poorly coded and is riddled with memory leaks.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[brandonwh64]

run Intelburntest, LinX, or OCCT for stability on your overclock. if one of those fail then your OC is not stable.

 

[angelkiller]

The first question I would ask is whether the OC is stable. Unstable OCs do all sorts of weird things.

Maybe the OC has pushed the RAM too far?

If you want to ensure it's your OC, revert everything back to stock settings and if the games work, you can be sure it's your OC.

 

[cadaveca]

To be able to ALT-TAB back to desktop, a copy of vga ram is held in system ram. Errors here can cause CTD. Check your ram.

Secondly, power consumption increases due to the pu overclock could affect power delivered to the vgas. Check PSU 12v line as well.

 

[francis511]

Simple answer to the question is yes. Try a lower overclock or higher voltages.

 

[Yukikaze]

... But not others?

I'm stumped. The other day i reformatted my PC and decided to once and for all overclock my E6600 from 2.40ghz to 3.60. I re-installed all my games and software as you do. To my surprise, all of a sudden Dawn of War 2 has decided it wants to crash to desktop 5 minutes into a game with the Relic error report up on screen. So i rolled back from the latest garbage drivers from Nvidia (196.21 > 195.62) but still the game crashes to desktop with error report.

Okay, so i jump on to Fallen Earth and play a bit of that with a friend. It's fine, until i adjust some graphical settings in-game and it CTDs with an error report. What's strange is the game doesn't crash while im playing, only when i adjust the graphics in some shape or form (at least i think). Which is leaving me stumped. I'm pretty sure this game has its fair share of bugs as well, so im not too bothered about that.

Aliens Versus Predator however runs fine, i have played for at least an hour at a time with no CTD's.

I'm stumped as to why DOW2 has now decided to crash on me when i am running exactly the same system as i was before, minus the overclock. But im thinking if it was the CPU overclock the game would hard-lock/freeze and not simply CTD with an error report 5-10 minutes into a game. And also AVP would crash, especially since that game was poorly coded and is riddled with memory leaks.

Anyone have any ideas?

Of course. It can get even weirder, such as stability tests passing (Say you ran Prime95 or LinX, or both) and games crashing. This is because in game the northbridge can be stressed more, for example, due to PCIe traffic going through it as well as memory accesses.

Run stability tests, you're likely not stable.

 

[Huxley2k7]

Hey dudes!

Just reset BIOS to defaults - voila, no more crashing.

Le Sigh. I guess 3.60ghz was too much? Or i just did something wrong? It appears i am still a meagre Padawan in the face of overclocking.

I feel stupid for not trying this sooner.

Thanks for your time TPU, this place is always so helpful.

 

[assaulter_99]

Maybe the OC wasn't stable, missing some voltage or whatever. I had the same issues with crysis, whether the OC was stable or not though. Guess it only goes down to luck sometimes.