Instability

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Black_Cat

Black_Cat

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Jan 11, 2002
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I've been having some stability issues lately with my system. I left it on last night for a long download and awoke this morning to find the system had shut down. That's the first time that's ever happened. It seems that more and more often I'll get long pauses. For example, I'll be decoding or decrypting a movie (which you would think the P4 would shine), and everything will stop for 30 seconds to almost a minute! It's almost like it's on the verge of crashing but doesn't. It seems to do it most when multitasking but will do it almost any time. Sometimes it'll occur just when opening a folder. Oddly enough, games seem to work fine. My system is as follows:

MSI Neo-LSR
P4 2.8 OC'd to 3.36
2 512MB Kingston HyperX PC4000
Radeon 9700Pro
2 Seagate 15,000RPM Cheetahs
1 WD 200GB ATA HDD
Adaptec 2120S SCSI 320
Sony DVD+/RW
Pioneer DVD
Hercules GTXP
11 fans (I think. I may have missed 1 or 2)
Fortron FSP530-60GNA 530W PSU

I tested the RAM and didn't find a problem. I did a clean install and it actually seems <i>less</i> stable when running at stock speed with stock voltage. I have a lot of fans and a lot of other crap in there that's drawing power. I know fans don't draw too much power individually, but with so many might there be a problem? And I'm sure this question has been asked one thousand times and yes I did do a search, but for the record, how much of a voltage fluctuation is tolerable? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.



You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.
 
Your PSU is a beast but the easy test would be to start unplugging some components to see if you're having a power issue. I would think that power fluctuations would vary so I'm not sure what to tell you there. If it was me I'd stop overclocking, monitor my temps, unplug some fans, unplug one of your optical drives, etc and see if you get stability while decoding. Each fan probably pulls around 3 W, and optical drives pull 10-25W, SCSI drives pull 10-40W and the card 20W, your memory is pulling around 64W, CPU 70W, video card 50W, ATA drive 20W, Motherboard 40W, etc and you want to only be using around 70% of your max power. Some of these items are on different rails and I don't know the exacts of your PSU but I'm just giving you a general idea.

</font color=red><i><font color=red>GOD</font color=red> <font color=blue>BLESS </font color=blue><font color=red>AMERICA
 
I agree, you need to eleminate the possibilities is a somewhat systematic way. Get your system back to stock and do what was advisedk in the above reply. If your running WinXP there is a way to get error reports that are logged automatically. If your not familiar with this let me know and I will look it up for you.

To save us both time, assume I know EVERYTHING :tongue:
 
Stick some more voltage to CPU and memory. Any driver issues? You have plenty of power supply for your rig. I would run the CPU on 1.6v and the ram on 2.8v.

Abit IS7 - 3.0C @ 3.6ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
Sony DRU-510A - Yellowtail Merlot
 
Your PSU is a beast but the easy test would be to start unplugging some components to see if you're having a power issue.
Click to expand...
Okay. I'll try the unplugging method later tonight or tomorrow and I'll give you an update.

I agree, you need to eleminate the possibilities is a somewhat systematic way. Get your system back to stock and do what was advisedk in the above reply. If your running WinXP there is a way to get error reports that are logged automatically. If your not familiar with this let me know and I will look it up for you.
Click to expand...
I'd appreciate that, however, the shutdown that occurred last night was the only time that has happened. My main concern is the long pauses. I should mention that before I did the clean install occasionally just clicking on My Computer or opening Windows Explorer would cause Windows Explorer to crash. Not the whole system just Windows Explorer.

Stick some more voltage to CPU and memory. Any driver issues? You have plenty of power supply for your rig. I would run the CPU on 1.6v and the ram on 2.8v.
Click to expand...
I think I have the CPU set at 1.625v and the RAM at 2.7v but I'd have to shutdown to be sure. I've spent many hours getting the most stable configuration and the voltages where they are now are most stable. I don't believe there are any driver issues. I have all the drivers saved on my WD 200GB harddrive so anytime I do a clean reinstall I use the same drivers.

I took some time and watched MBM's dashboard and observed the following ranges of voltage:

Static:
+3.30 3.17-3.30
+5.00 4.87-5.00
+12.00 11.86-12.04
-12.00 11.94-12.03
-5.00 5.09-5.14
CPU 1.62-1.66

Under Load:
+3.30 3.12-3.26
+5.00 4.89-5.03
+12.00 <font color=red>11.55</font color=red>-12.04
-12.00 11.86-12.03
-5.00 5.09-5.24
CPU 1.58-1.63

The largest fluctuation occurred on the +12v rail but only for a split second. It occasionally dipped to 11.73 but only once did it hit 11.55.




You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.
 
Think hard; Have these issues gotten worse since you installed SP2? I have noticed more problems with Explorer for sure.

Abit IS7 - 3.0C @ 3.6ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
Sony DRU-510A - Yellowtail Merlot
 
I haven't installed SP2. Before this most recent clean install I had SP2 installed and things started to go bad. So I didn't install SP2 this time around. I don't fully trust it and most of the fixes in SP2 are for IE 6 which I don't use.

I haven't had Windows Explorer crash on me since the latest reinstall. Just the long pauses and the shutdown last night.


You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Black_Cat on 01/30/05 05:37 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Thermal paste getting crusty/old?
Click to expand...
I use Arctic Silver and the big Zalman 7000 something HS/fan. It idles at about 36-38. Under heavy load it'll get into the low 50's.

re you getting blue screens
Click to expand...
No. No bluescreens. The system comes to a halt. I can't click anything but I can move the cursor. Whatever I'm working on pauses for a while. It just happened a couple of seconds ago and all I had open was Mozilla. It only paused for about 10 seconds. If I'm decrypting or decoding something it may pause for up to a minute. It's really weird.



You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.
 
At this point all I can do is guess, but it has some characteristics of a virus maybe a Worm. They tend to get by some virus scans. I did have a HD that failed one time, and the same things had been occuring a week before it failed. Im not sure how I fell about some of the readings your getting from the PSU either. I dont suppose you have a friend that you can borrow another PSU from just to check and see if the problem still exist. The other thing could be that windows has some corruption and needs reformatting.

Wish I was more helpful

To save us both time, assume I know EVERYTHING :tongue:
 
Maybe you can get the taskmanager to work if the system hangs and see whatever application eats your resources. Might very well be a virus indeed.
 
When was the last time you ran ad-aware?
Best place to start is to set mbm up to keep a log file. After the next slowdown, check the file.
You might also want to check task manager.
 
Okay. I tried everything and still get the pauses. It hasn't shut down lately (actually it only happened the one time) and Windows Explorer hasn't crashed but still the pauses are there. Thinking back I originally had this setup with an Asus P4C800 Deluxe. I was getting the pauses then. I switched to the Neo-LSR because it overclocked much better. The pauses continued so I went from 512MB (2x256) to 1GB (2x512). I used Kingston HyperX RAM on both occasions. I thought perhaps a boost in RAM would help decoding/encoding movies and other large files would help. I also had the HyperX RAM in my Abit IS-10 before it died and noticed the same thing. So I have a couple of questions: Do the 875 and 865 chipsets not like Kingston HyperX? If that is the case, which RAM is best for this chipset (keeping overclocking in mind)?



You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.
 
Im not sure about Kingstons high end RAM, but I have OC'd the hell out of their value RAM on an 875 setup with no problems. One thing is for sure though, some boards dont get along well with certain brands of RAM. My SOYO board doesnt like CORSAIR XMS very well, but the RAM does fine on other boards.

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I've been reading about this G.skill RAM with the Samsung TCCD chips. It seems people are overclocking the hell out of them and they seem to work great with 875 boards.



You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.
 
On a related note I've been having stability issues too but on an asus a7v880 board. and i'm getting the blue screen everytime I run games, can't playa single thing on my system.... anybody here own an a7v880 board and experienced the same?
 
Have you checked out their forum? I have been really tempted to try their product. The only thing that is holding me back is that I have heard that their really fast RAM can be finicky with some MoBo's. Thats just coming from some individuals and not any reviews that I have read. Im keeping a close eye on them to see if the good reviews keep coming.

READ THE STICKY AND WIN A PRIZE! ALL PRIZES CAN BE CLAIMED IN THE SECTION TITLED "THE OTHER"
 
I've read in a few forums that people are getting 260, 285 even 300 on the FSB. The best I can do now is 242. I think the guy who got 260 was air-cooled.



You've tried and failed. The lesson here is, never try again. -- Homer Simpson.
 
That is blazing. What about DDR2? Are they pushing high end RAM in that market as well? I have become totally obsessed with my new rig. I have gone past DDR711 and even blew past an FSB of 1112 which is the highest I have seen. My ram is screwing with me though. I should have gotten Corsair or OCZ.

READ THE STICKY AND WIN A PRIZE! ALL PRIZES CAN BE CLAIMED IN THE SECTION TITLED "THE OTHER"
 
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