Okay, here's my first "problem," if it can be called that. My A8N-E v2.0 began overclocking itself yesterday. I've had it for about six months and I'm still using BIOS 1005, which I loaded after building the system. It's been running stock since day 1.
Yesterday I updated the drivers for the first time to eliminate a simple Java/ATI bug (which worked, btw). I installed the Catalyst 5.12 drivers along with the required .NET framework 1.1, and the latest nForce 6.70 chipset drivers, minus the IDE drivers.
The computer is running fine. However, I noticed a large 3DMark 2001 score increase of about 1100 points. It turns out my Venice 3200+ was running at 10x217 according to every program I tried. I rebooted and it returned to its stock speed.
Just now I installed some updates and when I rebooted I noticed that System Properties reported my CPU speed to be 2.16GHz. Everest shows
this. I rebooted again and it had no effect, so I'm typing with the CPU at 2.16GHz.
What the heck!? I haven't even
looked at the BIOS settings since June! At least my hardware seems to be able to handle it. I might run some stress testing and ignore the bug...
Update #1: I've now rebooted at least five times and checked my BIOS settings. It's still set to 10x200Mhz, yet the computer is consistenty booting up at 10x215.98MHz. I can't get it to return to stock speed!
Edit #2: The OS/drivers have nothing to do with the bug. I used memtest86+ to verify this. I rebooted and let memtest86+ run for {0 < x 60} seconds. I repeated this, and on the seventh try, memtest reported the CPU speed as 2160MHz instead of the usual 2010 or 2015MHz. Further reboots resulted in 2160MHz as well. I ran 45 minutes of memtest at the OC'ed speed and it did okay...so at least I know it's stable enough for general tasks.
I flashed to BIOS 1008 using a floppy disc and the commands to totally rewrite the BIOS as discussed way, way above in this thread. That didn't help either. Using memtest86, my computer booted up at 2160MHz right after flashing the BIOS and entering my settings.
My hypothesis: Over the semester, I've booted my computer up and left it running 24x7 until I left my dorm for the weekend. Often, it stayed on constantly for 2-3 weeks.
It always booted up at stock speeds throughout the semester, but I only booted it once. It seems to OC itself after rebooting--but not on cold boots.
I did a short experiment. The system was running Windows at 2160MHz. I shut the computer down, waited roughly 30 seconds, and turned it back on. It's now at 2010MHz.