Q: Testing PC stability

[sinij]

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?

[Trippy]

Memtest86+

CPUBurn

3DMark06

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

[sinij]

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?

[Viin]

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.

[sinij]

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

[sinij]

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

[JoeTF]

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.

[Engels]

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.

[Trippy]

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

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?

[sinij]

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.

[Trippy]

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.

[Engels]

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.

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

[sinij]

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.

[Trippy]

Is it running in SLI mode?

[sinij]

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).

[Trippy]

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

[sinij]

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.

[sinij]

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

I'm not wirthy your divine wisdom.

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

[Trippy]

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

I'm not wirthy your divine wisdom.

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.

[sinij]

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

[Trippy]

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.

[sinij]

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

[Engels]

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.

[sinij]

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.

[sinij]

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

[Engels]

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

[Trippy]

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.

[sinij]

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

[Viin]

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

[Engels]

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

[Trippy]

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

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.

[sinij]

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?

[Trippy]

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 or get some sort of Plantium or Fatality edition that have a 5.25" drive bay mounted connector panel which are pricey.

[Strazos]

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

[sinij]

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!