Computer keeps freezing and thinks it's overclocked

[will123]

Hi,

My system:

ASUSTek P5Q-E
RAM: 4GB of Kingston Hyper X
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.66Ghz
ATI Radeon HD 4670
OS: Windows XP

My PC froze last week and then wouldn't boot up when i tried to turn it on again. It would turn on (fans working, etc) but no bios appeared on the screen. Eventually (not sure how/why) it booted up again and I got the message:

"Overclocking Failed. Press F1 to enter BIOS. Press F2 to load defaults and resume" (or something along those lines...)

I have not overclocked my system at all, so am wondering why I get this message? Is it a problem with my motherboard? Should I update my BIOS?

Any help would be great, but please speak slowly - I'm new to all this...!

Thanks!

 

[Ian]

Welcome to the site Will123!

I've got the P5Q motherboard and I've had that exact same problem, but I do overclock. I just went in to the bios using F2 and then saved the settings - that solved the problem

I don't know why it would happen in your case, perhaps the failure mode just happened to be the same and this generic message was presented. Has this happened since?

 

[will123]

It's happened twice so far... The first time it wouldn't boot so I left it for24hrs then tried again and it booted (for some unknown reason) and then gave me the "Overclocking Failed" message. I went into the BIOS and made sure that nothing was OC'd, after which it worked perfectly.

That was until a couple of days ago when it froze again. I managed to get it to boot into the BIOS this time by holding DEL when I turned it on. This time I didn't get the "Overclocking Failed" message but that could be because I went straight into the BIOS...?

I'm trying to think of things that could have gone wrong - it's a brand new system as of last April and everything has worked perfectly until now. I read some other threads about a similar issue where the people thought it might be the PSU didn't have enough grunt to handle the system, but mine is 650W and a decent brand (Tagan Superrock) so I don't think that should be the problem.

My computer has recently moved location and so I'm thinking perhaps I knocked something inside maybe? I'm still to investigate this though...

 

[muckshifter]

welcome to PCR

Replace the CR2032 cmos battery, some are older than they look.

... and while you're in there, make sure everything is nice-n-tight.