CFX3200-DR - Freezing and rebooting in x64

[TheColonial]

Hello everyone,

 

This is my first post. I have to say that this is an amazing forum!

 

I've been having a strange issue of late with my machine. I recently returned from 2 years in England and brought back with me a system which I've updated to the specs listed in my signature. The updates consisted of:

• Changed AUS A8N SLi Deluxe mobo to DFI CFX3200-DR
  
• Changed 2 x XFX Geforce 6800GT for 1 x HIS Radeon x1900xfx
  
• Changed AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Newcastle to AMD Athlon 64 x2 4400+ Toledo
  
• Changed AMD HSF with Ninja Scythe & Nexus 120mm
  

Since I made the changes, the machine has been freezing/hanging and rebooting (very inconsistently). Sometimes the machine will just freeze, and won't reboot. Other times it freezes and then reboots. Sometimes I can run the machine for days before it happens. Here are the things I have done to try and solve the problem:

• Enabled manual forcing of BSOD (because it doesn't happen by itself), but unfortunately the keystroke combination doesn't work when the machine has frozen and hence I can't extract any form of memory dump and I can't point the finger at a driver.
  
• Made sure that all my drivers are up to date, but one thing I have noticed is that the ULi SATA controller doesn't appear in the device manager (I have many ways to get it in there, but all I can see are the two separate HDDs listed, no controller).
  
• Stress tested the HDDs with no errors.
  
• I have run memtest86+ for 10 hours with no issues being reported.
  
• Disabled my wireless network card to see if that was the issue, but it made no difference.
  
• Stress tested the CPU overnight using SuperPI, Prime95, SP2004. No issues reported, and no crashes.
  
• Removed antivirus software and firewall software to see if this caused the problem, again this made no difference.
  
• Monitored CPU temperatures to see if it could be an issue with heat, but rarely do the temps get anywhere near the levels required for the system to become unstable.
  

I'm starting to get to my wits end, and I'm not sure where else to turn. I haven't overclocked the system, or done anything to improve its performance. Have you guys seen anything like this at all before? Is there any chance you could please give me some advice as to how I might go about tracking this issue down? I plan to do the following when I get the chance:

• Install WinXP x86 to see if the same issue happens outside of my WinXP x64 install.
  
• Remove software such as SetPoint which could also be causing issues.
  
• Run memtest to see if there are any issues with 64-bit memory addressing.
  

I have a friend who has said that I should check my memory timings or somesuch, but I'm not sure what that means. I'm a coder by trade, so I'm fine with anything sotware-based and usually am fine sorting out hardware. I haven't been able to speak to this friend of mine for a while and would ask you techies to point me in the direction of how I would "fix" memory timings please

 

I have attached a few screen-grabs of the stuff listed in CPU-Z, just in case you find that of any use. Please let me know if there's any more information I have missed that you might need.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to your responses.

Cheers!

TC.

[TheColonial]

(one and only..) *BUMP*

 

I'll only bump this once. Any suggestsions guys?

 

Cheers

TC.

[mizzer]

Your problem sounds like my problem. Tonight I'm going to install the ULI SATA drivers (V2.2 I think). I'm hoping this helps.

 

A few things I have tried: 1) Bumping up the DRAM voltage...just a smidge. 2) Bumping up the chipset voltage one step.

 

If the driver install does not fix the problem I'll probably bump up the processor voltage a bit.

 

Good luck,

mizzer

[notrain]

It may be a stupid question, but have you done a new and clean windows install after you upgraded your system? Some people just clean out their registry and reinstall their drivers after an upgrade, which can cause problems.

[TheColonial]

Hi guys,

 

Well, after a long haul of mucking about and debugging, I think I've finally nailed it.

 

First of all, notrain, I had done a new install from scratch - I always do with new bits and pieces as I know Windows is a picky beast at the best of times, especially x64. Thanks for the comments though.

 

To Mizzer, and anyone else who's feeling the pain, my problem was solved by a driver update. For those of you who don't know, you need to have a dual core driver if you have an AMD dual core CPU and you're running Windows. The driver is available from the AMD site. I had a driver that was released early this year, and this is where the problem lay. I downloaded the new driver recently that was dated June 06, and since then I've had an amazingly smooth ride without any lockups. There's also a dual core optimiser that does actually give a noticable improvement in some games.

 

So, in a nutshell, if you're running dual core, get yourself the latest dual core driver of AMD's site, and it may fix the problem.

 

Good luck all,

 

Cheers

TC.

[mizzer]

Hi guys,

 

Well, after a long haul of mucking about and debugging, I think I've finally nailed it.

 

First of all, notrain, I had done a new install from scratch - I always do with new bits and pieces as I know Windows is a picky beast at the best of times, especially x64. Thanks for the comments though.

 

To Mizzer, and anyone else who's feeling the pain, my problem was solved by a driver update. For those of you who don't know, you need to have a dual core driver if you have an AMD dual core CPU and you're running Windows. The driver is available from the AMD site. I had a driver that was released early this year, and this is where the problem lay. I downloaded the new driver recently that was dated June 06, and since then I've had an amazingly smooth ride without any lockups. There's also a dual core optimiser that does actually give a noticable improvement in some games.

 

So, in a nutshell, if you're running dual core, get yourself the latest dual core driver of AMD's site, and it may fix the problem.

 

Good luck all,

 

Cheers

TC.

 

I appreciate the feedback.

 

My issues were solved by installing a different PSU. I took out the Thermaltake 680w and installed an OCZ 700w. Bam! No more problems.

 

I installed the new AMD driver later. I don't have a dual core proc. so I installed the June 06 driver for FX processors.

 

Also, I noticed that the Marvel nics have newer drivers. I installed them as well.

 

mizzer

[TheColonial]

Hello again,

 

Turns out I was wrong. I have unfortunately managed to get a few more of the lockups/reboots since installing the update (though it doesn't happen half as much as it used to). I'm going to have a go at the May Beta BIOS and see how that affects things. From what I've read, the other troops on the boards have had a reduction in lockups since using this BIOS, so I think it could well be a solution for me.

 

I'll let you know how I go.

Cheers

 

TC.

[berler]

Have you tried using a floppy to install the ULi drivers BEFORE installing/formatting windows? I had a similar problem until I did this. Also, have you tried changing the slot that the drive is connected to? I found that slot1 (bottom) gives me problems while slot4 works great.

[Martin Baugh]

This is the ULI m5288 problem, if you go into Windows Event Viewer you will see it listed. I have had this problem for over 3 months and still no fix. I have tried all the suggestions in the ULI Raid m5288 forum and no joy. All we can do is to keep contacting DFI Tech Support on [email protected] and let them know that we want a rapid and succesfull resolution to this problem and we are getting very angry.

[TheColonial]

Hi guys,

 

I've kept a pretty keen eye on the event logs and any other kind of notification possible in the hope of finding what the issue is, and I've never seen anything at all resembling the ULI m5288 problem. There are no entries at all that point me in that direction. I have changed the SATA sockets once, as I felt that one of them didn't really "connect" (if that makes any sense). This hasn't really changed anything.

 

I haven't tried installing the ULI drivers prior to Windows Install - that's something I shall try if my current setup continues to crash. Thanks for the feedback.

 

I now have the May beta BIOS installed, and while it's early days, I'm yet to have a crash. Again, I shall keep you posted.

 

Thanks again guys.

TC.