I Have Given Up!

[markiemrboo]

Yeah latest BIOS and got the latest nForce drivers from the nVidia site.

 

Guess what :D: D Prime failed overnight. "Rounding was 0.4985351563, expected less than 0.4" .. joy. Think I might just throw the whole thing in the bin and get another NF7/Athlon XP. Getting to the point where I just can't be arsed with it anymore. helppppppp

[confuzzedintelguy]

try the sp2004 program i linked to a little up the page its bin known to work on winnies when prime hasnt

[markiemrboo]

Ok, i'll try that one out later. In the meantime I won't be happy till Prime passes at stock (it's at stock right now). If it don't pass at stock i'll tell the people I got new RAM and a new board, updated BIOS etc etc tried EVERYTHING and it's still unstable. Hopefully that'll convince them that I need a new chip cheeky but... i've had enough.

 

If it is still screwy then I guess I will have to go out and buy a new board. Possibly a Neo2, although I don't like the sound of all the buggy BIOS stuff and I hate the layout of the board, or possibly another Epox.. but if it's the board, why should I trust Epox again? The way my luck is going I will just get another board with exactly the same problems.

 

Right well. I increased the vcore first to see if it fixed prime but instead it failed on the first 1024k tests, test 4... just before it was about to finish. Which... is the same one it was failing with on my BH-5 I think. So that's nice. Good to know it's still being random. It must have just been toying with me yesterday, leading me to believe the Prime issue was solved. No such luck

 

Yeah I have just woke up and cause the whole Prime fail thing I am a bit grouchy. You'll have to excuse my bad mood, sorry!!!!

[confuzzedintelguy]

lol i understand bin there before lol but i would do a nether epox if it comes down to the board just because one is bad dosnt mean they all are the Neo 2 is a decent board if you can find the right bios to fit your system you could always go NF4 and swap somebody your agp card for a PCI-E

[markiemrboo]

I could. But... NF4, more money aint it *cough* and i'd end up getting it all.. and having the same problems *end coughing* I just want a working system right now *cries* Hope it's the CPU being dodgy. The errors still seem to be memory errors of some sort, sooo... guess it could still be the memory controller, right?

[r_target]

I think it might be time to RMA the CPU. Not much point to RMAing the board with mods performed. And there's no way to be 100% certain that the board mods aren't causing some of the problems.

[markiemrboo]

Convinced it's got something to do with the mods? I'm not really. I think the mods are fine. There is a possibility it is a faulty board in some way or another I guess, in which case yeah.. i'll buy another board. But only after I have a different CPU... as to me it just looks like a memory controller issue... but.. what do I know. All I know is that it don't work!

 

It's still priming at stock. I decided to do some Uni work to pass the time (yes, the situation's got THAT bad ) I think if it's still priming at ... hmm... sometime between 4 - 6pm I am possibly gonna restart prime just to make sure, then leave that overnight with folding again. Then if that works i'll try CS and see if it BSOD's on me. It's gonna take me days to be sure it's stable at stock speeds *yawn*

[r_target]

Yeah, I feel your pain. I've been tweaking and testing for over a month now and I'm finally getting this thing dialed in. I was under the mistaken impression that this would be a plug 'n' frag rig. Will you have any hassles with RMAing the CPU?

[markiemrboo]

you think maybe the Epox boards aren't that good at overclocking after all then? even though.. the reviews say they're way up there with the Neo2 and possibly even better?

 

Well, I dunno about the CPU. I have applied for RMA already, which lasts... 19 days? But in the response they said we don't think it's the CPU, update your BIOS.. but we'll take it back and test it for you. I have, as you know, updated my BIOS. I have bought new RAM. I tried seperate PSU's to try get the PSU issue out the way (although I have to do that again with the new RAM).. so all that's left is the board or CPU.

 

So, yeah, I was gonna e-mail them about the RMA (if it doesn't pass stock tests??) and tell them what I have done, and lie a bit about RMA'ing the board.. so it has to be the CPU. Cause they're likely to test it and find nothing wrong with it... with my luck going as it is It's cheating a bit I know but... rar! I think if I tell them I have basically replaced everything but the CPU they'll give in and just gimme a new CPU, maybe?

[r_target]

I think the Epox boards are great overclockers. I know mine is. But really, I've only got my experiences and those of other users to base my opinions/decisions on. It's probably the only way to try to arrive at an informed decision other than buying thirty boards and see how they all work. If I hadn't bought mine before you did, I might have chalked the problems you're having up to a crappy board and bought something else. Since I don't really have the ducats to get the latest and the greatest, I usually follow the leads of other overclockers who have proven a piece of hardware. I started looking at A64 motherboards in Nov., and I saw a lot of problems with the Neo2, even after subtracting the newbies from the equation. I also saw the Epox boards delivering higher clocks with fewer problems relative to the amount of people actually using the board, so that's how I made my decision. I also never trusted MSI, and wanted to try something different.

 

You could have gotten a bum board, as I believe quality control for computer parts in general to be pretty poor. If the CPU can't perform flawlessly at stock however, it's RMA time.

[markiemrboo]

Yeah, that's basically why I chose the Epox in the end. The incredibly buggy BIOS just didn't sound nice. Convinced myself all it would do is cause me headaches trying to get it working properly. I had also read how the Epox boards always seemed to be hitting high HTT and what not. And, well, here I am with a giant headache and no Neo2 I also liked the layout of the Epox more. But anyway, that's just a cosmetic thing!

 

How about if it does pass at stock? Does that mean it's a bum CPU, or a bum board. It doesn't really solve much for someone who wants to overclock. I'll still be left sitting here wondering if it's the board or CPU that's crap! ARGH What I really need is a reliable way of reproducing a problem. I mean, Prime is just being totaly random.

 

I am beginning to think I could probably sit here looking at Prime doing it's thing for days and it won't fail, then I might restart and it'll fail in minutes. The blue screen thing seems quite random too. It wasn't blue screening before at 260x9, then I underclocked the GPU a bit, which sorted out the black screen thing.. but then I got two blue screens. Eek. So I can't trust trying to play CS to see if it's still unstable either really it seems?! Folding hasn't errored yet. Didn't even fail a WU with the prime failing BH-5!

[r_target]

I am beginning to think I could probably sit here looking at Prime doing it's thing for days and it won't fail, then I might restart and it'll fail in minutes.

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This is the crux of my A64 OC frustration as well. And I really do think it has to do with the "not quite ready for prime time" aspect of some Winchesters. I'm pretty sure that I've ironed out most of my problems though. 2550 from a 2000 Mhz CPU I can live with. But man, wouldn't 2700 be nice.