System in safe mode? Gives me error msg.. Help!

S

Slawek

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
Messages
186
I have an Intel Prescott 640 3.2GHz cpu overclocked to 4.0GHz. I adjusted the FSB frequency to 1000 and my Corsair ram is at manufacturer specs of 667 mhz @ 4-4-4-12 timing. My Vcore is set to 1.4500 from the default 1.3875. Motherboard is an Asus P5ND2-SLI, a very overclocking friendly motherboard.

I have run 24 hour dual stress tests with Prime95, no problems, no errors. I have run Super_PI calculating all figures with no problems. I also have a Scythe Ninja w/arctic silver 5 and amazing temperatures (idling around 35 celcius).

I've been running the system like this for a couple weeks, and a couple days ago I noticed the following:

Sometimes when I start my computer after it's been off, I get a msg at the CPU/RAM/HDD check that says: "System is in safe mode", and to go into my BIOS and change my frequency settings. I would just press my reboot button and it would be fine. But then occasionally I would notice freeze ups while playing some games.

Can someone offer some advice on what might be happening, and what I can do to fix this?
 
My signature states my p/s, Antec 550W.

Bios tweaks? Nothing. I set my FSB, disabled EIST and disabled C1E. Set my ram timings and ram voltage @ 1.9V, which is what corsair recommends right from their website.
 
Sorry, I don't see your sig.

well, if all you did was disable those features, make sure spread spectrum settings are also disabled (sometimes they can interfear with overclocking) and make sure your other frequency settings are either locked to standard or the multiplier running them aren't running out of spec.

You may check for BIOS updates, but the error happening at restart implies a POST error, and most likely a memory error, which could be from frequency, timing or power.

You can troubleshoot this by pulling the memory back a bit and seeing if the problem persists, or just try monitoring the power sensors to see if voltages are jumping around. Power problems can come from dirty wall power, not just poor power supplies, so if you're not running an UPS you can consider that a possibility.

I'm at somewhat of a loss with the error at POST if the machine runs so stable when it's actually doing what it's designed to do, really makes me think it's a bios querk. Usually if POST errors are caused by components, the system has stability problems in windows. I've seen the same message in other Asus boards, and ignoring them never caused any other problems. My conclusion was always that the intention of that detection was good, but not implimented perfectly.
 
What about a BATTERY ISSUE in the cmos?? The reason is, I reset my cmos, but I dropped the little jumper and it took me like 10 mins to find it, and then I finally put the jumper back in the right spot. In that time, I noticed my clock reset on my board, my windows clock was messed up and stuff too...
 
Slawek said:
What about a BATTERY ISSUE in the cmos?? The reason is, I reset my cmos, but I dropped the little jumper and it took me like 10 mins to find it, and then I finally put the jumper back in the right spot. In that time, I noticed my clock reset on my board, my windows clock was messed up and stuff too...
Click to expand...
nothing to do w/ that.
safe mode: most often when safe mode happens it's software related. ot it's treying to boot up but can't so it restarted and thus the safe mode.
check memory-memtest
check hdd- bad sectors
back up a little on the OC
if all these fails go for the reinstall.
 
Memtest passes no problem.
HDD no errors.
I upped Vcore, lets see what happens.
 
rysher said:
nothing to do w/ that.
safe mode: most often when safe mode happens it's software related. ot it's treying to boot up but can't so it restarted and thus the safe mode.
check memory-memtest
check hdd- bad sectors
back up a little on the OC
if all these fails go for the reinstall.
Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with software/windows at all. The "safe mode" he speaks of is simply a feature on this Asus motherboard, which loads a previously working configuration to allow the system to boot up after a bad overclocking attempt. It is NOT the Window's Safe Mode that you're thinking of.

Slawek, are you sure your system was still running at the speed you specified for your overclock when you were doing your stress tests? Perhaps it had already switched itself back to a safer configuration?
 
ER34 said:
Slawek, are you sure your system was still running at the speed you specified for your overclock when you were doing your stress tests? Perhaps it had already switched itself back to a safer configuration?
Click to expand...

yeah, definitely check that, when i ran into it it would dump everything back to the "optimized defaults," but simply hitting the restart button would bring everything back the way it was with all my personal settings.
 
oh! that safe mode... happened to me plenty of times on my a8n32 and opteron 165. all i did to solve it was back up a little on the OC. stable primed it 2 hours, rebooted then gave it more juice, primed again 5mins, rebooted then increase fsb, primed then voila.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top