Gremlin reset my BIOS

[Cespenar]

I had some 5 second freeze-ups and could not find the problem.

I decided to check my BIOS to see if anything was amiss.

Lo and behold (whatever that means) the CPU was running at 3570. (17xauto) It was supposed to be 3840. (240x16)

The core voltage was auto.  OC was auto as well instead of manual.

The RAM was 1439 instead of 1600.

The NB stuff was supposed to be 2400 for both.

One was 2100 something. The other was 1800 or 1900 something.

My old mobo was an M4N98TD evo. It was good and 240x16 = 3840.

This mobo reckons 240x16 = 3877. Probably can't count.

 

I'm posting this in case anybody else has the gremlin's cousin and was able to do something about it.

The computer runs fine except for those occasional 5 second freeze-ups.

[l1il]

Hi!

 

The stock settings for the northbridge are supposed to be at 2000. I don't see where this 2100 comes from if the BIOS resetted itself.

 

Also, if it is an old motherboard, do you power down your machine often? It kind of look like your motherboard's battery is dying. Have you tried to remove it and put it back?

 

I would remove any kind of Turbo features,as well as energy saving ones, put it to stock clocks, put LLC to low (if you have any LLC setup already, increase it a notch)

and look with CPU-Z if the clocks are what you have asked for.

 

I have seen a couple of clock generators fail on me with LGA 775 tho. The fact that the clock at 240x16 is different that 3840 suggests that. Some clocks can't stand a 20% overclock

(200 -> 240 MHz) for a lot of years. I killed my AsRock on LGA 775 this way, running a e2200 (2.2 GHz to 2.7 GHz). Bought a new mobo and that chip ran like a new one.

[slick2500]

Idk if the battery would cause that, usually the bios would reset to defaults if it was the battery, and only if you unplugged the system.

[l1il]

Or if he turns the power bar off. But I have seen such behavior when the battery was low. I agree that it should be resetted according to factory settings, but it happened on a couple of systems

where the system settings where going bad.

 

I was thinking about the system time and date, but you got to think that he's on the net, and 99.9% of people leave the automatic Internet time adjustment.

 

So it is whether that or his clock generator is faulty because that it was kept over 20% over factory settings. Again, you can say some people with i7 920 kept them at 4.0 GHz for 4 years and never had a problem, but I had an LGA 775 who has gone faulty because of that, and I remember my clock speeds changing from one reboot to the other before failing.

[Cespenar]

I did a battery change, I think, early in this year. (Not sure)

The overclocks were fine in the M4N98 evo.

Can't remember why I changed to this one. This one does exactly the same job.

I turn my powerpoint off when I leave the house for an extended time and also turn it off every night.

I agree that a weak battery should not make settings go haywire. It would have to be stable or factory settings.

Of course computers aren't always as logical as people say.

I lost my notes on the OC and trying to find them through Guru3D forums. Also the heat is great at about 40 odd centigrade no matter what I do to it. If I can I might reduce the 2400 to 2200 are 2000. What do you guys suggest?

Thanks for the input by the way.

[l1il]

Like I said, I suspect the motherboard clock generator going wrong. You have the exact same symptoms as I had. You do turn off the power bar when you leave as I suspected as well.

 

If the battery has a sufficient charge, that might be your motherboard going bad. I doubt that it could be the CPU itself, as they are usually built to last. Motherboard, meh, manufacturers tend to leave a weak point or two to sell. I had an Asus board that had the same behavior as yours, and went bad a couple of months later.

 

I'm not trying to tell you it is dead, but I would keep clocks as close to stock for a time and follow up if the speed is stable reboot after reboot.

 

The heat has nothing to do with stability. It is better to keep heat low to avoid interconnects fusing, which is a type of damage. There are other degradation types over time.

 

Keep stock settings, remove any power saving features and try increasing LLC (from none to low) settings for a while. This could stabilize the system.

[Cespenar]

Last night I looked at my BIOS number at the ASUS site. It was about 4 out of date. So I updated.

Asus said the updates improved stability. That was BS.

The stability is less now than before. I have to play games for a while to see if they are effected as well as booting etc.

 

edit: One of the things that seemed weird was the windows desktop had only every second line of graphic render in the vertical. Several seconds after finishing Desktop render the graphic came good.

That was when I first turned the computer on today.

I'm going to go into BIOS again and set it to standard. And do LLC.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Cespenar

[Waco]

Sounds like you need to start from scratch on your OC.

[Cespenar]

Had a squizz at the BIOS and no LLC.

Must be an Intel only setting.

 

I don't know if I'll OC again. I updated my BIOS last night and it is less stable than the old BIOS. Dammit!

[slick2500]

I would try a hard bios reset - unplug mobo, press power button to drain capacitors, remove motherboard battery, remove ram, press power button to drain capacitors, set bios to clear for 30 min.

[slick2500]

PC went all stupid double post please delete.

Edited September 15, 2014 by slick2500

[Cespenar]

Consider yourself deleted! He he he ...

On a more serious note, does this clear the BIOS setup and leave the motherboard in need of a BIOS file?