Asus P2B v1.10 reboots @beginning of test #6 in memtest

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

For all the ASUS P2B and 440BX slot1 experts out there, TSIA for the most
part.

The board is flashed to 1014.003, The system used with a bare minimum of
processor, memory and video card.

Initially, using a P2-350, 4MB ATI Rage AGP, and 64MB PC100, the system
passes memtest completely.

If, however, I swap out that processor for a Celeron 600/66, 900/100, or
1300/100 (all in slotkets), the system reboots as soon as it is about 1%
into test #6 (It passes all tests #1-5). I have tried 3 different 64MB
SIMM sticks, one at a time, in different DIMM slots with the same
reset/reboot results. (No USB devices, legacy?!...)

I have tried a different video card, and populating the motherboard
completely with ISA sound, PCI 10/100, PCI aha-2940uw, and AGP GF3 ti200
256MB ram, same reboot. I know power supply and all other components
beside motherboard are OK, as I can swap out the P2B with an MS6119 and
all works fine (Tually 1300/100, 256MB @ fastest memory timings).

The capacitors look fine on the board - hell, they look just about brand
new (though this means nothing, I know - but I've seen a lot of blown caps
lately on recycled materials)...

All stock voltages used for the processors, and look fine in hardware
monitor (1.5V for Tualatin, 1.7V for Coppermines). I can boot P2B/tually
1300 into win2k, but haven't messed around much with stability testing
using quake/cpuburn/etc...


Oh, I got a second one of these boards (same revision), which appears to
have the "bad hardware monitor" syndrome - all voltages are measured at 0
and temperatures are pegged at 130C (even with no CPU thermistor
attached), but fan readings appear to work (CPU fan at 5300rpm). Board
looks clean, no visual clues. Tried reflashing it with the 1014nh.003 (no
hardware monitor) bios, but it still detects the CPU overheating (even
though the bios is not supposed to have a hardware monitor anymore), and
throttles the processor down about 25%... So, I get the long continuous
beep and flashing power light when this throttle down occurs.

Any ideas here? I've done plenty of power cycling, resetting/disabling
bios settings and unplugging of AC power/motherboard CMOS battery. It
almost seems like there might be a DMI/ESCD conflict/issue, or an ISA
irq/address confict somehow (only using AGP Rage). It sure seems odd that
even when using a no hardware monitor bios, it detects overheating CPU and
throttles the processor down...

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

It might be related to this:
http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html

I had a similar problem on an Abit BF-6 when used with a
Tualatin Celeron 1.1A with a modified MSI slot adapter that
was solved with a similar modification to the slocket.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:30:23 -0700, Fishface wrote:

> It might be related to this:
> http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html
>
> I had a similar problem on an Abit BF-6 when used with a Tualatin
> Celeron 1.1A with a modified MSI slot adapter that was solved with a
> similar modification to the slocket.

Sounds like it could be the same thing - how many caps did you use, and
how did you modify your slotket (did it have a Vtt plane?)? For the cap,
did you make the positive lead as short as possible to a Vtt pin, and the
other lead whatever length needed to get to a ground?

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Ixnei wrote:

> Sounds like it could be the same thing - how many caps did you use, and
> how did you modify your slotket (did it have a Vtt plane?)? For the cap,
> did you make the positive lead as short as possible to a Vtt pin, and the
> other lead whatever length needed to get to a ground?

I did it exactly as the picture on that first page shows, connecting the pins
on the back side of the slocket. I don't remember if there was a large
copper area on the back of the socket. There was a space for another
22uf electrolytic capacitor on the front of the board between Vtt and
ground, so I stuck one in there for good measure.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Fishface wrote:
> I did it exactly as the picture on that first page shows, connecting
> the pins on the back side of the slocket.

Actually, I think I only used one of the 100nF caps...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Ixnei wrote:
> For all the ASUS P2B and 440BX slot1 experts out there, TSIA for the
> most part.
>
> The board is flashed to 1014.003, The system used with a bare minimum
> of processor, memory and video card.
>
> Initially, using a P2-350, 4MB ATI Rage AGP, and 64MB PC100, the
> system passes memtest completely.
>
> If, however, I swap out that processor for a Celeron 600/66, 900/100,
> or 1300/100 (all in slotkets), the system reboots as soon as it is
> about 1% into test #6 (It passes all tests #1-5). I have tried 3
> different 64MB SIMM sticks, one at a time, in different DIMM slots
> with the same reset/reboot results. (No USB devices, legacy?!...)
>
> I have tried a different video card, and populating the motherboard
> completely with ISA sound, PCI 10/100, PCI aha-2940uw, and AGP GF3
> ti200 256MB ram, same reboot. I know power supply and all other
> components beside motherboard are OK, as I can swap out the P2B with
> an MS6119 and all works fine (Tually 1300/100, 256MB @ fastest
> memory timings).
Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
crash at 2%, no matter what.
I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?

> The capacitors look fine on the board - hell, they look just about
> brand new (though this means nothing, I know - but I've seen a lot of
> blown caps lately on recycled materials)...
That board is from a time when asus didn't put any junk they could find
on their boards ;-).

> Oh, I got a second one of these boards (same revision), which appears
> to have the "bad hardware monitor" syndrome - all voltages are
> measured at 0 and temperatures are pegged at 130C (even with no CPU
> thermistor attached), but fan readings appear to work (CPU fan at
> 5300rpm). Board looks clean, no visual clues. Tried reflashing it
> with the 1014nh.003 (no hardware monitor) bios, but it still detects
> the CPU overheating (even though the bios is not supposed to have a
> hardware monitor anymore), and throttles the processor down about
> 25%... So, I get the long continuous beep and flashing power light
> when this throttle down occurs.
Are you sure you get throttling? Since the cpu can't do it, this would
mean the board has to downclock fsb - I don't think the p2b bios will do
that, at least I've never heard that it can do this. No idea how to fix
the problem, I'd have supposed that the bios without hardware monitoring
would have been enough.
btw does memtest86 test #6 crash with that board too?

Roland

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 03:47:23 +0200, Roland Scheidegger wrote:

> Ixnei wrote:
>> For all the ASUS P2B and 440BX slot1 experts out there, TSIA for the
>> most part.
>>
>> The board is flashed to 1014.003, The system used with a bare minimum
>> of processor, memory and video card.
>>
>> Initially, using a P2-350, 4MB ATI Rage AGP, and 64MB PC100, the system
>> passes memtest completely.
>>
>> If, however, I swap out that processor for a Celeron 600/66, 900/100,
>> or 1300/100 (all in slotkets), the system reboots as soon as it is
>> about 1% into test #6 (It passes all tests #1-5). I have tried 3
>> different 64MB SIMM sticks, one at a time, in different DIMM slots with
>> the same reset/reboot results. (No USB devices, legacy?!...)
>>
>> I have tried a different video card, and populating the motherboard
>> completely with ISA sound, PCI 10/100, PCI aha-2940uw, and AGP GF3
>> ti200 256MB ram, same reboot. I know power supply and all other
>> components beside motherboard are OK, as I can swap out the P2B with
>> an MS6119 and all works fine (Tually 1300/100, 256MB @ fastest
>> memory timings).
>
> Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here. memtest
> test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even reboot, but
> some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down, power led
> will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other tests all day
> long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird about that
> memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what memory
> area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always crash
> at 2%, no matter what.
> I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
> since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
> tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
> didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?

Curious, Fishface's had a similar response about a mod to Vtt using caps,
to fix an apparent photoshop bug. Do you get that photoshop bug?

http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html

I'm using some generic 370SPC slocket, and I will be looking at getting
some tantalum caps soon (if I don't have any appropriate ones already).

>> The capacitors look fine on the board - hell, they look just about
>> brand new (though this means nothing, I know - but I've seen a lot of
>> blown caps lately on recycled materials)...
>
> That board is from a time when asus didn't put any junk they could find
> on their boards ;-).

It's just manufacturing - the clean tanks get gunked up, and have to be
refilled/refreshed/etc every so often. Thin residual layers are going to
be deposited on the "foil" if there is any amount of contaminant in the
clean tanks (which there is always going to be). I've seen blown caps on
socket 7 boards. Yes, it's a quality measure of the capacitor vendor, but
stuff happens too, and there's a spectrum of dirtyness to the cleans...

>> Oh, I got a second one of these boards (same revision), which appears
>> to have the "bad hardware monitor" syndrome - all voltages are
>> measured at 0 and temperatures are pegged at 130C (even with no CPU
>> thermistor attached), but fan readings appear to work (CPU fan at
>> 5300rpm). Board looks clean, no visual clues. Tried reflashing it
>> with the 1014nh.003 (no hardware monitor) bios, but it still detects
>> the CPU overheating (even though the bios is not supposed to have a
>> hardware monitor anymore), and throttles the processor down about
>> 25%... So, I get the long continuous beep and flashing power light
>> when this throttle down occurs.
>
> Are you sure you get throttling? Since the cpu can't do it, this would
> mean the board has to downclock fsb - I don't think the p2b bios will do
> that, at least I've never heard that it can do this. No idea how to fix
> the problem, I'd have supposed that the bios without hardware monitoring
> would have been enough.
> btw does memtest86 test #6 crash with that board too?

I know it's throttled, the memory bandwidth drops to about 65MB/s from the
~250MB/s that it should be, as reported by memtest, and testing takes
about 4 times longer. It is something the motherboard performs, and is
evidenced by the non-stop beep and slow flashing power light (as opposed
to power light being solid on with a single short beep).

It did pass memtest with the P2-350, but I didn't bother doing further
testing with faster processors as I already ran into a fairly substantial
roadblock with that board.

I've tried google searches on this - found some people with the same
problem, others with some explanations of the phenomena, but never found a
follow up with a solution...

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Paul]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

In article <c6780e$8u191$1@ID-84205.news.uni-berlin.de>, Roland
Scheidegger <rscheidegger@gmx.ch> wrote:

<<snip>>
>
> Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
> memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
> reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
> power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
> tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
> about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
> memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
> crash at 2%, no matter what.
> I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
> since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
> tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
> didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
>
> Roland

Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?

http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf

Paul

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Paul wrote:

> In article <c6780e$8u191$1@ID-84205.news.uni-berlin.de>, Roland
> Scheidegger <rscheidegger@gmx.ch> wrote:
>
> <<snip>>
>
>>Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
>>memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
>>reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
>>power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
>>tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
>>about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
>>memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
>>crash at 2%, no matter what.
>>I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
>>since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
>>tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
>>didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
>>
>>Roland
>
>
> Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?
>
> http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf
>
> Paul

No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault - usually
the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts down again
immediately.

P2B

 

[Paul]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

In article <%3Jhc.26484$CO3.1037263@news20.bellglobal.com>, P2B
<p2b@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Paul wrote:
>
> > In article <c6780e$8u191$1@ID-84205.news.uni-berlin.de>, Roland
> > Scheidegger <rscheidegger@gmx.ch> wrote:
> >
> > <<snip>>
> >
> >>Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
> >>memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
> >>reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
> >>power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
> >>tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
> >>about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
> >>memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
> >>crash at 2%, no matter what.
> >>I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
> >>since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
> >>tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
> >>didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
> >>
> >>Roland
> >
> >
> > Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?
> >
> > http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf
> >
> > Paul
>
> No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault - usually
> the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts down again
> immediately.
>
> P2B

I'm referring to the behavior if the 6019 detects a fault _after_
a successful boot. While some voltage regulators automatically
recover from a fault, the datasheet for the 6019 looks like you
might need to reset it to restore operation. (Other switchers
run in hiccup mode until the fault is removed.)

Paul

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Ixnei wrote:
> Curious, Fishface's had a similar response about a mod to Vtt using
> caps, to fix an apparent photoshop bug. Do you get that photoshop
> bug?
>
> http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html
Unfortunately I don't have photoshop, so I couldn't test this.

> I'm using some generic 370SPC slocket, and I will be looking at
> getting some tantalum caps soon (if I don't have any appropriate ones
> already).
Just as a side note, using generic slockets with coppermines (and even
more so modded with tualatins) seems often to be problematic. I'd have
just tried a slot-t, but it's not available in switzerland, and I'm not
willing to pay more than the adapter costs in shipping costs (and the
soltek slotket isn't quite generic, it is listed by intel as meeting
coppermine requirements). If your 370SPC is revision 1.0 from Fastfame
then it's explicitly listed by intel as not coppermine compliant.

>> Are you sure you get throttling? Since the cpu can't do it, this
>> would mean the board has to downclock fsb - I don't think the p2b
>> bios will do that, at least I've never heard that it can do this.
>> No idea how to fix the problem, I'd have supposed that the bios
>> without hardware monitoring would have been enough. btw does
>> memtest86 test #6 crash with that board too?
>
>
> I know it's throttled, the memory bandwidth drops to about 65MB/s
> from the ~250MB/s that it should be, as reported by memtest, and
> testing takes about 4 times longer. It is something the motherboard
> performs, and is evidenced by the non-stop beep and slow flashing
> power light (as opposed to power light being solid on with a single
> short beep).
ah ok. Didn't know it actually throttles and not just flash and blink ;-).

> It did pass memtest with the P2-350, but I didn't bother doing
> further testing with faster processors as I already ran into a fairly
> substantial roadblock with that board.
>
> I've tried google searches on this - found some people with the same
> problem, others with some explanations of the phenomena, but never
> found a follow up with a solution...
Maybe the monitoring chip is defective? I don't know if that is
probable, but if this is indeed the case you might need to replace it
(I'm not sure if there are other differences between boards with/without
monitoring, but it might work if the chip is removed without replacing it).

Roland

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

P2B wrote:
>>>> Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
>>> memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
>>> reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
>>> power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
>>> tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
>>> about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
>>> memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
>>> crash at 2%, no matter what.
>>> I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
>>> since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work
>>> with tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess
>>> though), but didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
>>>
>>> Roland
>>
>>
>>
>> Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?
>>
>> http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf
>>
>> Paul
>
>
> No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault - usually
> the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts down again
> immediately.

Hmm. Are you sure this always happens? Looking at the datasheet, it
could explain the behaviour I see (the strange shutdowns, and also (I
forgot to mention that before) when it reboots, I can hear the fans (I
assume cpu fan, but I haven't listened that closely) spinning slower for
a very short period of time (which doesn't happen with a normal reset).
I don't feel good about measuring voltages on boards when it's running
though (even more so if the measurement points are tiny pins), I guess
it's even impossible in that cramped case. I think I'll try modifying
the slocket first.

Roland

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:09:05 +0200, Roland Scheidegger wrote:

> Ixnei wrote:
>> Curious, Fishface's had a similar response about a mod to Vtt using
>> caps, to fix an apparent photoshop bug. Do you get that photoshop
>> bug?
>>
>> http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html
> Unfortunately I don't have photoshop, so I couldn't test this.
>
>> I'm using some generic 370SPC slocket, and I will be looking at
>> getting some tantalum caps soon (if I don't have any appropriate ones
>> already).
>
> Just as a side note, using generic slockets with coppermines (and even
> more so modded with tualatins) seems often to be problematic. I'd have
> just tried a slot-t, but it's not available in switzerland, and I'm not
> willing to pay more than the adapter costs in shipping costs (and the
> soltek slotket isn't quite generic, it is listed by intel as meeting
> coppermine requirements). If your 370SPC is revision 1.0 from Fastfame
> then it's explicitly listed by intel as not coppermine compliant.

Yeah, well they work in the other boards I've tested. In fact, this type
of slotket with both a 733 and a 766 celeron worked fine in a P2L97,
and passed memtest. The P2B just doesn't seem to have enough noise
immunity.


>> It did pass memtest with the P2-350, but I didn't bother doing
>> further testing with faster processors as I already ran into a fairly
>> substantial roadblock with that board.
>>
>> I've tried google searches on this - found some people with the same
>> problem, others with some explanations of the phenomena, but never
>> found a follow up with a solution...
>
> Maybe the monitoring chip is defective? I don't know if that is
> probable, but if this is indeed the case you might need to replace it
> (I'm not sure if there are other differences between boards with/without
> monitoring, but it might work if the chip is removed without replacing it).

Yeah that might be a possibility. I know on the other board the CPU temp
shows up as a non-selectable N/A (not 130C [Err]), so perhaps this route
might work. I'd rather just disable the throttling somehow in the bios...

> Roland

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Roland Scheidegger wrote:

> Ixnei wrote:
>
>> Curious, Fishface's had a similar response about a mod to Vtt using
>> caps, to fix an apparent photoshop bug. Do you get that photoshop
>> bug?
>>
>> http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html
>
> Unfortunately I don't have photoshop, so I couldn't test this.
>
>> I'm using some generic 370SPC slocket, and I will be looking at
>> getting some tantalum caps soon (if I don't have any appropriate ones
>> already).
>
> Just as a side note, using generic slockets with coppermines (and even
> more so modded with tualatins) seems often to be problematic. I'd have
> just tried a slot-t, but it's not available in switzerland, and I'm not
> willing to pay more than the adapter costs in shipping costs (and the
> soltek slotket isn't quite generic, it is listed by intel as meeting
> coppermine requirements). If your 370SPC is revision 1.0 from Fastfame
> then it's explicitly listed by intel as not coppermine compliant.

Yes, it's on the "DO NOT Meet Minimum Requirements" list but I'm not quite
sure what to make of that list as they also have the Super Slocket III,
which is about the only slotket still available, on it but they do work. At
least the two I have did.


<snip>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Roland Scheidegger wrote:

> P2B wrote:
>
>>>>> Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
>>>>
>>>> memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
>>>> reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
>>>> power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
>>>> tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
>>>> about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all
>>>> what
>>>> memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
>>>> crash at 2%, no matter what.
>>>> I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
>>>> since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work
>>>> with tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess
>>>> though), but didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
>>>>
>>>> Roland
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?
>>>
>>> http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf
>>>
>>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault - usually
>> the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts down again
>> immediately.
>
>
> Hmm. Are you sure this always happens? Looking at the datasheet, it
> could explain the behaviour I see (the strange shutdowns, and also (I
> forgot to mention that before) when it reboots, I can hear the fans (I
> assume cpu fan, but I haven't listened that closely) spinning slower for
> a very short period of time (which doesn't happen with a normal reset).

I find this whole thread rather odd, as it's replete with reports of P2B
behaviors which don't match my experience with the boards at all! I've
decided to consolidate my thoughts and observations here rather than in
a series of replies to other posts in the thread.

With regard to VRM fault, I had assumed the HIP6019 fault signal was
involved in shutting down the board if there's a problem in the VRM
circuitry, but that turns out not to be the case. I just checked through
my inventory of parts boards and found several flavours of P2B with the
6019 removed. There is no connection to pin 13 (FAULT/RT) on any of them.

To me this implies the hardware monitoring chip (W83781D) is somehow
involved, which is consistent with my experience. I once burned out a
fan tachometer input on one of my boards and decided to replace the
monitor chip. The board would not power on without the monitor chip - I
tried it for interest's sake and the symptoms were identical to a failed
6019, i.e. CPU fan twitches but board does not power up. This still
doesn't tell us what happens if the chip shuts down during operation,
however.

As an aside, failure of the W83781D chip can be very frustrating if you
are trying to repair a dead board. To date I have been unable to find a
way to diagnose W83781D vs. 440BX Northbridge failure. I have fixed two
P2B-DS boards by replacing the W83781D 'on spec', but three others were
still dead afterward.

Your report of fans spinning slower on reboot after a 'strange shutdown'
does not seem plausible as there is nothing but a power transistor
between +12v from the power supply and the onboard fan headers. I assume
the power transistor is there to be sacrificed if a fan header supply
pin is shorted to ground, otherwise traces on the board might melt. I've
fixed a couple of boards with dead fan headers by replacing this
transistor, and in both cases it failed after a chassis fan seized. I
suppose it would be possible to slow the fans by pulsing the 'on' signal
to the power transistor, but this seems unlikely to me.

The OP's report of 'CPU throttling' also appears implausible since the
BIOS does not appear to have such functionality. This is expected since
CPUs available when the board was designed did not support throttling,
nor does the BIOS contain the I2C code required to instruct the clock
chip to change FSB on the fly. Note that the OP's temperature readings
are easily simulated - 130 degrees is the maximum the monitoring chip
can report, and is obtained by connecting the sensor input pins
together. I tried that on several flavours of P2B here, and in all cases
the BIOS reports a hardware error, but boots normally if you hit F2 -
with fans and FSB both running at their usual speeds.

Given the above, my best guess is the symptoms observed by the OP on the
board with the funky hardware monitor are entirely due to the monitoring
chip failing in an unusual fashion, resulting in the BIOS becoming
thoroughly confused when it reads (or tries to read) the monitor chip's
registers.

And finally, back to the original issue of memtest86 crashing shortly
after starting test 6. I've never seen this under any circumstances. Are
we talking about the original memtest86 v3.0 (which I've used on P2B
boards for years), or memtest86 3.1a, or memtest86+ 1.x ?? I've never
used any of the recently released versions.

> I don't feel good about measuring voltages on boards when it's running
> though (even more so if the measurement points are tiny pins), I guess
> it's even impossible in that cramped case. I think I'll try modifying
> the slocket first.

I understand your trepidation, but IME errant probing of a running board
rarely causes problems a reboot doesn't cure. Tip: The contacts in a
female Molex connector fit nicely on most meter probes. To make fine
probes for your meter, just remove a couple from a spare Molex, solder
jumper pins from a dead board onto them, and slide onto the existing
probes. Now you can measure individual chip pins on the board with
greatly reduced risk of shorting to an adjacent pin.

P2B

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Paul wrote:

> In article <%3Jhc.26484$CO3.1037263@news20.bellglobal.com>, P2B
> <p2b@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>Paul wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In article <c6780e$8u191$1@ID-84205.news.uni-berlin.de>, Roland
>>>Scheidegger <rscheidegger@gmx.ch> wrote:
>>>
>>><<snip>>
>>>
>>>>Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
>>>>memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
>>>>reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
>>>>power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
>>>>tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
>>>>about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
>>>>memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
>>>>crash at 2%, no matter what.
>>>>I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
>>>>since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
>>>>tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
>>>>didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
>>>>
>>>>Roland
>>>
>>>
>>>Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?
>>>
>>>http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf
>>>
>>> Paul
>>
>>No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault - usually
>>the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts down again
>>immediately.
>>
>>P2B
>
>
> I'm referring to the behavior if the 6019 detects a fault _after_
> a successful boot. While some voltage regulators automatically
> recover from a fault, the datasheet for the 6019 looks like you
> might need to reset it to restore operation. (Other switchers
> run in hiccup mode until the fault is removed.)
>
> Paul

It turns out nothing happens as a direct result of the 6019 detecting a
fault at _any_ time as there is no connection to the fault pin - see my
other post in this thread.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

P2B wrote:

>
>
> Roland Scheidegger wrote:
>
>> P2B wrote:
>>
>>>>>> Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
>>>>> reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
>>>>> power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
>>>>> tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
>>>>> about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all
>>>>> what
>>>>> memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will
>>>>> always
>>>>> crash at 2%, no matter what.
>>>>> I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
>>>>> since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work
>>>>> with tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess
>>>>> though), but didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
>>>>>
>>>>> Roland
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?
>>>>
>>>> http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf
>>>>
>>>> Paul
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault - usually
>>> the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts down again
>>> immediately.
>>
>>
>>
>> Hmm. Are you sure this always happens? Looking at the datasheet, it
>> could explain the behaviour I see (the strange shutdowns, and also (I
>> forgot to mention that before) when it reboots, I can hear the fans (I
>> assume cpu fan, but I haven't listened that closely) spinning slower
>> for a very short period of time (which doesn't happen with a normal
>> reset).
>
>
> I find this whole thread rather odd, as it's replete with reports of P2B
> behaviors which don't match my experience with the boards at all! I've
> decided to consolidate my thoughts and observations here rather than in
> a series of replies to other posts in the thread.
>
> With regard to VRM fault, I had assumed the HIP6019 fault signal was
> involved in shutting down the board if there's a problem in the VRM
> circuitry, but that turns out not to be the case. I just checked through
> my inventory of parts boards and found several flavours of P2B with the
> 6019 removed. There is no connection to pin 13 (FAULT/RT) on any of them.
>
> To me this implies the hardware monitoring chip (W83781D) is somehow
> involved, which is consistent with my experience. I once burned out a
> fan tachometer input on one of my boards and decided to replace the
> monitor chip. The board would not power on without the monitor chip - I
> tried it for interest's sake and the symptoms were identical to a failed
> 6019, i.e. CPU fan twitches but board does not power up. This still
> doesn't tell us what happens if the chip shuts down during operation,
> however.
>
> As an aside, failure of the W83781D chip can be very frustrating if you
> are trying to repair a dead board. To date I have been unable to find a
> way to diagnose W83781D vs. 440BX Northbridge failure. I have fixed two
> P2B-DS boards by replacing the W83781D 'on spec', but three others were
> still dead afterward.
>
> Your report of fans spinning slower on reboot after a 'strange shutdown'
> does not seem plausible as there is nothing but a power transistor
> between +12v from the power supply and the onboard fan headers. I assume
> the power transistor is there to be sacrificed if a fan header supply
> pin is shorted to ground, otherwise traces on the board might melt. I've
> fixed a couple of boards with dead fan headers by replacing this
> transistor, and in both cases it failed after a chassis fan seized. I
> suppose it would be possible to slow the fans by pulsing the 'on' signal
> to the power transistor, but this seems unlikely to me.

My P2B has practically nothing in the way of monitoring but your
supposition about pulsing the 'on' signal to the transistor is precisely
how SpeedFan works on my BP6.

If the fan can be turned off for, say, suspend then it can be pulsed too.


> The OP's report of 'CPU throttling' also appears implausible since the
> BIOS does not appear to have such functionality. This is expected since
> CPUs available when the board was designed did not support throttling,
> nor does the BIOS contain the I2C code required to instruct the clock
> chip to change FSB on the fly. Note that the OP's temperature readings
> are easily simulated - 130 degrees is the maximum the monitoring chip
> can report, and is obtained by connecting the sensor input pins
> together. I tried that on several flavours of P2B here, and in all cases
> the BIOS reports a hardware error, but boots normally if you hit F2 -
> with fans and FSB both running at their usual speeds.

My P2B (VM) doesn't have any visible CPU throttling function in BIOS either
and while your comment about CPUs of the era not 'supporting' it is true
that doesn't mean CPU throttling couldn't be, and wasn't, done. My original
issue BH6, for example, has BIOS settings for CPU throttling: 75%, 62.5%,
50%, etc. There was no 'CPU support' needed as those older systems
throttled by blocking the system clock. It's processor independent.

Now, I also note that my P2B runs ACPI and if his thermal sensor is 'broke'
at 130 I wonder if windows itself could be throttling, which would depend
on the ACPI table (thermal zones). Have you looked to see what the P2B BIOS
has in there?

I suppose it could also be possible that the BIOS has a non adjustable
throttle built in at some fixed temperature value and, as noted above, it
wouldn't need to set an FSB freq into the clock gen to do it.


> Given the above, my best guess is the symptoms observed by the OP on the
> board with the funky hardware monitor are entirely due to the monitoring
> chip failing in an unusual fashion, resulting in the BIOS becoming
> thoroughly confused when it reads (or tries to read) the monitor chip's
> registers.
>
<snip>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 22:48:31 -0400, P2B wrote:

> I find this whole thread rather odd, as it's replete with reports of P2B
> behaviors which don't match my experience with the boards at all! I've
> decided to consolidate my thoughts and observations here rather than in
> a series of replies to other posts in the thread.

<snip>

> The OP's report of 'CPU throttling' also appears implausible since the
> BIOS does not appear to have such functionality. This is expected since
> CPUs available when the board was designed did not support throttling,
> nor does the BIOS contain the I2C code required to instruct the clock
> chip to change FSB on the fly. Note that the OP's temperature readings
> are easily simulated - 130 degrees is the maximum the monitoring chip
> can report, and is obtained by connecting the sensor input pins
> together. I tried that on several flavours of P2B here, and in all cases
> the BIOS reports a hardware error, but boots normally if you hit F2 -
> with fans and FSB both running at their usual speeds.

Evidently standby mode is entered 75% of the time in a short timecycle:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p2b+hardware+monitor+author:carter+author:buck&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=37700666%40news5.newsfeeds.com&rnum=5

I will try playing with disabling "green" power functionality in the BIOS.

> Given the above, my best guess is the symptoms observed by the OP on the
> board with the funky hardware monitor are entirely due to the monitoring
> chip failing in an unusual fashion, resulting in the BIOS becoming
> thoroughly confused when it reads (or tries to read) the monitor chip's
> registers.

Even when using the "no hardware monitor" BIOS? I think you're correct
tho, that it is still reading them and believing there is a heat problem.

> And finally, back to the original issue of memtest86 crashing shortly
> after starting test 6. I've never seen this under any circumstances. Are
> we talking about the original memtest86 v3.0 (which I've used on P2B
> boards for years), or memtest86 3.1a, or memtest86+ 1.x ?? I've never
> used any of the recently released versions.

I'm using the most recently released version - I have the older 3.0
version which I will shortly test to confirm/deny this!!!

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

P2B wrote:
>
> I find this whole thread rather odd, as it's replete with reports of
> P2B behaviors which don't match my experience with the boards at
> all! I've decided to consolidate my thoughts and observations here
> rather than in a series of replies to other posts in the thread.
You probably don't use substandard slockets ;-). And even if you do, if
it's indeed caused by improper vtt buffering, then it's exactly the sort
of issue you'd expect to only see on some boards, not on all, even if
it's the same revision.

> Your report of fans spinning slower on reboot after a 'strange
> shutdown' does not seem plausible as there is nothing but a power
> transistor between +12v from the power supply and the onboard fan
> headers. I assume the power transistor is there to be sacrificed if a
> fan header supply pin is shorted to ground, otherwise traces on the
> board might melt. I've fixed a couple of boards with dead fan
> headers by replacing this transistor, and in both cases it failed
> after a chassis fan seized. I suppose it would be possible to slow
> the fans by pulsing the 'on' signal to the power transistor, but this
> seems unlikely to me.
If the voltage regulator shuts down due to an error, I assume weird
things might happen - including a half shutdown immediately followed by
a restart (which could explain the fans spinning slower).

> And finally, back to the original issue of memtest86 crashing shortly
> after starting test 6. I've never seen this under any circumstances.
> Are we talking about the original memtest86 v3.0 (which I've used on
> P2B boards for years), or memtest86 3.1a, or memtest86+ 1.x ?? I've
> never used any of the recently released versions.
I've tried with memtest86 3.0, and memtest86+ 1.11 (I've switched to
that so I could compile it myself, since 3.0 needs an ancient gcc
2.95.3). I wasn't aware that there's now a memtest86 3.1 version, the
3.0 version was there for a LONG time. I don't think though testing with
3.1 would change the result...
(I also forgot to mention the problem is independant of vcore (tested
1.4/1.5/1.6V) or fsb/cpu clock (tested 133, 100 and 66MHz FSB)).

>> I don't feel good about measuring voltages on boards when it's
>> running though (even more so if the measurement points are tiny
>> pins), I guess it's even impossible in that cramped case. I think
>> I'll try modifying the slocket first.
>
>
> I understand your trepidation, but IME errant probing of a running
> board rarely causes problems a reboot doesn't cure. Tip: The contacts
> in a female Molex connector fit nicely on most meter probes. To make
> fine probes for your meter, just remove a couple from a spare Molex,
> solder jumper pins from a dead board onto them, and slide onto the
> existing probes. Now you can measure individual chip pins on the
> board with greatly reduced risk of shorting to an adjacent pin.
I'll try it when soldering vtt caps doesn't help.

Roland

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 14:35:01 +0200, Roland Scheidegger wrote:

> P2B wrote:
>>
>> I find this whole thread rather odd, as it's replete with reports of
>> P2B behaviors which don't match my experience with the boards at
>> all! I've decided to consolidate my thoughts and observations here
>> rather than in a series of replies to other posts in the thread.
>
> You probably don't use substandard slockets ;-). And even if you do, if
> it's indeed caused by improper vtt buffering, then it's exactly the sort
> of issue you'd expect to only see on some boards, not on all, even if
> it's the same revision.

I believe he also does mods to Vtt on the motherboard in order to drop Vtt
voltages, which should also reduce Vtt noise to some extent...

http://tipperlinne.com/p2b-dsvtt.htm

>> And finally, back to the original issue of memtest86 crashing shortly
>> after starting test 6. I've never seen this under any circumstances.
>> Are we talking about the original memtest86 v3.0 (which I've used on
>> P2B boards for years), or memtest86 3.1a, or memtest86+ 1.x ?? I've
>> never used any of the recently released versions.
>
> I've tried with memtest86 3.0, and memtest86+ 1.11 (I've switched to
> that so I could compile it myself, since 3.0 needs an ancient gcc
> 2.95.3). I wasn't aware that there's now a memtest86 3.1 version, the
> 3.0 version was there for a LONG time. I don't think though testing with
> 3.1 would change the result...
> (I also forgot to mention the problem is independant of vcore (tested
> 1.4/1.5/1.6V) or fsb/cpu clock (tested 133, 100 and 66MHz FSB)).

I've also used 3.0 and 1.11 - same results on both (system reboot about
1-2% into test #6).

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

David Maynard wrote:
> P2B wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Roland Scheidegger wrote:
>>
>>> P2B wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>> Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
>>>>>> reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin
>>>>>> down,
>>>>>> power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
>>>>>> tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
>>>>>> about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at
>>>>>> all what
>>>>>> memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will
>>>>>> always
>>>>>> crash at 2%, no matter what.
>>>>>> I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to
>>>>>> vtt) since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded
>>>>>> to work with tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild
>>>>>> guess though), but didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Roland
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault -
>>>> usually the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts
>>>> down again immediately.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hmm. Are you sure this always happens? Looking at the datasheet, it
>>> could explain the behaviour I see (the strange shutdowns, and also (I
>>> forgot to mention that before) when it reboots, I can hear the fans
>>> (I assume cpu fan, but I haven't listened that closely) spinning
>>> slower for a very short period of time (which doesn't happen with a
>>> normal reset).
>>
>>
>>
>> I find this whole thread rather odd, as it's replete with reports of
>> P2B behaviors which don't match my experience with the boards at all!
>> I've decided to consolidate my thoughts and observations here rather
>> than in a series of replies to other posts in the thread.
>>
>> With regard to VRM fault, I had assumed the HIP6019 fault signal was
>> involved in shutting down the board if there's a problem in the VRM
>> circuitry, but that turns out not to be the case. I just checked
>> through my inventory of parts boards and found several flavours of P2B
>> with the 6019 removed. There is no connection to pin 13 (FAULT/RT) on
>> any of them.
>>
>> To me this implies the hardware monitoring chip (W83781D) is somehow
>> involved, which is consistent with my experience. I once burned out a
>> fan tachometer input on one of my boards and decided to replace the
>> monitor chip. The board would not power on without the monitor chip -
>> I tried it for interest's sake and the symptoms were identical to a
>> failed 6019, i.e. CPU fan twitches but board does not power up. This
>> still doesn't tell us what happens if the chip shuts down during
>> operation, however.
>>
>> As an aside, failure of the W83781D chip can be very frustrating if
>> you are trying to repair a dead board. To date I have been unable to
>> find a way to diagnose W83781D vs. 440BX Northbridge failure. I have
>> fixed two P2B-DS boards by replacing the W83781D 'on spec', but three
>> others were still dead afterward.
>>
>> Your report of fans spinning slower on reboot after a 'strange
>> shutdown' does not seem plausible as there is nothing but a power
>> transistor between +12v from the power supply and the onboard fan
>> headers. I assume the power transistor is there to be sacrificed if a
>> fan header supply pin is shorted to ground, otherwise traces on the
>> board might melt. I've fixed a couple of boards with dead fan headers
>> by replacing this transistor, and in both cases it failed after a
>> chassis fan seized. I suppose it would be possible to slow the fans by
>> pulsing the 'on' signal to the power transistor, but this seems
>> unlikely to me.
>
>
> My P2B has practically nothing in the way of monitoring but your
> supposition about pulsing the 'on' signal to the transistor is precisely
> how SpeedFan works on my BP6.
>
> If the fan can be turned off for, say, suspend then it can be pulsed too.

True - however I've never seen a P2B run the fans slow, but that could
be because I've never triggered the BIOS to do so - which seems unlikely
given the amount of testing and repair I've done one these boards.

>> The OP's report of 'CPU throttling' also appears implausible since the
>> BIOS does not appear to have such functionality. This is expected
>> since CPUs available when the board was designed did not support
>> throttling, nor does the BIOS contain the I2C code required to
>> instruct the clock chip to change FSB on the fly. Note that the OP's
>> temperature readings are easily simulated - 130 degrees is the maximum
>> the monitoring chip can report, and is obtained by connecting the
>> sensor input pins together. I tried that on several flavours of P2B
>> here, and in all cases the BIOS reports a hardware error, but boots
>> normally if you hit F2 - with fans and FSB both running at their usual
>> speeds.
>
>
> My P2B (VM) doesn't have any visible CPU throttling function in BIOS
> either and while your comment about CPUs of the era not 'supporting' it
> is true that doesn't mean CPU throttling couldn't be, and wasn't, done.
> My original issue BH6, for example, has BIOS settings for CPU
> throttling: 75%, 62.5%, 50%, etc. There was no 'CPU support' needed as
> those older systems throttled by blocking the system clock. It's
> processor independent.
>
> Now, I also note that my P2B runs ACPI and if his thermal sensor is
> 'broke' at 130 I wonder if windows itself could be throttling, which
> would depend on the ACPI table (thermal zones). Have you looked to see
> what the P2B BIOS has in there?

I didn't boot Windows when I tested this the other day, so I just fired
up a P2B-DS with both CPU temperature sensors shorted, i.e. jammed at
130 degrees. The BIOS complains it found a hardware error, then emits a
constant tone from the speaker after you tell it to boot anyway. Windows
XP Pro then boots normally, and according to Sandra, is not throttling.
CPU and FSB speeds are reported to be normal, and benchmark results are
also normal.

> I suppose it could also be possible that the BIOS has a non adjustable
> throttle built in at some fixed temperature value and, as noted above,
> it wouldn't need to set an FSB freq into the clock gen to do it.

Possibly, but I can't seem to trigger it!

>> Given the above, my best guess is the symptoms observed by the OP on
>> the board with the funky hardware monitor are entirely due to the
>> monitoring chip failing in an unusual fashion, resulting in the BIOS
>> becoming thoroughly confused when it reads (or tries to read) the
>> monitor chip's registers.
>>
> <snip>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Ixnei wrote:

> On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 22:48:31 -0400, P2B wrote:
>
>
>>I find this whole thread rather odd, as it's replete with reports of P2B
>>behaviors which don't match my experience with the boards at all! I've
>>decided to consolidate my thoughts and observations here rather than in
>>a series of replies to other posts in the thread.
>
>
> <snip>
>
>>The OP's report of 'CPU throttling' also appears implausible since the
>>BIOS does not appear to have such functionality. This is expected since
>>CPUs available when the board was designed did not support throttling,
>>nor does the BIOS contain the I2C code required to instruct the clock
>>chip to change FSB on the fly. Note that the OP's temperature readings
>>are easily simulated - 130 degrees is the maximum the monitoring chip
>>can report, and is obtained by connecting the sensor input pins
>>together. I tried that on several flavours of P2B here, and in all cases
>>the BIOS reports a hardware error, but boots normally if you hit F2 -
>>with fans and FSB both running at their usual speeds.
>
>
> Evidently standby mode is entered 75% of the time in a short timecycle:
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p2b+hardware+monitor+author:carter+author:buck&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=37700666%40news5.newsfeeds.com&rnum=5
>
> I will try playing with disabling "green" power functionality in the BIOS.

I can't find any evidence the information in that post is correct. I
currently have a P2B-DS running on the bench with both CPU sensors
shorted and reporting 130 degrees, and Sandra benchmarks running. The
onboard speaker is emitting a constant tone, but apart from that I'm
getting normal benchmark values and Task Manager is reporting 100% CPU
utilisation while the benchmark is running.

>>Given the above, my best guess is the symptoms observed by the OP on the
>>board with the funky hardware monitor are entirely due to the monitoring
>>chip failing in an unusual fashion, resulting in the BIOS becoming
>>thoroughly confused when it reads (or tries to read) the monitor chip's
>>registers.
>
>
> Even when using the "no hardware monitor" BIOS? I think you're correct
> tho, that it is still reading them and believing there is a heat problem.

The board I was working on wouldn't even power on without a hardware
monitor chip, so there must be some dependency on the chip regardless of
which BIOS is installed.

>>And finally, back to the original issue of memtest86 crashing shortly
>>after starting test 6. I've never seen this under any circumstances. Are
>>we talking about the original memtest86 v3.0 (which I've used on P2B
>>boards for years), or memtest86 3.1a, or memtest86+ 1.x ?? I've never
>>used any of the recently released versions.
>
>
> I'm using the most recently released version - I have the older 3.0
> version which I will shortly test to confirm/deny this!!!
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 20:54:32 -0400, P2B wrote:

> Ixnei wrote:

<snip>

>> Evidently standby mode is entered 75% of the time in a short timecycle:
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p2b+hardware+monitor+author:carter+author:buck&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=37700666%40news5.newsfeeds.com&rnum=5
>>
>> I will try playing with disabling "green" power functionality in the BIOS.
>
> I can't find any evidence the information in that post is correct. I
> currently have a P2B-DS running on the bench with both CPU sensors
> shorted and reporting 130 degrees, and Sandra benchmarks running. The
> onboard speaker is emitting a constant tone, but apart from that I'm
> getting normal benchmark values and Task Manager is reporting 100% CPU
> utilisation while the benchmark is running.

It is true for the P2B v1.10 that I have - the P2B-DS bios must be
different enough that you do not see this throttling. Memtest reports the
memory bus bandwidth at ~60MB/s when it should be more like 240MB/s, and
the testing took 4 times longer than normal on a 64MB PC100 DIMM.

There are also plenty of posts about people who are having problems with
their P2B systems running terribly slow when the CPU temperature is maxed
(caused by short of thermistor pins). Hmm, maybe I can flash my P2B board
with the P2B-D bios (which may not have the "feature" the P2B-DS bios
seems to have) - I doubt it?!...

Certainly the bios would need to be coded differently for this particular
aspect, as there are two different thermistor signals which both need to
be looked at on the D boards.

<snip>

>> I'm using the most recently released version - I have the older 3.0
>> version which I will shortly test to confirm/deny this!!!

Same test #6 2% reboot results obtained using older v3.0, as expected.

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Ixnei wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:20:04 +0200, Roland Scheidegger wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Ok, some update to this. I've soldered some caps to the back of the
>> slotket, pretty much following this guide here
>> (http://members.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html) except of
>> course I've soldered the third capacitor to a different location.
>> But: no chage at all :-(. It still reboots at 2% in memtest test
>> #6. I've exchanged the cpu back to the celeron 850 (actually it's a
>> 566...) and it no longer crashes.
>
>
> Interesting, I'm still waiting on a soldering iron tip to get shipped
> to me before I can proceed (I don't want to hack it with my radio
> shack butane iron LOL)!
>
> I can't get my celeron 600/66 or 900/100 to work, but apparently
> these would work just fine in your board. Could this be inadequate
> capacitance or a capacitor wearout mechanism, similar to the blown
> caps problem?
I doubt that it's due to the vcore caps (the 600/66 is very modest
regarding power draw, you could probably remove half the capacitors and
it would still work fine), but it might be possible the adapter does a
bad job (there likely should be some (small) capacitors on the slotket
to improve HF performance). It could be due to improper buffering on the
vtt lane, again possibly because of the adapter (my adapter has some
100uF and some smaller caps on the vtt plane, not that it helps much...).

> I'm wondering if a "shotgun" (or "selective") replacement of the
> 1000/1500uF capacitors on the motherboard would help - my board has
> 22 1000uF 6.3V caps (3 Sanyo SE8N, 19 Rubycon YXG) and one 1500uF
> 6.3V cap (Sanyo S.E.8N). The Rubycon's seem pretty darned small for
> 1000uF caps (8x12, as opposed to 8x16+ for YXH series and most other
> switching caps), and it's not clear to me why the Sanyo caps are
> used (they are significantly "taller")...
>
> FWIW, CE3,18,27 are missing caps, and CE12 is drawn to 1500uF size on
> board, but using 1000uF. The Sanyo's are CE2,8,10,12. Does this
> look like what your board is populated with?
From my memory, that sounds about right - I know there were some
unpopulated places. I can take a closer look next weekend. If you want
to add additional capacitors, I'd definitely first start with adding to vtt.

>
> Sounds like a nice triggerable o-scope might help to indicate which
> voltage is going out of spec... I unfortunately am also lacking in
> good dmm/probes/scopes...
I could get access to a digital scope (only 20Mhz sampling frequency or
so though), but I'd rather avoid it (it's fun messing with hardware - up
to a certain point...).

> FYI, I had also tried the VIO setting higher, to no avail...
Forgot to mention, but I've also tried that without success.

Roland

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 18:57:31 +0200, Roland Scheidegger wrote:

> Ixnei wrote:
>> On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:20:04 +0200, Roland Scheidegger wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> Ok, some update to this. I've soldered some caps to the back of the
>>> slotket, pretty much following this guide here
>>> (http://members.chello.nl/mgherard/html/photoshop.html) except of
>>> course I've soldered the third capacitor to a different location. But:
>>> no chage at all :-(. It still reboots at 2% in memtest test #6. I've
>>> exchanged the cpu back to the celeron 850 (actually it's a
>>> 566...) and it no longer crashes.
>>
>> Interesting, I'm still waiting on a soldering iron tip to get shipped
>> to me before I can proceed (I don't want to hack it with my radio
>> shack butane iron LOL)!
>>
>> I can't get my celeron 600/66 or 900/100 to work, but apparently these
>> would work just fine in your board. Could this be inadequate
>> capacitance or a capacitor wearout mechanism, similar to the blown caps
>> problem?

> I doubt that it's due to the vcore caps (the 600/66 is very modest
> regarding power draw, you could probably remove half the capacitors and
> it would still work fine), but it might be possible the adapter does a
> bad job (there likely should be some (small) capacitors on the slotket
> to improve HF performance). It could be due to improper buffering on the
> vtt lane, again possibly because of the adapter (my adapter has some
> 100uF and some smaller caps on the vtt plane, not that it helps
> much...).

I've used this exact same mod on many other slot1 boards, without this
memtest reboot issue. I highly doubt that this P2B has some necessary
overvoltage protection that the other boards are lacking.

Here is a laundry list of boards I've personally tested with this
slotket/1.3 tualatin that loop for hours on memtest, and exhibit no other
instability problems (quake timedemo looping, cpuburn, OS, etc):
Abit BX6v1
Abit BX6v2
Asus P3C2000
MSI MS6119
Micronics Redstone

This reboot thing appears to me to be a peculiarity specific to the P2B
board. Perhaps it is just ever-so-slightly more sensitive, but like I
said, I've tested plenty of other different BX boards (and an i820)
without seeing this.

The mod I use follows:
ak4 to an11 - Vttpwrgd to Vtt
g35 to g37 - Vtt
isolate pins aj3, ak4, an3 - Disable Vss shorts

When I look at all these boards, the one thing that stands out to me is
that all other boards appear to be using bigger, beefier 1000uF 6.3V caps
- it's actually glaringly obvious. It almost seems to me like these
Rubycon caps are labelled wrong, as I can't find any switching caps with
such a small footprint (8x12)...

>> I'm wondering if a "shotgun" (or "selective") replacement of the
>> 1000/1500uF capacitors on the motherboard would help - my board has 22
>> 1000uF 6.3V caps (3 Sanyo SE8N, 19 Rubycon YXG) and one 1500uF 6.3V cap
>> (Sanyo S.E.8N). The Rubycon's seem pretty darned small for
>> 1000uF caps (8x12, as opposed to 8x16+ for YXH series and most other
>> switching caps), and it's not clear to me why the Sanyo caps are
>> used (they are significantly "taller")...
>>
>> FWIW, CE3,18,27 are missing caps, and CE12 is drawn to 1500uF size on
>> board, but using 1000uF. The Sanyo's are CE2,8,10,12. Does this
>> look like what your board is populated with?
>
> From my memory, that sounds about right - I know there were some
> unpopulated places. I can take a closer look next weekend. If you want
> to add additional capacitors, I'd definitely first start with adding to
> vtt.

I'd be interested to see if your board uses the same vendor mix/etc.

>> Sounds like a nice triggerable o-scope might help to indicate which
>> voltage is going out of spec... I unfortunately am also lacking in
>> good dmm/probes/scopes...
>
> I could get access to a digital scope (only 20Mhz sampling frequency or
> so though), but I'd rather avoid it (it's fun messing with hardware - up
> to a certain point...).

I remember about 15 years ago playing with an analog scope that had a
memory of sorts, and could store triggerable event traces. It was always
pretty time consuming getting this sort of "data"...

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...