I've always overclocked my CPU, and never had an issue before, but just 2 weeks ago, I left my computer on overnight to defragment. When I got up, there was no video output to either monitor and when I rebooted, it would not even post to the bios. I noticed a light illuminated on the motherboard, which Said "CPU", so I figured it had to be something with that. When I removed it, there was a big brown burn mark on it and a burn mark on the motherboard socket that matched up with the CPU. Everything else seemed fine.

 

This was a Sandy bridge 2600K. I had it overclocked to 4.8 for 9 months with water cooling. I know it was pushing it a bit far, but I never had a hiccup with it in that time. I guess its something of a gamble when you overclock. I just figured it would BSOD or lockup if the heat built up too much. I never expected it to burn up like this.

 

So anyway, I bought a new 3770K and ivy bridge ASUS motherboard and a new power supply. I didn't need to replace the power supply, but I had it for 6 years, and figured it was time for a new one. I got everything installed and just loaded a new OS on it. I don't have X-plane re-installed yet. I'm still installing all the non- flightsim stuff first. I'm saving XP for last, since that's the most time consuming one. I'm sure glad I had everything backed up to another drive!

 

So going forward, i'm not going to overclock this one, at least not for a while. I.m a little gun shy now. I have a feeling the day will come when the overclocking bug hits me again. From what i read the 3770K is hardly any faster than the 2600k. Oddly enough, this CPU (even in its no-overclocked mode) gets a higher score in the Windows experience index than the 2600k did while being overclocked? I know its not a reliable benchmarker, but I've installed a few games on it so far and they run great. not sure if I really need to overclock this one. Ill see when I get XP10 re-installed. So far I am happy with it, and chalk this up as a learning experience. Its possible My overclock settings were wrong. Maybe I had the voltage set too high or it was a bad socket.

 

Rob

That sucks! If I may ask, what voltage settings were you using on the 2600k And what were your temps like? I hope you get better luck with your new cpu.

 

Alex

I've always overclocked my CPU, and never had an issue before, but just 2 weeks ago, I left my computer on overnight to defragment. When I got up, there was no video output to either monitor and when I rebooted, it would not even post to the bios. I noticed a light illuminated on the motherboard, which Said "CPU", so I figured it had to be something with that. When I removed it, there was a big brown burn mark on it and a burn mark on the motherboard socket that matched up with the CPU. Everything else seemed fine.

 

This was a Sandy bridge 2600K. I had it overclocked to 4.8 for 9 months with water cooling. I know it was pushing it a bit far, but I never had a hiccup with it in that time. I guess its something of a gamble when you overclock. I just figured it would BSOD or lockup if the heat built up too much. I never expected it to burn up like this.

 

So anyway, I bought a new 3770K and ivy bridge ASUS motherboard and a new power supply. I didn't need to replace the power supply, but I had it for 6 years, and figured it was time for a new one. I got everything installed and just loaded a new OS on it. I don't have X-plane re-installed yet. I'm still installing all the non- flightsim stuff first. I'm saving XP for last, since that's the most time consuming one. I'm sure glad I had everything backed up to another drive!

 

So going forward, i'm not going to overclock this one, at least not for a while. I.m a little gun shy now. I have a feeling the day will come when the overclocking bug hits me again. From what i read the 3770K is hardly any faster than the 2600k. Oddly enough, this CPU (even in its no-overclocked mode) gets a higher score in the Windows experience index than the 2600k did while being overclocked? I know its not a reliable benchmarker, but I've installed a few games on it so far and they run great. not sure if I really need to overclock this one. Ill see when I get XP10 re-installed. So far I am happy with it, and chalk this up as a learning experience. Its possible My overclock settings were wrong. Maybe I had the voltage set too high or it was a bad socket.

 

Rob

 

The problem may not have been the overclock! It's possible you had a power surge overnight. I had a similar occurrence with my previous system, in the form of a lightning strike on my house. In addition to my computer, it knocked out most of my electrical appliances. Since then I signed up for full house (At the meter) surge protection from my power company. It's only 5.95 a month. As they guarantee it, It's well worth it. If your power company offers this, I highly recommend it.

I have a surge power strip with all my pc/portable drives connected to. I also run my i5 2550k at stock. Had it 8 months but it runs everything including FSX ok so am not risking any damage with an OC just yet.

Read carefully on Ivy Bridge CPUs. The Intel documentation indicates they are sensitive to overheating, hence less overclockable, perhaps, or in need of more aggressive cooling, than previous generations.

 

_{Rob, that's bad to know :-( Since you're re-installing, try Windows8... I like it, specially with the Start8 classic start menu app to get rid of the Metro.... :-)DCS running like a charm on it....Also managed to install my good old Office 2003, although they cliam it's incompatible :-/}

try Windows8

 

What's the advantage of going Win 8 from 7 JComm? Is it really worth it? Just curious.

Thanks for all the info...

 

tf51d, I didnt think about a power surge, good point, I guess its always possible it could have happend. I have a surge protector, but it may not be the best. I will look into a better one just in case.

 

jcomm, yes im using W8. Ive been using it since it was a beta last summer. Im now using the retail version. I did not like it at first, but it grew on me. I dont see any performance increase with it, but its been good to me so far. X-plane, FSX, Rise of Flight, DCS World and Battlefield 3 all run well on it. Its never crashed on me (asside from the CPU meltdown) but thats not Win8 fault.

 

Rob

Here's another tool to bring back the Start menu in W8 (this one's free).

http://www.classicshell.net/

 

I've tried W8 but in FSX/P3D on longer IFR flights the joystick disappears after a while.

This is a known bug for which a solution does not appear to be on the horizon.

 

X-Plane works fine though! B)

 

Edit: after a quick search I note that some X-Plane users are complaining of the same joystick issue in W8.

I personally haven't had that issue in XP10 but visibly some have.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/393486-windows-8-joystick-megathread-problem/

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-hardware/joystick-is-disconnecting-in-windows-8-while-using/826f7b0b-e5e9-4349-ae81-c8ef118e7614

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-hardware/unable-to-use-the-joystick-while-playing-fsx-on/1de533c3-08d3-4ae7-850a-cde2b76122ca?page=1

Well,

 

it's just my 3rd day with win8, and I do not have xp10 installed. DCS Wrld runs fine and I installed the latest versions of the Saitek drivers for w8, so, no problem so far...

 

I will install xp10 as soon as a stable, promissing release get's available, and I believe we're probably not far from there :-)

 

The Metro is strange at first, and start8 was a great choice. I got irritated with not being able to install Office Starter 2010 (it's a known problem, probably because they don't want us to...) but Office 2003 installed just fine.

 

Default Skype for win8 is weird and fills your full screen, but I uninstalled it and got the old installer working perfectly.

 

Some legacy programs installed flawlessly, and in fact it was easier than in win7.

I have my i7 2600K clocked at 4.8 Ghz and when running FSX it is usually around 60- 70°C which is under recommended temperature that Intel has given out for the CPU. I don't understand why the CPU burnt out maybe because of high voltage or the CPU was running too hot, but even so the CPU has protection for those occourence, like if the CPU goes around 100°C the computer shut its self down.

I had i7- 950 running at 4.5+ Ghz and the heat was around 80°C and I still use that CPU on my other PC and it works fine so who know what had caused this.

I saw one comment saying you to read the documentation for Ivy Bridge and I agree with that person because it won't overclock as high as Sandy Bridge.

Anyway enjoy your new CPU :lol: .

Rob,Sorry to hear of your recent PC trouble,Good to see you posting here again and I miss your fabulous screenshots,Cheers!

4.8 is simply too much on the long run I guess.

I have mine (2600k) overclocked to 4.4 (4.2 in the summer). This is said to be a save oc for an average chip. In addition to that I use a overheat protection tool to avoid temps of more than 67° celsius.

I don't have the money to burn a CPU after just 9 months

 

Cheers

That joystick disconnect thing _might_ be solved by running fsx in some kind of compatibility mode; try playing with those settings, it's not risky (r-click on executable and search from there).

That joystick disconnect thing _might_ be solved by running fsx in some kind of compatibility mode; try playing with those settings, it's not risky (r-click on executable and search from there).

 

That has been tried but the consensus is that it does not cure the problem.

In fact many, many things have been tried but W8 definitely has a joystick problem so I would steer clear until it gets fixed, just in case.