f13.net

I put together my new computer but it is not at all stable under load, even without any overclocking. I notice it would error mostly under load, harder system loaded more likely it is to cause errors. It is not temperature problem, system runs very cool. What are benchmark I can use to load-test memory, processor, video card?

Memtest86+ (http://www.memtest.org/)

CPUBurn (http://users.bigpond.net.au/cpuburn/)

3DMark06 (http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/)

Make sure your BIOS and drivers are updated/correct as well.

Thanks! Everything updated... I think problem is ether memory or motherboard related, we will see what tests will tell. My gut feeling that bosting voltage on memory mightl solve it but I do not want to taint baseline system stability before I start overclocking, so everything is 100% auto/default.

My system is as follows -

AMD Athlon 62 X2 4600+ AM2 Socket (solid chip IMO, don't see problems here)
M2N-SLI Deluxe MB (weak spot IMO, even with BIOS update)
Corsair DDR2 XMS2 2G (more volatge?)
BFG GeFrce 7950 GX2
700W OCZ power supply

Any ideas just by looking at this set-up what went wrong?

Heat can cause instability, so make sure you are checking that (especially on video chip).

700W sounds like more than enough from your power supply, but if it's acting funny it can jack up a lot of stuff. If you have another one (even with lower wattage) you might swap it out just to see if it makes a diff.

I've never had a problem with the BIOS autodetecting the voltage on my mem, but if you do that make sure you check the mem manufacturer's specs for the specific RAM sticks you have.

CPU 36 at idle, 48 highest I seen under load... 70 would be concern
MB 38 at idle, 48 highest I seen under load... 60 would be concern
GPU 52 at idle... yet to find what it is at load ... 75 would be concern

Not a memory problem... hmn. GPU also never gets hotter than 65.

I once had a bluescreen issue where GPU wouldn't work with my motherboard. Both work perfectly alone(in different rigs), but when you put them together in one case, BSOD maddnes ensued.
Moral of the story - you might never know what the hardware guys f*** up in their design.

In this case in particular, Sinij's M2N-SLI motherboard is explicitly designed to work with the type of video card he has. Its probably something else.

Need some more information. Are you getting a BSOD? If so which program/DLL is it triggering in? Are you seeing graphics corruption before it crashes? Do you have another video card you can test with?

I got BSOD only twice so far but without any useful message, it crapped out and wasn't sure as to why. On other hand errors are frequent under load - whenever I play BF2, Oblivion, Heroes5 at maximum settings I get exceptions and faults now and than. Oblivion at max settings causes most of them, BF2 least. Older games, like CS and SC do not cause any crashes. I'm thinking it might be build-in sound issue, since Oblivion has sound clipping issues most and ocasionally BF2.

Do you have any problems while running 3DMark06? It doesn't use sound during the normal benchmarking procedure.

To be honest, that's sounding like a defective video card. Have you tried with another one?

I started running 3D mark and yet to crash with it. GPU never peaked above 74c.

Now with regards to scores - I got 4705 and as far as I understand that is piss-poor. All tests actually showed up choppy running at 15-20 fps. What should I be getting at 1280x1024 ?

Please advise.

Is it running in SLI mode?

I was looking into setting last night and noticed that it was not running in SLI mode by default. I enabled it and left it running test.

 Now this morning I woke up to "IDirect3DDevice9::Present failed: Device Lost (D3DERR_DEVICELOST).

Do you have some sort of 3D screensaver or other 3d app running at the same time as 3DMark?

Run tests few more times... at least now scores are better - 7648. I also notices that CPU test runs at 1FPS... any idea is that a problem?

CPU Score 1834.

I'm not wirthy your divine wisdom. (http://www.samurize.com/uploads/smil4378ededdfd68.gif)

Would that make any difference? I have default screen saver.

Just Googling around it sounds like it might so you might want to try turning it off. I haven't experienced that error myself so I'm just making educated guesses at this point.

Everything passed with flying colours. I did find that my card had SLI off and turned it on. Hmn what next?

You could try running your games again that were crashing with the sound disabled. You can also run dxdiag.exe and fiddle with the Sound Acceleration slider under the Sound 1 tab.

I already turned sound acceleration one notch down. It still crashes. As frequently.

Do you have an old power supply lying around? Even if its lower power, say, 400 watts instead of your ginormours 700 watts, it should do ok.  Intermittent power supply fluctuations will cause lock ups and sometimes wacked out behavior that looks like some single component is going bad, like ram, cpu or gpu.

Also, what hard drive are you using? I recently tried to use two SATA 1.5 drives in Raid 0 on my new AN8 SLI Deluxe mother board and I got lock ups. I went back to a single SATA 3.0 and the system's not locked up yet.

WD Caviar (what a bad name for HD) 320GB new and used only for data storage
WD Raptor 74GB for system and HD-heavy apps. I had this disk now for a year in my old rig without any problems. Its fast.

I will try alternative PS, I have 400W supply kicking around, as long as I power down 2nd HD and DVDs I should be fine.

I think its a sound issue. BF yet to crash with EAX disabled and sound quality turned down to medium.

Yank that sucker out and use the on-board sound device. That'll test that theory for sure.

He is using the on-board sound.

I don't get why mobos these days don't come in 'plain' style, they insist to have built-in shit that never works.

Yah I usually disable that crap unless I don't already have a card to put in.

My bad. I figured EAX was a Creative Labs PCI sound card dohickey, not something that came with motherboards. Call me outta touch.

I didn't realize ASUS switched from Realtek to ADI on that board -- it looks like the ADI 1988B chip on that board doesn't support EAX.

So I think at this point it is clear that stability problems are related to built-in sound card. I can disable it in BIOS, but does it really work? If I decide to get new sound card, what are my options considering that I need optical out and it should support DD?

Since Aureal got crushed by the Creative juggernaut I've only had Creative cards so I can't comment on other makers like Turtle Beach or M-AUDIO. I'm happy with my basic Creative X-Fi card but like all the basic Creative cards it doesn't have a digital optical out. If you need that you'll need to get the Digital I/O module (http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=13&subcategory=55&product=1780) or get some sort of Plantium or Fatality edition that have a 5.25" drive bay mounted connector panel which are pricey.

I have heard a lot of good things about Turtle beach cards over the years, for what it's worth.

I don't like 5.25'' front panel bays, I connect everything to my reciever and really don't need another remote and such. Maybe ASUS releases new bios or drivers for sound so it works better.

Thank you everyone who helped me so far, I greatly appreciate all your advice and suggestions!

I finally got some time to attempt overclock my sysytem... not surprisingly it got A LOT complicated since I did it last time on my P3.

I got  CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) utility to better understand all settings and noticed following:

Memory

DDR2 2048MB, Channels # Dual

Frequency 402.5Mhz
FSB:DRAM CPU/6
CAS Latency 5
RAS to CAS Delay 5
Cycle Time 12
Bank Cycle Time 23
Command Rate 2T

Now this does not look like anything I expected out of my memory settings. It correctly identifies CM2X1024-8500 Corsair modules but shows Max Bandwidth at PC2-6400 (400 MHz). Auto mode does not seem to work.

Manufacturer specifies that memory was tested at 5-5-5-15-2T 2.2V 1066Mhz....

Now in bios of my MB (M2N-SLI) it all set to auto. I can set memory clock frequency but max setting is DDR2 800 and I can also set rest of the things to 5-5-5-15-2T. What is not clear is how I can increase FSB and get it to run at 1066Mhz?

I read somewhere that DDR2 FSB tied to CPU frequency, is getting to 1066Mhz possible only via CPU overclocking? Anyone can link to good Windsor AM2 X2 OC guides?

Help! HEAL! My PC is PKing me.(http://www.planetamd64.com/style_emoticons/default/help.gif)

Yes, you'll need to OC your bus speed from 200 MHz to 266 MHz, which will also OC your CPU, if you want to run your memory at 1067 MHz.

Yes, you'll need to OC your bus speed from 200 MHz to 266 MHz, which will also OC your CPU, if you want to run your memory at 1067 MHz.

[/quote]

Is bus speed the same thing as 'external clock speed'? I ask because my Asus OC utility program has a CPU setting thingajig that starts at 200 and goes up to 300+ or so, and its labled 'external clock speed'.

If I remember correctly, External Clock Speed * Multiplier = FSB speed.

If it's an A64/Opteron system and the default is 200 MHz then yes. There's no consistent name for it -- e.g. ASUS calls it "CPU Frequency" in some of their BIOSes and DFI calls it "FSB Bus Frequency" in some of theirs -- but it's the clock frequency that's used by the CPU and HyperTransport multiplier settings to determine their speed.

I also forgot to mention that with A64s you should be able to lower to the CPU multiplier (but you can't raise it unless you have an FX) so if you are having trouble overclocking the bus speed with the default CPU multiplier trying lowering the multiplier.

What effect would lowering the multiplier have on CPU performance?

What about alternative approach of tighter settings at current bus speed? What will be overall more beneficial, say FSB 1066Mhz at  5-5-5-15-2T or FSB 800Mhz at 4-4-4-9-2T ? I found  this article  (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/31/tight_timings_vs_high_clock_frequencies) suggesting timings in some cases might have larger effect.

AS to OCing - I found a stub suggesting that my modules should run at DDR2-667, CL 3.0-3-3-8, 1.8V or DDR2-1000 CL 5.0-4-4-9 2.2v and maybe more if I'm lucky.

Would it be easier to get a MB that has DDR2-1000 setting? I'm still not clear what is difference between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1000. Are there any guides/write-ups that explains DDR2 memory overclocking so I can read it and stop asking stupid questions?


Can someone explain to me how PC2-6400 (400MHz) that it shows at all related to 200Mhz FSB and 1067Mhz or 800Mhz that memory is rated at? Don't spare technical details.

Depends on what the bus speed is. E.g. for a 2.0 GHz A64 the default setup is a 200 MHz bus/clock and a 10x multiplier. If you leave the bus speed the same but reduce the multiplier obviously the CPU is going to run slower. Going back to sinij's question going from 200 MHz to 266 MHz bus/clock is a pretty hefty OC. That would mean our A64 would now be running at 2.6 GHz which isn't out of the realm of possibility but may be a stretch depending on the quality of the die. However if we reduced the multiplier to 9x that would only be 2.4 GHz.

I will try it tonight. Anything else I should be aware of, forgot to ask?

Out of curiousity... I've got DDR2-667 in my pc, so why does that program tell me my memory frequency is 334.5MHz?

That's a DDR benchmark not DDR2. However for A64 systems generally, memory bandwidth is not an issue which is why AM2/DDR2 systems only benchmark slightly higher than the equivalent DDR system even though the theortical peak memory bandwidth is a lot higher which is why faster timings is often better. I haven't worked with any AM2/DDR2 machines so I can't say which would be better in your case but my guess is the faster timings would probably be better.


DDR2-1066 is meant for Intel systems. 266 MHz clock/bus frequency is not a natural one for A64 systems but it is for some Intel CPUs.

You can think of the "667" part of the chip description as the effective bandwidth in megabytes per second of that chip. The memory bus speed for DDR2 memory is actually half that number in MHz and even more confusing the chip is running at half the memory bus speed internally (which is different than DDR which is 1 to 1). Since each DIMM transfers 8 bytes per request the total bandwidth for that DIMM is 8 x 666.6 which is why you see the same DIMM referred to as PC2-5300 (5333 rounded down to the nearest hundred).

For Intel systems you can read my reply to Kenrick.

For AM2 systems it's much more complicated -- I'm not sure I can explain it properly but I'll try. The CPU speed is determined by a multiplier multiplied by this clock thing that nobody can agree on a name for which by default runs at 200 MHz. The memory bus is connected to the CPU directly thanks to the on-chip memory controller. However the memory bus is not connected to the same 200 MHz clock that's driving the CPU (and HyperTransport) and instead derives its clock from the CPU frequency divided by an integer value. Back in the days of DDR this wasn't an issue because the max frequency DDR memory could run at (non-OC'd) was 200 MHz which happens to be the same as the clock speed driving the CPU so the memory bus divisor was the same as the CPU multiplier. With DDR2 memory, however, the memory clock frequencies start at and go higher than 200 MHz. So like I was explaining in my post to Kenrick you end up with something like this:

DDR2-400: memory bus clock at 200 MHz
DDR2-533: memory bus clock at 266 MHz
DDR2-667: memory bus clock at 333 MHz
DDR2-800: memory bus clock at 400 MHz
DDR2-1067: memory bus clock at 533 MHz

So to run DDR2-800 memory on an AM2 system at full speed you need to have a processor whose clock frequency is evenly divisible by 400 MHz otherwise it'll run the memory at something slower than the rated speed depending on what the closest integer divisor is that doesn't take the memory above its rated speed is.

head asplode.

So, on a related question, my motherboard came with a utility called NoS, which is Asus' 'easy' OC utility. It allows me to set the CPU total output increments by percentages, starting at 3%, ending at 10%. Am I correct in assuming that since I have a 939 chip that uses DDR memory, the multiplier is not being used, but that the original internal frequency of 200 mhz is being jacked up by small percentages? I ask because Trippy stated that DDR has a max frequency of 200, yet I don't think I can OC this CPU by raising the multiplier.

Yes that's right.

I said non-OC'd DDR memory.

Ok, so what's the difference between non-OC'd DDR memory and OC'd? Or do you mean something like, memory that's locked into a hertz rating no matter what? Cuz as far as I know, my corsair memory is nothing that particularly special.

Memory isn't "locked", it's just rated to run at a particular speed. If it runs faster than that then lucky you but it's still considered "overclocked" if it's running at faster than rated speed.

I decided that tighter memory timings are more important than high FSB speed, so I'm sticking to 4 4 4 12 and CPU multiplier at 12. Memory overheating, does it depend mostly on voltage? I never dealt with memory overheating before, would I pick up potential issues on motherboard temperature sensor?

So far I made a run at 4-4-4-12 2T, 12x multiplier and stock voltage of 1.264v for CPU with no heat issues under load that I could detect. Fastest stable CPU Clock multiplier with stock voltage is 210Mhz resulting in 2524Mhz CPU and 420Mhz memory speed. 5% oveclock reulting in CPU score increase to 1915 from 1834 baseline score from 3DMark2006. Next step is to figure out what is reasonable voltage boost and how much will it increase CPU temperature under load.

I will be repeating tests at 1T before I bump voltage.

I'm thinking hitting 1.4, maybe 1.45 vcore voltage with just air cooling. I have Thermaltake Mini Typhoon on CPU and 3 chassi fans. I set all fans for perfomance in BIOS.

Based on this  article  (http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1979&page=2) I should be able to hit 230Mhz (15% OC) before memory becomes a problem.

I need a better tool to measure results in order to evaluate lower multiplier 5 5 5 15 timings and very high bus speed vs. higher multiplier and lower bus speed. 1T vs 2T . Any suggestions?

There is a discussion of memory timings vs FSB in this month's Maximum PC.

When I skimmed over that post the first time I thought it said Maxim.  :-P

AMD Athlon 64 X2 ADA4600CU voltage settings > me.

My experiments with voltage... System becomes unstable (won't even finish booting) at 1.300v, 1.325v, 1.350v. CPUZ tells me I have 1.264V to my CPU.  Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_64_microprocessors#Athlon_64_X2) tells me its 1.30-1.35v stock. Temperature never becomes an issue, its sits at 29-30C

WTF is going on? Help?

I suggest going back to BIOS defaults for everything, then looking at the voltage values they assign by default.

The Wiki is correct. When you have your Vcore set at Auto what does it report the Vcore to be in the Power/Hardware Monitoring tab in the BIOS? What does it report when you manually set it at 1.3 or 1.35?

Went back to 100% auto settings. Hardware Monitor reports 1.42V Vcore Voltage when in auto. It also reports 1.42V in 1.3-1.35v CPU voltage settings. CPUZ also does not change 1.264v 'measurment'. It seems to be stable at above 1.35v, will see what PRIME95 shows. It is stable in Auto.

Lesson of the day - do not trust utilities to tell you CPU voltage.

So far highest stable OC is 2580Mhz @ 1.465v 12x leaving me with 430Mhz memory @ 4-4-4-12 . It runs Prime95 without errors on dual cores and does not get past 55C 100% loaded.  When I boost voltage higher CPU starts ocasionally failing to post (any idea why?) and I get infrequent (once in 30 minutes) calculation errors in PRIME95. Since system stability is very important to me I chose not to go higher with CPU.

Video card is next. I figured out Coolbit setting for overclocking and it suggests 700Mhz memory and 550Mhz clock frequency. Will see how much boost it will give me.

So far I ran 3D mark, socre is 8394 (up from 7648 all stock).