Barton Lock up.... Help (Part II)

[Homerboy]

Follow up to this POST

Ok so I simply can not get this thing to run stable at 3200+ no matter.

At stock speeds everything is hunky dorey. No problems at all.
Bump up to 185 FSB... no problems at all.
Bump up to 200 FSB... everything SEEMS fine... in fact I can encode video all day long (100% CPU) Temps hit ~57C at max. If I fire up a game it will lock within 3mins if not quicker (lock not reboot).

Bumped voltage up... and up... still same cr@p.
AGP bus locked at 66mhz...

Im lost.
Could it just be a limitation of my motherboard as it maxes at 200FSB (only technically supports 166) But why would it then encode etc just fine at 200FSB but lock in 3d?

Vid card worked PEFECTLY before this (and still does at sub 200FSB speeds)

Power? As my card draws more juice it craps the whole system? but wouldnt that reboot it?

 

[Jeff7181]

What brand is your RAM?
Is it set to SPD or have you changed the settings?
Does it give a voltage range on the label?

List EVERYTHING you have in you rcomputer, and what power supply you have.

Is your motherboard an nForce2 board or some crappy Via chipset?

*EDIT* Since it failed MemTest... I'd try it at CAS 2.5

 

[Homerboy]

PSU: Fortran 350Watt
MB: MSI K7N2 MB (on board LAN/Sound)
CPU: Barton 2500+ retail
MEM: OCZ High Performance PC3200 2-3-3-6 (default voltage is 2.6) Set to SPD and have tried 1:1 also.
Vid: BFG 5900nu (have OCed it succesfully to 460/1000 but am running it stock until I figure this issue out)
HD: WD 160gig, Maxtor 40gig, WD 45gig
CDRW: Liteon 24x
Other: IEEE card, Newq EQ, Floppy

 

[Jeff7181]

Unplug things that aren't necessary for the computer to run... extra hard drives, CD drive, open up your case and use a household fan to blow air on it and unplug all your case fans... then see if you still have issues... if you do, it's time for a new power supply, if you don't... set the RAM to CAS 2.5 like I mentioned and try it.

BTW... what's the stepping on your CPU?

 

[Homerboy]

dont know the stepping off hand (PC at home...ill check tonight. Poor HS/FAN. Thing has been off/on a million times already). And Ill try the fan test too.

PSU is pretty spankin' new and I ran the same amount of stuff (1600 vs the 2500) on a 300watt cheapo.

I thought I already tried teh 2.5 CAS with failure... dont recall at this point

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
dont know the stepping off hand (PC at home...ill check tonight. Poor HS/FAN. Thing has been off/on a million times already). And Ill try the fan test too.

PSU is pretty spankin' new and I ran the same amount of stuff (1600 vs the 2500) on a 300watt cheapo.

I thought I already tried teh 2.5 CAS with failure... dont recall at this point

That's why I take pictures of all my new hardware before I install it

 

[Elbryn]

Might be the motherboard itself, werent the early 2003 boards, nf7-s v1.0 and others, having trouble with getting to 200 mhz stable? I know my old nf7-s v1.0 wouldnt go stable past 180 mhz, once i got the v2.0 i ran 210 no problem. You could always try the go to microcenter/compusa whereever and buy a new motherboard and try it to find out and return.. a bit on the shady side though.. saw a review on hardocp that said they had problems with stability until they flashed bios.. try that yet?

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Elbryn
Might be the motherboard itself, werent the early 2003 boards, nf7-s v1.0 and others, having trouble with getting to 200 mhz stable? I know my old nf7-s v1.0 wouldnt go stable past 180 mhz, once i got the v2.0 i ran 210 no problem. You could always try the go to microcenter/compusa whereever and buy a new motherboard and try it to find out and return.. a bit on the shady side though.. saw a review on hardocp that said they had problems with stability until they flashed bios.. try that yet?

Yeah Bio is 100% up to date. Im susptecting its simply the MB itself too as that is the one thing that is certainly suspect IMHO. Its MAX FSB for the CPU is 200... so I imagine it would get flakey around there. What I dont get though is why just the lock ups in 3D apps (games) and not while crunching a video encode.

Maybe I should toss it at 190 and be happy with it.

 

[Jeff7181]

The lockups in 3D games point towards a power problem. As thing suck more juice, the voltage to your CPU may be dropping and causing it to be unstable. Via had HORRIBLE problems with that back in the KT266 days with AMD CPU's and nVidia video cards.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
The lockups in 3D games point towards a power problem. As thing suck more juice, the voltage to your CPU may be dropping and causing it to be unstable. Via had HORRIBLE problems with that back in the KT266 days with AMD CPU's and nVidia video cards.

Hmmm good point. I just cant believe thats not enough juice. Ill unplug what I can and see how THAT goes.

 

[Homerboy]

What about AGP voltage?
Could that help? Since it seems to lock up just when the AGP really kicks into high gear?

 

[Jeff7181]

I guess it's possible, however, I've never experience any increase in stability by changing that... some people claim to have though.

 

[Homerboy]

Meh... still locks up at 200FSB no matter what I do.
higher voltages all around, unplug all the "extras" run with fan on the guts... still locks ~5secs into a 3D game.
I can run flawlessly at 190FSB default voltages and it runs cool under load too (~52C)

Gotta just be the motherboard itself.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
Meh... still locks up at 200FSB no matter what I do.
higher voltages all around, unplug all the "extras" run with fan on the guts... still locks ~5secs into a 3D game.
I can run flawlessly at 190FSB default voltages and it runs cool under load too (~52C)

Gotta just be the motherboard itself.

I suggest either borrowing better/buying new psu or just living with it at 190. If your locking up only when running 3d apps, and it's hard-locking, that definitely sounds psu-related to me. Oh, you could also just put in your older, lower power-consuming video card, and see if you can game with it at 200. If you can, you've proven the psu too low powered. Still could be the board, though, but it's worth investigating (well, I would!).

 

[Homerboy]

yeah I know... no low powered card around anymore (except horrible PCI cards)
Oh wait! I think I do have an 8MB Matrox AGP laying around, but that wont be enough to even run any 3d game

I jsut cant believe that with EVERYTHING but the vide card, HD0, CDROM and CPU fan plugged in 350Watt would choke.

 

[Homerboy]

What is tempting, albeit time consuming, is THIS

I could swap out the new board I got with my current, shouldnt be any conflicts from what I could guess. Maybe the new board I got in (still rev 1 though) could pull the 200Mhz

 

[myocardia]

I've never messed with any board but an Asus, Abit, or Epox until just recently I built a system for my daughter with a Biostar M7NCD, so add that to the list, and I've been building my own 'puters since the early 90's. Anyway, if your NB doesn't have a fan, and you don't have good case air-flow, that very well could be causing it also. What are your NB temps while running Prime95, either at 190 or at 200? Your average NB will protest like hell if made to run hotter than as low as 44C with some chipsets. I still strongly suspect the psu, though.

 

[Homerboy]

I dont think I can get a NB reading.
Ive adjusted my MBM temp settings "Sensor 3" to the WinBond 3 sensor (Winbond 1 is case Winbond 2 is PCU) and it sits at 0degrees

Nvidia utility doesnt show NB temp either, just CPU and system