Guest Ryn Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 My friend had a similar problem before with his board, I believe it's an Asus. The issue was on the PSU, not adequate enough to power his board and peripherals. I would suspect that your problem would be more on the PSU, but check your RAM too just to be sure that it is out of the equation. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceanSeasforMe Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 Evilj, I am with the PSU train of thought. I would replace it first. Might check for fluctuations on your rails, but *( I am guessing you are useing MbM5) with monitoring, (+ active logging) you would see if it was a voltage spike or dip. If no mbm5... then check with a multimeter and see what voltage your rails are actually carrying from the psu. Also, just for kicks, run some diagnostics on your hard drives. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eviljelly Posted April 4, 2006 Posted April 4, 2006 Ok, thanks for the suggestions. I ran memtest, looping test #5 at stock settings, with one strip of ram in the orange slot furthest from the cpu and came up with these results: a) crucial ballistix ddr500 - both strips of this dual set produced multiple errors after a few minutes. They also gave me a couple of bluescreens in winxp when i tried them, so i think they are faulty. RMA. B) a-data vitessa ddr500 512mb strip#1 - no errors but caused the shut down problem within 10 minutes, from memtest. c) a-data vitessa ddr500 512mb strip #2 - ran memtest for 30mins with no errors. I decided to try a game, and had it rendering 3d for over two hours. I left it overnight with the game still playing, but the pc had shutdown by morning. d) Infineon pc3200 w/ akasa heat spreader 512mb - ran memtest for a couple of iterations - tried a 3d game and crashed within 20mins. I will try memtest again and leave it on overnight this time. Can anyone deduce anything from these results? Does it appear more to be a PSU problem or a RAM problem? I am running memtest with active logging and the 12v rail goes from 12.34 idle to 12.02 under load - with no obvious spikes or dips. Thanks again for any help. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eviljelly Posted April 5, 2006 Posted April 5, 2006 OK - I memtested the one working stick of a-data. It was fine for over an hour, so I booted back into windows and ran a 3d game for over 3 hours! The longest i've ever seen it in fact. I then went back into memtest and left it looping on #5 all night. The pc had shutdown by the morning. I'm guessing that if one stick of ram is a lot more stable than another - even though it itself is ultimately unstable too - means that this is more likely a bad memory issue than a psu issue? I think i'll RMA both sets of ram and order some OCZ Gold PC4000 2x1gb. I have seen a few threads where people haven't been able to get them running in dual mode, but hopefully they are few and far between. Thanks for the help and i'll let you know if a brand new memory replacement cures my woes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SloppyG Posted April 5, 2006 Posted April 5, 2006 Hey Ralphie, you have the almost the same psu as me.. i have the 530w: http://www.tagan.com/pages/products/easyco..._tg530_u15.html is it really possible that a brand new tagan psu has a fault like this? My powerstream had some cold boot issues and seemed a bit weird after long gaming sessions in BF2. OCZ RMA'd it for me and the replacement is dead solid, BF2 ran for 8hrs straight and primed all night. There may just be something wrong with the PSU. My Antec Neopower 480w won't even boot my expert and I thought that was a good unit. I'd have rma'd it but was talked into a replacement Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eviljelly Posted April 6, 2006 Posted April 6, 2006 If the memory doesn't work I'll be contacting Tagan for an RMA ASAP LOL Just the excited wait for Postie now and new pressies - luscious 2gb ram sticks mmmm :-D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eviljelly Posted April 6, 2006 Posted April 6, 2006 Ok, the memory is installed and running at stock 200mhz.. The early results looked positive with 3dmark06 looping it's demo for over 2hours. Unfortunately Battlefield2 caused a shutdown within 10mins of running. Would people concur that it is most likely the PSU then? Is there any likelihood it's the CPU? Thanks again. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blinker0 Posted April 6, 2006 Posted April 6, 2006 Can you list all your settings in the Bios Genie.. And Memory configuration page Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bryanberlin Posted April 7, 2006 Posted April 7, 2006 hmm I also have had the same issue but mine has only shut down 3X over 100+ hours of gaming I suspected PSU however!! check sig for commonalities Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckman Posted April 7, 2006 Posted April 7, 2006 My shutdowns were with a ENERMAX Liberty 620 that would fail under load. Replaced with an new one and all is fine. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eviljelly Posted April 7, 2006 Posted April 7, 2006 ok here are my bios settings - they are basically stock: FSB Bus Frequency............................. 200 LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio....................... Auto CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio....................... Auto PCI eXpress Frequency......................... 100 CPU Voltage .................................. Startup LDT Voltage .................................. 1.20v ChipSet (NF4) Voltage ........................ 1.50V DRAM Voltage ................................. 2.60v +0.03 if not 3.2V ............................ disable Memclock (DRAM Frequency) .................... By SPD 1T/2T Timing (Command Per Clock).............. Auto CAS Latency (Tcl)............................. Auto RAS# to CAS# delay (Trcd)..................... Auto Min RAS# active time (Tras)................... Auto Row precharge time (Trp)...................... Auto Row Cycle time (Trc).......................... 12T Row refresh cyc time (Trfc)................... 24T Row to Row delay (Trrd)....................... 3T Write recovery time (Twr)..................... 3T Write to Read delay (Twtr).................... 2T Read to Write delay (Trwt).................... 3T Refresh Period (Tref)......................... 3120 DRAM Bank Interleave.......................... Enabled DQS Skew Control.............................. Auto DQS Skew Value................................ 0 DRAM Drive Strength........................... Auto DRAM Data Drive Strength...................... Auto Max Async Latency............................. Auto DRAM Response Time............................ Normal Read Preamble Time............................ Auto IdleCycle Limit............................... 256 Dynamic Counter............................... Disable R/W Queue Bypass.............................. 16x Bypass Max.................................... 4x 32 Byte Granularity........................... Disable (4 Bursts) Am going to set it to OCZ recommended settings from bleeding edge forums found here: http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showpost....973&postcount=4 and will let you know results. Thanks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eviljelly Posted April 11, 2006 Posted April 11, 2006 Ok so i set it to this: (taken from BleedingEdge) FSB Bus Frequency............................. 250 MHzLDT/FSB Frequency Ratio....................... Auto CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio....................... 8 PCI eXpress Frequency......................... 100 CPU Voltage .................................. 1.400v LDT Voltage .................................. 1.30v ChipSet (NF4) Voltage ........................ 1.60V DRAM Voltage ................................. 2.60v +0.03 if not 3.2V ............................ enable Memclock (DRAM Frequency) .................... 200 1T/2T Timing (Command Per Clock).............. 1T CAS Latency (Tcl)............................. 3T RAS# to CAS# delay (Trcd)..................... 4T Min RAS# active time (Tras)................... 8T Row precharge time (Trp)...................... 3T Row Cycle time (Trc).......................... 11T Row refresh cyc time (Trfc)................... 16T Row to Row delay (Trrd)....................... 3T Write recovery time (Twr)..................... 3T Write to Read delay (Twtr).................... 2T Read to Write delay (Trwt).................... 3T Refresh Period (Tref)......................... 3120 DRAM Bank Interleave.......................... Enabled DQS Skew Control.............................. Auto DQS Skew Value................................ 0 DRAM Drive Strength........................... Normal 3 or 4 (called Level 6 or 8 in other bios') DRAM Data Drive Strength...................... Level 2 Max Async Latency............................. 8ns DRAM Response Time............................ Normal Read Preamble Time............................ 6ns IdleCycle Limit............................... 256 Dynamic Counter............................... Disable R/W Queue Bypass.............................. 16x Bypass Max.................................... 7x 32 Byte Granularity........................... Disable (4 Bursts) Of course this was running a San Diego 3700+ which should be 2.2ghz stock instead at 2ghz. The result was it did feel a lot more stable. I was actually able to game for over an hour or so - so I was encouraged. However when i ran 3dMark06 overnight it had still shut down by morning. I also got a couple of bluescreens - which made a change from total shutdown, an improvement even?- and a further shutdown an hour into gaming the following day. So taking heart in seeing the relationship between fiddling and stability I continued tweaking. Since then I have clocked my cpu to 2.5ghz @ 1.44v - which is stable in superPi, prime95 and occt - and I have also increased voltages across the board including - (LDT @ 1.4v, DRAM @ 2.8v, chipset @ 1.7v). The problem is that it's crashing within 10mins of gaming again, so I've obviously reduced stability with a setting or two. Maybe the cpu i guess. I will reduce the settings later and try some more tests. So it certainly appears that changing memory and fiddling with bios settings does affect the stability - but ultimately the shut-down issue persists, it just changes from 5mins to 5 hours. The weird thing is that it's rock solid in 2d and windows. I can work on Flash, Photoshop and Dreamweaver with Winamp and Azureus running in the background all day long with not so much as a flicker of memory errors or whatnot. I have emailed Tagan twice to see what they say and try and get an RMA but as yet no reply. Can any uber-talented pc guru maybe point me to an obvious error in bios settings or offer further suggestions? Should stability really be *so* difficult to achieve if one is leaving everything on stock? Does this further point toward the PSU as being the culprit? Thanks again for any help. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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