0.2v = $2000

[bassmasta]

well, I need desperate help. I'm not new to overclocking, but I've never really done memory, mostly because I didn't know the voltage ranges. well, I saw something here (dont remember where, was bookmarked on other pc) that said anything under 2.2 is good. well, I turned my mem from auto to 2 volts. I booted my pc and stress tested. no problems. I restarted and increased frequency and lowered timings, because I'd rather lower to stable then increase. I went into windows, and cpu z told me that timings did not change. I was pissed. I restarted and went back to the timings. the settings were where I ad left them, but a fun little message at the top told me that it was running lower than advertised. well, I disabled something at the bottom, dont remember what it was, and started. I crashed. well, that's fair enough I thought and tried to turn my pc back on. lights and fans. I unplugged it and tried again. lights and fans.

now the shit had hit the fan, and I knew it. I opened the case to see if anything was melting (it was almost midnight, and I had had a long day and couldn't think right.). well, now the lights fans only bliped on then went back off. I discovered that touching the inside of the case would keep them running, but it made an odd crackling sound. well, as it turns out, when I took the side off of my case, some pins had popped out of the fan's four-pin plug and made contact with the side of the case. yay.

well, this isn't the first time it's happened, but I didn't try to restart eight times with such a "connection". well, I fixed that, and went back to testing. I took out the possibly burt-out ram and replaced it with some slightly faster ram, with a grand total of 256 X 2 ram. no boot. I take my possibly dead ram and put it into the old pc. it boots fine, even though I don't think a compaq has even seen that much ram before. I also happen to notice the fn warning on the ram sticker telling me not to exceed 1.8 volts. well, now I see that a capacitor (I think, one of those black tubes) on the mobo it a little off, so I push it back in. well, after another try and no boot, I notice that now that I have taken my red lighting out, in order to protect my eyes from it, I noticed that the 2900 xt has a little red light on the back that blinks upon start up. not many times, just once per start. the card is right under the capacitor (I think) that I just pushed in, which means that I'm going to have to test that, too. oh, and the hd is making some sounds that, while not healthy, I'm ready to assume have always been there, just covered up by the case and the increased fan speeds.


so, symptoms:
no mobo beep
no bios
no boot
hd is complaining
ram is fine


so, if there are any kind people out there, I need help. I know that something is broken, but I'd rather fix it myself than send the whole pc back where it came from. I believe it to be either the mobo or the processor, but I have no way to test them independantly because I have no other am2 board, and the nearest shop that sells one is almost four hours away. and I don't have that kind of cash, anyway. help!

 

[newconroer]

Lol about a Compaq never seeing that much ram!

I'm getting the impression you think the motherboard was shorted in some way based on your loose pin description. If you mean to say that some fan pins flopped out and hit the side of the case, then that's no big deal, as long as they weren't still touching the fan line while it was hooked to the mobo.


The crashing due to memory change is not necessarily damage to anything.
Forgive me if I missed it, but did you reset the CMOS?

Some boards will not have an overclock recovery feature.

So for the sake of a simple solution, pull the battery out of the board (while system is off preferrably) leave it out for five minutes, put it back in, start 'er up and see what happens.

If all is good, it will post and then you can review the defaulted BIOS.


As for the capacitor...


General rule of thumb : If a capacitor pops off...things aren't looking good; especially if you don't know what the cap is controlling, and/or how to solder it back on.

 

[bassmasta]

thanks alot for the quick reply, and i'll go try it now, because I've never had to learn about cmos, mostly because i've never screwed up this bad.

as for the cap, it wasn't loose, exactly, it was just a bit... angled, maybe ten degreen or less.

 

[bassmasta]

well, while the poll results are not very encouraging, my pc is running again, and for some reason, my 667 memory is running at 800 with the origional timings. ty for the help!

 

[lemonadesoda]

bassmasta,

Very strong advice coming:

unplug your PC. put it on a table. dismantle it. take the mainboard OUT of the case. Clean. Look for small screws. Make sure your mainboard mountings are all in place. Add if necessary. Rebuild. Ensure ALL connectors are good.

Intermittant faults are not due to some "random woman-ghost in the works" that will fix itself. There's a problem. Find it. Fix it. Before you lose something important. (either data, or PC components).

If you have a cheapo CPU fan, replace it. A faulty motor or speed controller is enough to give u a lot of problems.

 

[bigboi86]

I second resetting the cmos.

 

[bigboi86]

I second resetting the cmos.

By lowering timings, do you mean changing them to a lesser number? That is tightening timings, and it's worse for overclocking.

You want to loosen them for higher clocks(run 5.5.5.15 instead of 4.4.4.12)

 

[bassmasta]

well I did reset cmos, everything is running fine, and the issue was that the voltage I set was too high for the memory. and I realise that what I did with the timings is not the regular way of going about it, but I'd rather have all of my timings down two digits than another 50 mhz on my memory. but, like I said, I usually prefer to setmy things at a level that should be unstable and work down, rather than work up, because I feel that it usually saves time.

 

[KennyT772]

Thats the easiest way to fuck soemthing up. Theres a reason you start low and work your way up.