# Games freeze after overclocking



## frostbitegx

Hey all. First post here, hopefully you all can help!

I've upgraded my Dell XPS 630i with an arctic cooler 7, 8 gb of 1066 ddr2 ram and a 2gb 660 GTX.I have the standard Dell mobo.

I've overclocked my q6600 processor to 3.0ghz. It passes all stress tests of occt and prime 95 but while gaming will freeze. Temps usually max out around 60C while testing and around 55C while gaming.

My bios settings are unlinked with 1333 mhz fsb and 1066 mem mhz. My mobo supported 800 as default so I had to "overclock" it to run the new sticks as spec'd.

Core and chip voltage is set at 1.4.

What could be causing the freezes?


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## MPR

Just because an overclocked system doesn't "crash" when running Prime 95 it doesn't mean that it's necessarily perfectly stable. Some games just don't like to run on overclocked systems. For instance, I can run Prime95 for several days on my system OC'd to 4 GHz and also run my business apps without problem. However, when I open Age of Empires III and play a game I can almost be certain that it's going to freeze at some point.

In science, we try to reduce an experiment to one changed variable initially. Remove all overclocking (remember to set voltages back to normal) then run your game. If it's stable, then overclock only the CPU. If the system is still stable then set the CPU back to standard and overclock only the RAM. If the system is still stable then overclock both. In this way you can determine if it's one or the other or the combination od overclocks that's causing the instability.

You might have to tweak voltages to get a stable overclock. Note, however, that this is the area where you can actually cause physical damage to your hardware and proceed with caution. I'd search the forums to see what stable overclocks people have been able to get on systems similar to yours and use their procedures as a guideline.

Note that a lot of gaming "performance" is subjective too. It might be better to play a stable game than to overclock to get 20 more fps but then have the game freeze.


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## Panther063

That's a 25% overclock on your Quad core, that may be too much, increasing the Vcore to 1.5 may help.


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## Tyree

What means are you using to OC the OEM Mobo?
Back off the OC to a point the problem does not occur. 
Better yet, remove the OC...2.4GHz should be fine.


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## greenbrucelee

As Tyree asked how are you overclocking with an OEM BIOS are you using software?

If you are using software stop using it and revert to normal. In all my years of overclocking I have never found a cpu overclocking program work properly. Please read this http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f273/how-to-overclock-a-core-2-duo-or-quad-637592.html


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## frostbitegx

I'm using the DELL bios, not a 3rd party software.


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## greenbrucelee

Dell BIOS are normally locked so you can't change them.


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## MPR

greenbrucelee said:


> Dell BIOS are normally locked so you can't change them.


It appears that you can overclock the 630i in at least some of its configurations:

The 630i Resource Collective: Overclocking


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## greenbrucelee

MPR said:


> It appears that you can overclock the 630i in at least some of its configurations:
> 
> The 630i Resource Collective: Overclocking


Never knew that, thanks.


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## MPR

Even Dell sometimes surprises me.


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## T_Rex

Well yeah, some of us knew I was a dell tech for about 3 years before another gaming specific vendor, but software or even mild OC options in a bios does not mean it will actually be stable. Some XPS systems had that option going back 6 years, but like any other system it depends on the rest of your hardware. PSU, Memory etc... Dell uses their own motherboards and they have them built by foxconn usually. They are actually pretty high quality years back, depending on the specific model. Dell PSU's were actually pretty high quality going 3 years back and like Seasonic PSU's they were underrated.

I have something to say here. These days overlocking has become the "buzzword" now more than ever but it only gets you 5-10-15 FPS at most depending on the scaling (CPU/GPU combination scaling) of your system. Doing it can give you vast knowledge above the normal builder but doing it for the rookie can also means instability until you know how to dial an overclock in with quality components. With how fast CPU's and GPU's are these days it's not really necessary the smart guy (or a guy with money) pays for the better CPU and GPU to have a stable gaming system. No OC needed. he can have an extremely fast system even in MATX form. Something like an H81/4770k/GTX 780. No ridiculous tinkering necessary. Of course ... it's not completely ridiculous that was how I learned, and now after all these years I have come nearly full circle back to stock form. Imagine that.


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## Dr_Sepheroth

Just because you Overclock a CPU does not mean that a Game will run faster ! Some Computers require that you overclock the Graphics Core Sepritly.
Most Morden Graphics Cards and Onboard Graphics Chips have this function. The Clock speed on the Graphics Core should be around 3/4 faster than the clock speed of the CPU or the Game will run to slowly for the textures to keep up with the fps, and V-H sync's thus the game will crash.
Alternatively you can run an old vintage game with out overclocking the graphics core if you want to.
While the Clock speed of the CPU and Graphics are not in the configuration range, the Graphics will run in 16 bit mode by default.

Ref: Wiki, tomshardware, and youtube.


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