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As some may know I am a bit of a geek and computer hobbyist and have built quite a few PC's over the years. I am just about to build a new one, but intended to keep my old one for downloading music and trying stuff out, so there would be no risk of compromise to my main system, from Spyware or Viruses.

So, I thought to myself, lets try and experiment with a bit of Overclocking! Well my advice is, if you ever think about this DON'T DO IT, unless you really know what you are doing! I tried it and I have screwed a totally good computer! It's probably the Graphics Card that I have fried, but fault finding is not easy, as there are a number of things that could have gone wrong. The card cost over £200.00 4 years ago, was working fine and was still a match for many midrange cards even now - gutted and what a plonker!

If you are into PC's and at all interested in what I did and what happened, then I have been posting in an Overclockers Forum for advice - links below.

DELETED by GG

Having said all that though, I have learnt a valuable lesson and it won't put me off, I will just be a lot more cautious next time. We all have to start somewhere and I'm not the first plonker!!!! 

GG

Lesson learned then GG

I've been building computers for a number of years now, my latest being a Core 2 Duo that is slightly overclocked at 2x 2.4Ghz instead of the standard 2 x 2.2Ghz, I have pushed the multiplier up before to run the CPU at 2 x 3.0Ghz and it run fine but did tend to freeze on games, so altered the multiplier back to a reasonable level. If you are going to overclock then additional cooling is essential, and an after market CPU cooler is another must.

Overclocking graphics cards is a risky business, you have to be sure the memory and CPU timings are correct on the card itself, if not then a fried graphics card is almost a cert.

One safe way, DON'T OVERCLOCK.

All fixed and working smoothly now!

What I had done was put too much load on the power supply and it gave way, taking the operating system with it. It was rated at 460W which was fine under normal use, as my rig only needed around 380W at maximum load. Overclocking the graphics card initailly worked fine, but I stress tested it to see if it was stable and that's when I blew the PSU!

So I now have a brand new and much better PSU at a cost of just over 40 quid. I'm a happy bunny, as I have grown quite attached to my system. With a fresh installation of Windows XP (SP3), all is purring along sweetly.  ;D

I'm not that upset at losing 40.00, as I have learnt an awful lot as a result. I have a better system now as I have modestly overclocked it and it's running silently with the new fans and coolers I fitted before the overclock and at much lower temperatures.

GG

EDIT One thing of note is that Gamers are quite big fans of Windows Vista, but you should see how much power they need to run it sweetly! Those guys spend some serious amounts of money!