EP45-UD3P(Rev 1.0): Problem with OC'ing after bios update

[retsnom]

Prior to doing a bios update, my C2D E8500, coupled with EP45-UD3P, was running comfortably at 35c idle and 50c on load. Sometimes I would bump it up to 4.21 ghz at 9.5x multiplier to play some CPU intensive games, and it hasn't given me much trouble and had stood up well against Prime95.

Due to some random BSOD I've been getting since upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit, I was advised to do a driver and bios update. I have been using version F4 ever since I got the motherboard so I took this chance to update. After the successful flash to F10, I checked to see everything was running fine then I proceeded to overclock with the same exact settings I had been using for the past couple of years. To my surprise, my PC didn't post, so I simply went back and tried upping the voltage. Even with more voltage than I previously had, which was around 1.3625, I couldn't get to the post screen. I finally got my computer to boot after several tries and thankfully everything seems better now.

But I'm curious: Why is my computer so much more sensitive just because I updated the bios? Though I am running stably at 4 ghz once again, I haven't had any luck booting with 4.21 ghz.

Any ideas? Suggestions?

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
C2D E8500
OCZ 1066 4GB of ram
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P
EVGA GTX 460
Antec Earthwatts 500w PSU

[Dark Mantis]

To be fair you could do wit sombody with more overclocking experience than me to answer that but there are a couple of things that I would like to comment on. Firstly 4.21 is one hell of a good overclock and as such I cant say I am surprised that you had trouble reaching it again stably. The second is that I take it you updeted the BIOS in one hit. If that is right then that is a big jump and it would have been safer to have done it in a couple of stages. As to why the hiccup happened I really wouldn't like to hazzard a guess but the fact that it is working now means that whatever happened it wasn't very detrimental.