Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 + ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA + ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[Deleauvive]

@meanscotsman
Does the board look clean, visually speaking ?

Order that BIOS chip dude, if you can. I wouldn't waste any more time trying to reinstall or fix the OS if I were you.

 

[meanscotsman]

Hi double0seven

My PSU is a Corsair VX550W, about 4 years old. Never had any trouble from it.

I did a quick visual inspection of the mobo on Sunday and the caps all looked fine, nothing obviously bulging, leaking or bent over. On my 775i65g, the tops of a couple of caps were obviously swollen. When it died, it started giving 3 beeps on post. After re-seating the RAM a few times, it completely died. The process took only a couple of days, so I suppose I'll know soon if my 4core is going the same way shortly.

@nightspydk

Not sure what you're trying to say.

 

[nightspydk]

Just saying that the board is fine man.

You are not going to see a PSU going like that. They do not just go, they start showing weaknesses unless it's a freak underpowered PSU.

 

[meanscotsman]

Just saying that the board is fine man.

You are not going to see a PSU going like that. They do not just go, they start showing weaknesses unless it's a freak underpowered PSU.

Okay

What did you mean by "hard reset and nothing attached"?

Thanks

 

[meanscotsman]

Hi Deleauvive

The board was a little dusty as you'd expect but I blew it all off a couple of weeks ago when I starting the process of upgrading. My GPU was probably the dustiest part!

 

[nightspydk]

You should start a help thread my friend. A hard reset is where you hold the power to re-apply all hardware drivers and the first thing I always do with a crash is detach everything, but I've seen a keyboard do stuff, so I'm biased.

PM if not.

 

[doubleOseven]

Hi double0seven

My PSU is a Corsair VX550W, about 4 years old. Never had any trouble from it.

Ok, that is a good power supply. I doubt your problem is due to the power supply then. Thanks for answering. If a replacement bios chip doesn't cost too much, then grab one... at this point, it's not like you have much to lose by trying.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Small update.

Redid the USB stick with WinSetupfromUSB 2.3 and my XP Sp 1 CD. Formatted USB as FAT32. All completed without errors.

Then booted my damaged PC from the USB and it got as far as a black screen saying "Try (hd0,0): FAT32:" and ... that was it. Shut down and restarted - nothing.

Looks like it's trying to boot from the USB but it's not succeeding. Whether it's the PC or the USB that's faulty, though, I don't know. Googling "Try (hd0,0): FAT32:" suggests it's a problem with the way the USB is set up but I don't know how to resolve that.

Sorry to harp, but here is the best way to make a bootable USB Flash drive, adapted from the author's text in the link provided some posts above:

Step 0: Start with an empty USB Flash drive, or one that has files you don't need or have backed up.

Step 1: Plug the USB flash drive into your system.

Step 2: Open Command Prompt with admin rights:

	Type cmd in Start menu search box and hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter, or
	Go to Start menu > All programs > Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

Step 3: Type the following commands in the command prompt:

	DISKPART and hit enter.
	LIST DISK and hit enter.
        Note the Disk number <n> (ex: Disk 1) of your USB flash drive. It should be clear from the space on disk reported (size) which one is the USB, usually the last in the list.
	
Step 4: Next type all the below commands one by one, placing the number of the disk in place of <n>, without brackets.

	SELECT DISK <n>
	CLEAN
	CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
	SELECT PARTITION 1
	ACTIVE
	FORMAT FS=NTFS
	(Format process may take few seconds)
	ASSIGN
	EXIT

	The USB flash drive is now ready for installation of the boot sector.
	Don&#8217;t close the command prompt yet.

[NOTE THAT WE WILL REFER TO DISKS BY THE DRIVE LETTERS FROM HERE FORWARD, NOT THE DISK NUMBER AS ABOVE.]

Step 5: Insert the Windows 7/8 DVD into the optical drive and note the drive letter of the DVD drive and the USB Flash drive by looking under Computer in Explorer. Assuming your DVD drive letter is &#8220;D:&#8221; and USB drive letter is &#8220;E:"

Step 6: Type the following commands (without quotes) now:

	Type "D:" and hit enter. (Where &#8220;D&#8221; is your DVD drive letter.)
	Type "CD BOOT" and hit enter.

Step 7: Type the following command to update the USB drive with BOOTMGR compatible code.

	BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 E:
	Where &#8220;E:&#8221; is your USB drive letter.
	
Step 8: Copy your Windows 7/8 DVD contents to the flash drive.

	Use Explorer to copy all the contents from DVD to USB

Step 9: Your USB drive is ready to boot and install Windows 7/8. Change the boot priority in the BIOS to USB from the HDD or CD ROM drive, or use F11 to use the boot menu.

Step 10: Watch your OS now install much faster. Remember to switch the boot drive back to the hard drive after the OS finishes its first task of copying files and reboots. Go into the BIOS before the first reboot finishes so you do not repeat the OS file copy routine over and over.

The problem with your earlier attempt was that the drive had no proper boot sector. I find most utilities hit-and-miss for this, but the manual method works every time.

Now, if you are already booting successfully into Win7, I'd suggest running

SFC /SCANNOW

from the command prompt to make sure your OS did install properly, or to replace any faulty or missing files.

...

I do not think your BIOS chip is bad, but I do suspect the HD of being flakey. PSU is fine. Test the HD with some utility for SMART errors and such. Before giving up entirely on a drive, even after using manufacturer utilities to zero it out, one last go with SpinRite might be worth it. Also, make sure all cables are firmly connected and if applicable any drive jumpers are set to SATAI (150) (VSTA) or SATAII (300) on SATA2 boards.

 

[zaoan]

Depends on what you'd like to achieve : Overclocking, compliant settings to fit your CPU and memory running at base speed ? If you post a picture of both chipset (that would require 2 different pictures) and CPU BIOS settings, I or someone else may tell you if something comes to mind.

So here are my almost default bios settings.

Any recommendations would be much appreciated.

In the meantime, I've managed to do some stupid things. Like installing win7 and not beeing able to boot win8 anymore. Seems like dual boot only works when the last installed system is newer than the existing one, not viceversa. At least that's what google found for this issue.
Ok, after this I reinstalled both os. Only to discover that I like win8 more, it moves much better.
Decided to format the win7 partition, which was on the master drive. No OS found after this, as win8 was installed on my slave drive.
Inserted the win8 USB drive and decided to format win8 partition, after changing the hdd jumpers and switching master drives. Now the problem was that win8 installer was giving me an error, as it could not create or use the selected partition.
Googled around a bit and found a solution similar to what Hlafordlaes just posted, as I only see it now, the one with diskpart, list disk and so on.
Ha, it only worked after I cleaned up and formated the entire drive, thus loosing almost 30gb of music collection. And that was some good oldschool music...
At least I got my win8 up and running again lol.
Btw, don't think there is a way of recovering some, if not all, deleted content. Or is it?


Nevermind, recovered everything using r-studio :thumbsup:. Great app!

 

[Deleauvive]

So, is your dual boot system working normally, or do you plan to make changes again ?
If you're ready for it, I would suggest the following changes.

First, disable Flexibility Option. Your DRAM is not running at nominal speed with that option set to enabled. At the same time, it is advisable to set some values for at least the first few DRAM related options in that chipset page :
4 for CAS Latency, 4 for tRP, 4 for tRCD, 12 for tRAS (or 10 if you feel brave), 34 for tRFC. You can set DRAM Bus Selection to Dual Channel, it would look nicer.

Enable Enhanced Halt State, Disable both Intel SpeedStep and Spread Spectrum.
You should notice a slight increase in performance. Would you be willing to run a 3Dmark benchmark (2001SE or '05) to measure the delta after each major modification of your DRAM and / or CPU clock speeds ?
At least, fire up CPU-Z and check that your DRAM is in sync (1:1) with the FSB (Memory tab).
The next step would be actual overclocking, but as I said, you might as well decide such a stable system suits your needs, thus keeping away from BSOD and overheating potential issues.

 

[meanscotsman]

Hi again

Update for Hlafordlaes

I ran sfc /verifyonly this morning before work and it completed with no reports of errors.

When it actually boots up, Windows 7 is working fine. The problem seems to be on shutdown, while everything goes off, the actual PC stays on rather than powering off. Then, on starting again, sometimes Windows 7 starts up perfectly, other times it hangs on the startup screen (just as the coloured balls are beginning to appear) and sometimes I get the option to do a startup repair (which so far always freezes) or start normally, which usually works!

Haven't had time to check the HDD yet but that's next.

Thanks

 

[zaoan]

Thanks, Deleauvive!

I gave up on the dual boot thing, just kept win8.
So this is what CPU-Z is showing, notice that the cpu speed has decreased when idle at about 1.6Ghz and goes back to 2.4 when in use. Prior to changing settings it was always at 2.4Ghz. Don't know if it's supposed to be like this.

I also did a 3dMark 06 benchmark, but then lost the results. Anyway, it was something around the 7500 mark, where cpu was the lowest. Settings where set at full AA and AF with 1680x1050 resolution. It matters that i can decently run what i want on my rig, not these benchmark results, at least this is the way i see it.

Any other advices would be much appreciated, thanks.

 

[Deleauvive]

I gave up on the dual boot thing, just kept win8.
So this is what CPU-Z is showing, notice that the cpu speed has decreased when idle at about 1.6Ghz and goes back to 2.4 when in use. Don't know if it's supposed to be like this.

It is supposed to be like this. Your cores are up and dandy with the C1E (Enhanced Halt State) dance, no worries.

It matters that i can decently run what i want on my rig, not these benchmark results, at least this is the way i see it.

I see what you mean but the notion that you can decently run what you want is rather subjective.
Rule of thumb methods like measuring how long your computer takes to boot up, relaunching the Windows Experience Index, are much more prone to errors.
Trust me, the results from 3Dmark '06 will vary for the better once you start overclocking your CPU.
You don't need to run 3Dmark more than once upon each reboot, and you don't even need to change its default settings.

With your DRAM and FSB now in sync, you should be ready to :

• Set the Overclocking Mode to manual
• Overclock PCI-E clock to say, 112 MHz
• Decrease the ratio by 1 or 0.5
• Start cranking up gradually CPU Frequency by a good 15-20 MHz (in 4 or 6 Hz increment)

Or you can leave your system as such. Up to you.

Should you choose to overclock your CPU, please make sure you install either Core Temp or Real Temp. It will allow you to monitor your CPU cores temperature directly from the system tray, with a nearly unnoticeable memory footprint. Various temperatures can be monitored (CPU, HDD..) with such tools, but CPU cores temps are the ones that really matter when overclocking the CPU.

As a side note, Core Temp bears a somehow dubious installer so let me know if your system is 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit. Then I should provide you with a link to the standalone version.

 

[zaoan]

With your DRAM and FSB now in sync, you should be ready to :

• Set the Overclocking Mode to manual
• Overclock PCI-E clock to say, 112 MHz
• Decrease the ratio by 1 or 0.5
• Start cranking up gradually CPU Frequency by a good 15-20 MHz (in 4 or 6 Hz increment)

Would love to test these settings, but i'm stuck in the bios settings, as you didn't mention which option to use.

For overclocking mode i have 3 options:

Disabled;

CPU, PCI-E Async; and

CPU, PCI-E Sync.

Not sure what to chose, as i don't want to mess up something. From what you wrote, i believe it has to be the async one, as the other one does not allow me to change the pci-e clock.



As for coretemp, i also have the standalone version, thanks.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Would love to test these settings, but i'm stuck in the bios settings, as you didn't mention which option to use.

For overclocking mode i have 3 options:

Disabled;

CPU, PCI-E Async; and

CPU, PCI-E Sync.

Not sure what to chose, as i don't want to mess up something. From what you wrote, i believe it has to be the async one, as the other one does not allow me to change the pci-e clock.

As for coretemp, i also have the standalone version, thanks.

For a review of standard BIOS settings, please see post #514 on p. 21. These are for the VSTA model, but are very similar to the other PT880 boards. Other major links for the PT880 boards are also in that post.

Note that in later settings, on the advice of other posters, I set CAS to 5, disabled PipelineDRQCTL, and DRAM Command Rate to 1T, which also worked fine.

 

[Deleauvive]

For overclocking mode i have 3 options

i believe it has to be the async one, as the other one does not allow me to change the pci-e clock.

Well, you have 2 really, as off is a non-overclocking mode.
I myself use the Sync option, but I am not offered the Async one.

In one word, yup, that would be the Async one :
Set this to 112 MHz, it should be enough.

As for coretemp, i also have the standalone version

Good! If you don't want to do some stress testing, you might have a look at your core temps right after running 3Dmark. Let us know if the hottest one exceeds, say 62°C.


Hlafordlaes' suggestions might or might not work (most likely, they might), but I wouldn't advise to follow / attempt to combine two different OC' guidances at the same time.

In other words, you're free to revert to default settings and follow another tutorial from the beginning.
But then, although the goal is basically the same, I wouldn't wish to interfere about how it's done by suggesting different settings simultaneously (hope that sounds diplomatic enough ).
e.q. I concede disabling Pipeline DRQCTL might help in certain cases, but it has no other effect than decreasing performance for those who don't need it set that way.

 

[zaoan]

So i did something.
Not sure if you really meant to decrease ratio, because cpu frequency also gets lower like this. As i noted on the picture, difference between default and little oc is not huge, but there is a slight improvement. Compared to the other 4core cpu's listed there, i think this one is acceptable. Temperatures didn't get much higher, not sure if it's normal, considering almost 200mhz speed increase.
Decreasing ratio means more stability? Should i, can i try to go with the cpu freq over 300, say 320 or more and keep the ratio at 8?
Note that i can only decrease by units of 1 (not sure why not even 0.5).

 

[zaoan]

I guess something didn't work quite right, as now i've encountered some bsod.
It's something related to my gpu, video_scheduler_internal error or video_tdr_failure error.
I removed the overclock, set it to auto again, but it does the same. Mostly when i try to run a game, but it happened randomly even after restarting windows.
Could it be a hardware failure, could i have done something so wrong?
I can only uninstall the driver in safe mode using device manager, otherwise i get the bsod when trying to access the driver to uninstall it.

This is what happens when you try to fix something that's not broken...

 

[Deleauvive]

Did you notice any benefit since you've been using Windows 8 ?
What about reinstalling Windows 7 and getting rid of Windows 8 ?

Also, it's important, if not crucial, that you set the CPU settings from the BIOS exactly as I suggested before the overclocking attempt. Dual or Quad cores are not supposed to run at fixed speed.

 

[zaoan]

Well, in my opinion, win8 runs a lot better on my rig, compared to 7 (probably having a bad version though).
As for the settings, they were made more or less like you suggested.
First i did the ram timings as you said, 1-2 days ago, worked ok.
Today i changed cpu settings. The problem began when i left it at ratio 9 and cpu freq at 286 (with cpu freq set at 290 the system would hang at startup).
Everything else was enabled or disabled, according to what you posted. (halt state, spread spectrum, etc.)
PCI-E was first set to 110mhz, then to 112mhz.
At first it was running ok. Opened up CS Global Offensive (which i can see is a bit demanding, it runs with an average of 60 fps, unlike cs source where the average is above 100) and the first bsod came up after 5 min of gameplay.
Then the rest, i tried opening a less demanding game, but the same bsod and restart.
I reverted back to default settings for cpu in bios, but the problem remains.
I've managed to uninstall the driver by disabling the adapter in device manager first.
Now with no driver installed, i can get into games without bsod. So this means it was a driver issue? I will try to install the driver again, as soon as i clean the registry and remove any trace of previous drivers.

As for "Dual or Quad cores are not supposed to run at fixed speed", i'm not sure i understand what you mean.

 

[Deleauvive]

I simply mean that the following is how it is supposed to be

So this is what CPU-Z is showing, notice that the cpu speed has decreased when idle at about 1.6Ghz and goes back to 2.4 when in use.

While this, on the contrary

Prior to changing settings it was always at 2.4Ghz.

isn't. That's what I call fixed speed.

 

[zaoan]

I only disabled the overclock settings, from cpu and pci-e async to auto, everything else remained the same. Cpu is still working at variable speed.
The only problem now remains to discover if my issue is driver or hardware related.
I will reinstall windows, because after deleting some files in safe mode, i can not reinstall the driver. I'm having fun these days.

 

[Deleauvive]

You may use guru3d's Genetix Cleaner to deeply and thoroughly remove each trace of the previous driver.
Link here : http://bit.ly/10Z67Iy

It's not as straightforward as uninstalling using AMD's own uninstall routine, but it's much more efficient at it. The driver you're using is Windows compatible WDDM driver I think. The Cleaner will remove it (and it should, since it's far from being as powerful and comprehensive as the official driver suite), but it has a tendency to reinstall itself automatically.

If you're still having issues after running Genetix Cleaner batch file and reinstalling the official driver, then you could try preventing Windows from installing this WDDM driver (involves gpedit, the admin console). Ideally, the Catalyst should have simply the VGA driver to update.


EDIT : So you're reinstalling Windows 8 finally...
Don't fret, it shouldn't take long with that powerful computer of yours!
By the way, there is a 99,99% chance the problem wasn't related to the mild overclocking you applied moments ago IMHO.
What you could do before tweaking again your settings is make a complete image of the system once it's up and running. You would then reuse that image instead of reinstalling to avoid wasting too much time next time.

 

[zaoan]

Yeah, reinstalled win8 again, so far it seems to run ok.
So i'm guessing it was a driver issue, not sure what caused it. Now i'm stuck with the windows wddm driver, as i'm not sure if installing the official ati driver won't cause the bsod again.
Plus, why install the ati driver again and risk causing conflicts again, when this one does not show ANY decrease in performance. The only downside is the lack of opengl support...
Although this is how my system worked for 2-3 days with no problem.
The problem began after the overclock, does that modify the drivers in any way? I don't think so.
Now, do you advise me to overclock again? And if i do, do i decrease the ratio or leave it at 9? (can only increase/decrease by units of 1)
My default setting for cpu freq being 266mhz, like you said to increase it by 15-20mhz and lowering the ratio to 8, results in underclocking my cpu to something lower than 2.4ghz
Or can i leave the ratio at 8 and go with the cpu freq over 300? Not sure what causes stability or instability.
As for the pci-e freq, is it ok to leave it at 100mhz? Maybe setting this to 110mhz had something to do with the above described mess? (probably not, as you said)

 

[Deleauvive]

Here's what I was about to write before you told us about your bsod errors :

Should i, can i try to go with the cpu freq over 300, say 320 or more and keep the ratio at 8?

As would sing Depeche Mode, it's just a question of time (before you know what's best for you).
A standard overclocking usually needs to be validated by a few hours of stress-testing.
Since you seemed reluctant to repeatedly use 3dMark, I am not sure I could invite you to run OCCT for one hour each time you modify your overclocking settings.

9 is already a rather low multiplier. Despite this, 8 would bring a bit more stability.
This said, if the benchmark you're using doesn't show any improvement, there wouldn't be much point, would there ?

I myself couldn't go beyond 297 (I mean I could reach 310 or so, but the Intel Burn stress-test would output an error after a while).

What you could do is compare your current Cinebench best result 1.36 (corresponding to 286x9) to 304 or 308x8. Note that very few people could go beyond 300 without running into trouble with the PT880, so don't blame me if something goes wrong past, say, 294.

As for the acceptable core temperatures, that means that both the air flow within your tower is decent, quantitatively speaking, and that with a more robust mobo, you could be pushing your CPU much more.


Note that, provided it also benefits from a proper cooling, your graphic card GPU core and / or GDDR memory could probably be overclocked by a few dozens of MHz too without much hassle (I use MSI Afterburner for this purpose).