Hi Quasi
In my humble opinion the error message is misleading, and has certainly misled jz78817 into jumping to the conclusion tat your computer processor is “overclocked”. Overclocking is forcing your processor (or memory) to run rfaster than its rated speed by adjusting parameters set to make it work at a certain speed. These settings are made in a screen known as the “CMOS Setup Screen”. Some people (incorrectly) refer to this as “The BIOS”. The CMOS Setup is an area you can boot into by pressing a certain key or key combination at the very early stages of booting, and settings there tell the BIOS Chip how to interact with the hardware.
On the motherboard there will be a silver “coin cell” battery most usually a non-rechargeable Lithium 3 volt CR2032 one. Its purpose is to apply a trickle of power to a chip that stores those settings, namely the CMOS Memory. When the PC is powered down the battery keeps power to that chip, and when powered up the motherboard supplies the power to it. That battery lasts a long time, but will eventually get flat and the chip will lose settings. Most usually the computer is able to discover all the hardware and apply basic settings to repopulate the CMOS data (settings) with each new boot even with a flat battery, but occasionally a setting will be lost and need to be reset in the “CMOS Setup Screen” again to get stable performance.
The discovery of the hardware by the BIOS Chip when your computer boots up is referred to as POST - Power On Self Test. Basically it runs a sequence where it looks for and identifies the BIOS cips on the components like graphics card, sound card, hard drive, CD devices, and applies the CMOS settings to them before then finding the operating system on your hard drive and booting to Windows.
The / in your message “Overclock Fail/Post Interrupted” is significant, because it is telling you that the error is due to EITHER a failure due to an overclocked device OR an unspecified failre to complete the Power On Self Test (POST). The “Overclock Failure” may be a red herring, but could be due to a wrong “BIOS Setting” due to a flat battery causing the settings to be lost between power downs.
I assume from what you have said that the message displays immediately after the forced shutdown, and as the system is rebooting. This makes it less likely to be a flat “CMOS Battery”, because the CMOS Memory takes a while to dissipate the power from it and lose the settings. You would probably also have seen changes in the system time if you had a flat CMOS Battery. A quick turnaround of what almost amounts to a “warm restart” would normally retain the last CMOS settings for long enough to reapply them as it boots again. Quite often you will be advised to boot into the CMOS Setup Screen (BIOS Screen) and “Set Failsafe Defaults”. Personally I would examine all other aspects first.
Windows Vista has a memory diagnostic utility built into it. You can try that first if you wish, if just to eliminate that aspect.
Click the Start Button and type in “memory” (without quotes) into the search field, and you should see the first option suggesting “Memory Diagnostics Tool”. Select that and continue.
Windows Vista has a built-in Memory Diagnostic, but the problem with Vista is that it has something called UAC (User Access Control) that prevents users with non-Administrator permissions (ie. standard users) from running programs that are generally “admin” type programs. If you see a dialog asking for an adminstrator password, then hopefully you know it and can continue. It will tell you what user profile has administrative rights if it shows. Hopefully it won’t.
A dialog pops up asking if you want to reboot and check for problems now, or check for problems the next time you restart. Choose “Restart Now”.
On reboot you get a dark blue screen with a text-based menu. Press the Key that changes it from Basic/Standard checks to Advanced or Extended (can’t recall the expression they use). It will run continuously as long as the PC is powered up, but will show the progress and any errors found as it goes and you will see when it has completed all the checks and is repeating them. Just press ESC key to close it.
Hopefully no errors will be detected.
If you are confident removing the side of the case to see the motherboard and components, then do so carefully and look to see if any fans or components are choked with dust. Dust is a good insulator and can cause overheating. An overheating processor (the component with the largest fan mounted on top of a “heatsink”) can cause a computer to freeze up. It is possible that a processor that was still too hot on an immediate reboot could cause error messages during the POST. I wouldn’t have thought you would see that particular error message, but we all know how misleading they can be.
62 degrees isn’t bad for a processor, but presumably you took the reading with a software diagnostic utility while you weren’t gaming. Software readings aren’t always accurate, and modern games can work the computer’s processor, the system memory, and the processor and memory of your graphics card, very hard and make them extremely hot.
If you see accumulated dust, then get a can of compressed air with the little extension tube in the nozzle and give it some sharp blasts to blow out the dust. Read the instructions. Some cans have to be held upright and others upside down. You don’t want the liquid propellant squirting out, just air!
With the side of the case open (and with no cats around to poke their noses in and either get zapped or cause static to zap components) power the computer on for long enough to establish if all the fans are spinning, and this includes the fan at the back inside the enclosed “PSU” (Power Supply Unit). DON’T go poking the compressed air can nozzle between the slots of that PSU box while it is powered up. The large Capacitors store high power and there are risks sticking anything in there. If you see dust in there through the fan at the back, then blow the air through the slots of the PSU.
One other thing you can look at while the case is open is for evidence of leaking or bulging Electrolytic Capacitors. Click the thumbnail images at the right of this page:
http://www.badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=5
to see examples (large images) of common problems with capacitors failing.
Search google images for “bad capacitors” for more pictures if in any doubt how to identify bad ones.
Put the side of the case back on when you are done. Good cases are designed to be enclosed to provide a good airflow from front to back. Don’t touch any components inside!
Quite often Power Supply Units develop capacitor problems, but they are not intented to be user serviceable due to the high power they retain inside for a long time even after power-off, and the only real way to eliminate a failing power supply from consideration is to attach another one which I am sure you will not just happen to have lying around. This is something a technician or someone with a spare PC with compatible Power Supply Unit and the technical know-how should only be doing anyway.
I’m curious about one thing, and that is whether the games you play have any options at startup that would infer that they have changed or perhaps “optimized” any settings for enhanced performance. I’m not a gamer, so I don’t know such things and am just examining all possibilities here.
The next time the PC freezes up and you are forced to power it down, leave it powered off a few minutes before powering back up again and see whether the same message displays.
Bill