Has over-clocking damaged my hardware?

[jshah89]

Has Over-clocking damged my hardware?
I recently made a new computer...amd 3.1ghz processor and 4gb ram. I over-clocked it to 3.4ghz but after a few days windows gave an error at start-up 'over-clocking failed' so i lowered the bus speed to make it 3.3ghz. That too failed after a week or so....after which i reverted the thing to its default settings (3.1ghz). However...now that the computer is back at its original settings...it seems to be running slower...especially in opening applications in 'my computer'. When i double-click the local drives they take longer than usual to open. Twice already, the graphics and colors on the screen have gotten all distorted..so that i've had to restart the computer. Has the over-clocking done any damage to my hardware?? I have tried re-installing windows several times...but the computer is still slower than it used to be..or ought for a computer of its processor speed. Help!!!

 

[OvrClkr]

What are your complete specs?

 

[freezed1]

Hi, is this your first pc? ever? .....report back, also see if you disabled anything from bios....maybe your pc is just throttling because it is running 2 hot?

 

[jshah89]

What are your complete specs?

AMD Athlon X2 6000+ 3.1 Ghz
Asus M4a78-e Motherboard
4gb Ram, 500gb Hard Disk
Sapphire Ati 4870 (1GB)
Cooler Master 460w
Windows XP

 

[jshah89]

What were the temps you were getting under load?

Or did you overclock and not check temps.....that would be dumb..

I have a pretty good cpu cooler installed..its cooler master's Hyper z600..I also have a 120mm fan installed onto it to push the hot air coming out of it toward the chassis exhaust at the rear. Temperatures are not that low..nor high enough to be worried about....47 at idle...56 would be the avg at load...it at times has reached 60 but rarely..but 60 is okay isn't it..i mean it shouldn't cause any problems.
Oh yeah...I also increased the chassis fan speeds from the bios..there were 3 options...'silent', 'optimum', 'performance'. I put both of them onto performance...the fans got louder but i saw a slight drop in temps.

 

[jshah89]

Say the over-clocking has taken a toll on my hardware to a certain extent...so that it doesn't work as well as it used to...is there any way to repair it so that it works as well as before? How about dis-assembling all the hardware parts and then putting them back together again?? Any way to make the hardware good as new?? Even though my system is only 4 weeks old!

 

[belial2k]

The overclocking did not damage your hardware. The only way to damage your cpu or mb is to overvolt it, which you clearly did not do with that overclock. You need to get back to basics...reset the bios to all the defaults. Unplug everything from your computer except kb/mouse and monitor. Check all your internal connections. Check your hardware one by one to see where the problem is. Check memory and hard discs first. Since the problem are not video related you can skip the gpu, if you have another cpu that will fit that socket try it, if not do your best to figure out if it is MB or cpu error. 90% of the time if its between those two it will be the MB.

 

[OvrClkr]

Have you removed the CPU and re-pasted lately? Maybe that can help....

What voltage are you using for the CPU and northbridge?

 

[jshah89]

Well everything is on default..including the voltages...the cpu voltage being at 1.53

 

[jshah89]

The overclocking did not damage your hardware. The only way to damage your cpu or mb is to overvolt it, which you clearly did not do with that overclock. You need to get back to basics...reset the bios to all the defaults. Unplug everything from your computer except kb/mouse and monitor. Check all your internal connections. Check your hardware one by one to see where the problem is. Check memory and hard discs first. Since the problem are not video related you can skip the gpu, if you have another cpu that will fit that socket try it, if not do your best to figure out if it is MB or cpu error. 90% of the time if its between those two it will be the MB.

Hmmm...you know what..I did push the vcore up to 1.56 from 1.53 after increasing the bus from 200 to 220...However...after system restarted...vcore read as 1.6 and I was given a warning that voltage was too high...I was just about to restart the computer before it went black and did it itself...i quickly lowered the vcore in the bios then...But the thing is...my system was fine...running smooth as silk even after a good 3 weeks or so of that dose of over-voltage...if say the over-voltage is the cause of my system slowing down....oh yeah...my cursor sometimes stops too..sometimes becomes really choppy moving around...why didn't it show its effects right then??? So could it still possibly be over-volting?? Say it is over-volting...what do you think it specifically did to the hardware? And can't it be repaired?? And any idea how a computer damaged by over-volting typically behaves??....

 

[belial2k]

At this point that is all fairly unimportant. I really don't think it was the overclock that damaged your computer...but that doesn't mean that you don't have a hardware error someplace. Are you sure those are the correct voltages? It doesn't sound right to me that it is running at 1.53 stock.

 

[jshah89]

Yeah it didn't seem right to me either. Bios on default does say 1.53. PC Probe shows 1.57. CPU-Z shows Core VID (I don't know what that is-can you plz explain) as 1.4. All this at stock, yes.
Ok, so if I do have a hardware problem..how to diagnose it? I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool this morning...no errors.

 

[daship]

Weak power supply? lAso with crashes ocuring it will damage sectors on the HDD, and make your system slow. Run chkdisc and the manufacturers hdd test.

 

[jshah89]

Hey Guys Thank you so much for all your input......I've finally been able to solve the problem!! It was quite simple if you come to think of it but it never occurred to me at all...the cd i used for my windows installation was corrupt...I re-installed windows...this time xp 64bit....and everything is working just fine now...I remember how the installation got stuck twice at 13% remaining...and how i had to restart the installation process each time until finally the third time it worked. No problems anymore....thanks guys...especially belial for all your detailed input.