AMD Athlon 64 X2 Problem

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glmooreky

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System Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
4GB DDR400 OCZ RAM (only 3GB recognized)
Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 (AGP)
WD 250GB Sata Hard Drive (2)
600W OCZ PSU
AsRock 939 Dual Sata2 MOBO
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SAA173 TV Tuner Card
ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 120mm CPU Cooler


Hello all. I recently upgraded my CPU from a Ahtlon 64 3800 to a Athlon 64 x2 4400. Before I did this upgrade, my pc had no problems and ran very smoothly. But after the upgrade, every time I try to play a game or even browsing the web (rarely), my computer locks up. Doesn't make any funny sounds, no graphical errors...it just locks up. I can't move my mouse, type or anything, so I have to hard reset. I ran all sorts of temp test, downloaded the newest drivers and have the newest bios for my mobo.

Now here's the weird thing. My mobo has an option to turn off dual core support. When I do..my computer runs as if it should. No freezing during games or anything. Then when I turn both cores back on, the freezing starts again. Sometimes I even lose my internet connection with Microsoft Outlook when I have both cores running. When I put my old Athlon 64 3800 back in...my system runs perfectly. I know I have enough power going to my system (or so I think), but I'm stumped as to what the problem may be.

These are the test that I have ran and found no errors:

1. Memtest
2. 3Dmark06
3. PCMark05
4. Prime85
5. Monitored temps with CPUID, SpeedFan and Coretemp

Nothing on my system is overclocked. I even tried setting the affinity when I attempt to play a game..but to no avail. Also the latest bios for my board is like 3 years old but is supposed to support this new cpu. I also have Cool and Quiet enabled. Does anyone else have this problem or have any insight to what the problem could be? Thanks in advance.
 

caamsa

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I had that exact same MB and I don't remember there being a setting for dual core processors in the bios....are you sure? Also did you down load and install the latest dual core driver? I am surprised that you can run win7 when I tested that MB it was not Win7 compatible so that is why I upgraded. I had two versions of that MB one was the dual sata and the other the dual vsta. One of them crapped out on me and it started doing the same thing that your MB is doing. Does it also hang when you go into the bios? But I guess if the single core works fine then I would say try the dual core driver and see if that fixes it. Try turning off cool and quiet. You need bios 1.30 to run that cpu, is that what you have?


http://support.amd.com/us/psearch/Pages/psearch.aspx?type=2.1&product=&contentType=Tech%20Download%20Processor



If you look at the drivers page you can see that it only has drivers for up to WinXP 64bit. WinXP and Win 2000. That might be your problem right there. Now windows Vista or Windows 7 driver support.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=939Dual-SATA2&o=All
 

glmooreky

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Caamsa-

The setting for "Enable Dual Core Support" is in the bios under the cpu management field. When you disable it, it makes the dual core cpu run as a single core. As far as the bios goes, I have the latest one which is 2.30, but I downloaded the 1.30 version but I don't have a floppy drive in my pc to boot from. I tried making a boot cd but to no avail. I did download the latest dual core driver also...and I am running windows 7 without any problems. When I first installed it I had to hunt down a few drivers. It doesn't hang when I enter the bios either. Just seizes up when I'm doing anything graphically intense when I run with both cores. But runs like a charm when I only have one core enabled.


Shovenose-

Yes it is a 939 MOBO and the PSU I have is OCZ OCZ600SXS StealthXStream 600W Power Supply

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=n82e16817341010
 

flyinfinni

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PSU should be fine. Have you considered the CPU you have might just have a bad core? Have you tried running something like Prime95 to see if your comp will crash without booting into 3d? If you crash anytime you put a severe load on the CPU, the I would say the CPU has a problem. Where did you get it?
 

glmooreky

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flyinfinni -

Yeah I've ran Prime95 for like 30 minutes. I'll let it run the whole time I work tomorrow and see what happens. I got the CPU from Amazon.com (Brand New in the box). As far as having a bad core, I looked at my event viewer just to see if both cores were operating as they should and it read this:

RegisterTscDrift()
Node[ 0 ] Core[ 0 ] Cpu[ 0 ] Affinity[ 0x1 ]
Thread registered succesfully: SamplingRate(ms)[ 1000 ]

RegisterTscDrift()
Node[ 0 ] Core[ 1 ] Cpu[ 1 ] Affinity[ 0x2 ]
Thread registered succesfully: SamplingRate(ms)[ 1000 ]


So I assume that both cores are operational.



justaguy -

Yes the VRM are strong enough and the CPU is on the support list on the ASRock website.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=939Dual-SATA2

As far as the driver is concerned, Windows 7 uses the same drivers as Windows Vista..atleast from all the articles I've read..thats my unerstanding.
 

caamsa

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I have a feeling that it might be a driver issue since there are no Vista or Windows 7 drives listed for that board. I ran that board with a 939 and used the expansion board to run an AM2 with Win Xp and never had a problem. I would just keep messing around with it and see if you can get it to work. I just know that it is not Win7 compatable and that is where I think the problem might be.
 

glmooreky

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caamsa -

But if the board wasn't windows 7 compatible...it shouldn't run at all even with single core cpu installed....right? I think I'm gonna just put the single core back in and pass this rig along to my wife, then build me a more up to date gaming rig.
 

caamsa

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Not necessarily,

Even though it runs, you are having problems so again I really think that could be the root of the problem. No drivers for Vista or 7 and the age of the board = problems. I can't really think of anything else. Like I said I had both versions of this board. Ran a single, and dual 939 in them and then got the expansion card and ran an AM2 and never had a problem with XP. When I found out there were no drivers for Vista or 7 I decided to retire the board and upgrade. I loved both of those MB and they lasted me a long time. Both were rock solid. If you have an extra hard drive you could try loading XP on it and see if it works...that is if you have a copy of XP. If you have bios 2.30 you should be good to go.

I was curious, how come you did not pick up a PCI-E card for that MB? it has a full speed 16x slot. I am sure that AGP 3850 cost you a pretty penny.


Here are some links, hope these might help you.


http://forums.ocworkbench.com/showthread.php?t=88669



http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=315883
 

glmooreky

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Crap..and ASRock doesn't have any updated chipset drivers for this board. Is it possible to use a 3rd party driver set. I remember on my son's Biostar MOBO I was able to do that when I installed win7 on his pc. If not I'll just let my wife have this one to play bejeweled on lol.
 

caamsa

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I just posted some links above please check them out. :D
 

glmooreky

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Because I was originally building the rig for my son as a graduation present from middle school and was trying to be as budget friendly as possible. And the card only cost me like $106.00 via Amazon.com. I checked prices of comparable PCIe cards and they were significantly higher...even the PCIe version of the 3850. If I remember correctly, I only built this for about $380.00 or so...minus the cost of the Antec 900 case.
 

glmooreky

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I checked those links out...oddly enough I didn't have any problems finding the drivers for win7. I just made sure the LAN driver was installed and let windows find the other drivers.
 

caamsa

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That was a good price on the 3850 AGP, not sure what else to tell you to try. I would keep playing around with it.

So if you look in device manager you see no conflicts?
 

glmooreky

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Don't see any conflicts in device manager or the event log. That's why I'm stumped. Mind if I ask what board you upgraded to. I'm thinking of building a system around the evga x58 sli board. But never really like nvidia that much.
 

caamsa

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I am a budget minded person like yourself so I stuck with AMD. I got an AsRockA780GXH/128M with an X3 425 cpu and dual 4850's in crossfire. Plenty for me. The MB uses the older DDR2 so I was able to recycle the memory. So for the MB and CPU I paid $148.00. I got a second 4850 for $98.00 since I already had one. In regards to upgrading it all depends on how much money you want to spend. The Intell processors are superior in performance but cost more and IMO the best bang for the buck are the AMD Athlon X3 and X4 CPU's.
 

glmooreky

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Yeah I wa slooking at an i7 processor the other day and it was almost 400.00. And I play a lot of Aion, so performance is a key as well as not spending my car note money on a computer system. My wife would kill me and I'd be sleeping on the couch for a month if I did. Did you buy that board refurbished or new?
 

caamsa

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I got it new at NewEgg :D I never buy refurbished. I did pick up a 5750 for $60.00 off of craigslist. That was a sweet deal. I put it in my extra computer which I use as my LAN party machine. The way to keep the wife happy is to build her a nice system. My wife has an Athlon X4 620 and a 9600GT but she only plays City of Heroes at 1280X1024.
 

glmooreky

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My wife would be happy with 3gigs of ram and the tv card I have in this machine. That means she can play bejeweled, record her reality TV shows and be on facebook at the same time...lol. I'm gonna check that board out tho. I saw a ATI graphic card made by XFX that I've been looking at. I heard they make really good cards.
 

flyinfinni

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XFX does make some very nice GPU's. I've really been enjoying mine- the warranty is nice:)
If you are going to upgrade to a new CPU, I would suggest an AMD CPU, probably the best price/performance options are the x3 versions if you are successful with the core unlock as I have been. Otherwise, the Athlon x4's at the $100 price point are AWESOME deals. As far as motherboards, MSI has been my top choice of late- I've been very impressed with the features and performance, though ASUS and Gigabyte are also good. For a gaming machine, I would look for a 790x or 790gx for a budgetish gaming rig, unless you really don't care about crossfire options, then you can drop to a 785g or similar.
 
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