Reformat and Reinstall of XP

[Yankee]

I'm in need of a reformat and fresh install of XP.

My rig is OC'd and need to know if I should set my BIOS back to Optimized Defaults.

I'm assuming installing Windows while OC'd will create instability.

Am I assuming correctly? Or will this not be a big deal?

[bexer]

You're on the right track. Play it safe and set it to defaults to avoid any problems.

[red930]

It's best to go back to standard settings. However if your previous install was prime stable it shouldn't have an issue.

[KimTjik]

I believe everything which has to do with you operating system should be done when running on very safe settings; installing or upgrading. If you have different setups saved in BIOS it doesn't take much effort to switch from OC to good stock settings. I'm certain you'll save yourself a lot of trouble that way.

[divided]

most people recommend setting defaults, but if your system has been up and STABLE with the previous settings, imo, no reason to set it back. i can see if it has been unstable *becuase* of an overclock, but if its stable; its stable. some people fear and error while installing. no big deal, just start the install again. i installed on my system oc and did a full rebuild in less than an hour including all my programs. windows took like 25 minutes. lol. just my 2 cents though.

[Yankee]

Very interesting input. I appreciate your help.

 

KimTjik...how do I go about 'saving BIOS settings?'

I always just hit f10 to save and exit. I never knew you could save different configurations.

[Cphelps]

The motherboard/bios has the ability to save bios settings. From the main BIOS screen go into CMOS Reloaded, and you will see four banks that you can save settings to, and load from. I usually save my default stock speeds on one of them, since I tweak a few things (turn off things i'm not using etc.) from the "optimised default" setting that the board has on the main screen. Hope you understood that lol.