Tiamat Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Alright, I am pretty much at the end of my tether here with this worthless butt-rape of a board. Basically the temp sensors are wrong which means anything like SpeedFan or Everest is useless for reliable temps. This of course means that overclocking my cpu becomes quite difficult. Secondly, the board is incompatible with certain programs...as indicated by random power downs...no shutdown, no reboot....just a complete power off. What I need from you knowledgeable guys is some advice, a suggestion on how I can improve my situation. You see, before I tried to overclock my CPU (which led me to the discovery that this motherboard is a pile of faeces) my computer worked fine. I had no reason to worry about temp readings, because my comp was running at stock speeds with more than sufficient cooling. When I realised that I couldn' t get a reliable temp reading, I reset the cpu back to stock speeds until I found a way to get one. It was at that time I discovered the incredibly inconvenient incompatibilty issues this board has with random programs. SpeedFan to name one. Before I realised I couldn't OC yet, I did install a fair few programs, mostly to aid my overclocking endeavor. Something I have installed is powering down my PC however....and I don't know what the hell it is! I thought it might be my Ballistix RAM dying...but no. 8 full hours of memtest with no errors. So I thought it might be my cpu overheating, but no.....it was fine at stock speeds for over a month.....and it is at stock speeds now. Maybe the mobo temp sensors are spiking for some reason...I hear its a common problem, but surely I would have noticed this in the month before I made all these changes. So few possibilities remain....my CPU is screwed (which does not seem likely because I can still boot, play games, music, movies), or the motherboard is officialy poo and I need to either get a BIOS fix or send it back. I dont even know how to go about sending the fiend back and I cannot be assed waiting for a replacement or buying another! Since these problems started another occurence has begun to be made clear...that is the case of certain applications freezing or taking ages to respond....always desktop stuff like setpoint, Creative XFI console or even just the start menu. Thing is games and movies and music work fine...that is until the random power-down scenario occurs again. This led me to believe that my hard drive may also be screwed....I will reformat and reinstall everything one by one to see if anything is the cause of all this....but i'm seriously out of my league here and am in desperate need of assisstance. Sorry for the lengthy thread but im a few steps away from stamping on my new, very expensive rig!!! I was planning to have a working PC and invest in another SLi ready graphics card in preparation for TESIV: Oblivion (Hell Yeah!!) but now it doesn't seem likely... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GF Duke Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 What slots are your rams in? Mine wouldnt boot with slots 1 and 3. Im in 2 and 4 now and it works fine. Have you reset the cmos to optimized defaults and tried? Im sure you did, just a suggestion. Have you tried the Smart Guardian Motherboad monitor that came on you Motherboard disk? It works fine for me. Its also possible your PSU might be insufficient. Im not sure about that but i know the 7800gtx is a power hungry card. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedman Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 whoohoo - same board, (almost) same CPU and problem. i know how u feel mate - maybe we can solve this problem with combined forces - here is my thread: http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45243 i'm going back to my rig now for another trial-and-error session... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
88xj Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Here are my concerns with your situation: Current setup has been OC'd without verifiable voltage / temp readings - could have bad consequences for windows if system is unstable. Did you follow the A64 OC guide? If so how stable (24hrs p95?) was the system when you overclocked it? If it was not tested to the specs, then there is a good chance that your current windows install is going to have some corruption / instability. Also in defense of the board, temp and voltage settings are rarely correct on any board. (example). In fact, I have the same problem with OCing as you do, the voltage and temperature readings cannot be trusted, its a documented issue. So, to get started I'd recommend going optimized defaults, make sure the cpu fan is set to spin regardless of what temp the bios is seeing, disable thermal throttling and make sure that the board does not have the over-temp shutdown feature enabled. Then go with only one hard disk and re-install windows (with a full format) to eliminate any possible corruption from your OC experience. When you get Windows installed, run prime95 for 12-24hrs to make sure the system is stable in its basic state. If you experience the shutdown issues during this stage, look into your PSU after reading this guide, there is a link there to how to test your PSU (read the rails). If prime95 fails but the system does not shutdown, look into memtest and let us know what you find. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
88xj Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Also to point out a small inconsistency with this discussion...a free application does not function with a $180 motherboard, and it is the board's fault. Any app that accesses the bios for information can have detrimental effects on the motherboard. Does everest have the same issues? SiSoft? If not, that would indicate that the application you are using is not suited to read or adjust your board's bios settings. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stone_cold_Jimi Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Heh, if you thought this was a plug'n'play mobo, think again. This one requires you to start very methodically; one stick of RAM in the outer orange slot, one HDD, memtest at stock speeds and so on. There is a known issue with programs that read the SMBus; when they do, the system switches off. Whenever SpeedFan / Everest / Sandra try to do this, whap, off. You have to set a /nosmbus switch or similar in the desktop shortcut. MBM 5 seems ok; use the profile linked somewhere on this site (search is your friend) and you will get all the readings you want. Believe me, I've been through the grief; I had to dump my Z503 Ballistix for G.Skill HZ; I had to dump my Seasonic 600W PSU for something else; I had to RMA my first Expert; however, I now have a working, overclocked system. I'm not trying to excuse it, that's just the way it is - picky as hell. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiamat Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Cheers peeps, i'll give your suggestions a go and get back to ye..... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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