Ok, so I got my parts to build my new computer. Abit AW9D Max motherboard, E6600 chip, Corsair Twin2x 6400C4 2048MB (2x1GB matched kit), and as I had good experiences iwth the cooling performance of the thermaltake sonic tower I got one of those as well.
Chucked the intel heatsink aside. Mounted the required mounting sprackets for the heatsink. Mounted the cpu in the socket. Applied heatpaste. And then I found out that when I tightened the tiny screw that holds the I-bar (which is sort of feather, that presses the CPU heatsink towards the CPU) in one end, the other was 1.5 centimeters above its mounting position, so I had to push rather hard to get the I-bar spring to bend enough so that I could fasten it.
Well, when I powered up the motherboard. I was greeted with a familiar "beep" and saw the fullscreen logo. Pressed del to enter the setup bios. Made my changes, exited and saved. And there the motherboard hanged with the post code bF (which of course is not in the manual). Suspicious of the mounting of the heatsink since I had to push so hard, I removed the heatsink to inspect CPH with a strong magnifying glass. I noticed that the indentions in the golden connectors of the cpu, made by the socket pins, were mostly in the middle all, some were to the edge of the golden connector, and some of the small golden connector bears no mark att all to show they have been in contact with the CPU.
After thinking for a while I mounted some spacers below the mounting sprackets (two metal pieces that you fasten with screws through the motherboard, and then fasten the I-bar that goes over the baseplate of the heatsink to keep it in place, into these sprackets. This allowed me to mount the heatsink with a little less pressure on the CPU than previously.
So I tried again. Once more after exit + save the motherboad froze with the bF error code. Same happened if I just entered and exited the bios. Thinking now that I was dealing with a bios problem (was early 11 bios revision) I tried every available bios (12, and even a beta 13). Same phenomenon in each bios. After over 200 tests, I got perhaps 5 that worked in that I could enter the bios and set my changes and not freeze when exiting.
Note; That when it freeze during saving and exiting bios, it does not keep the settings. First reboot it shows the message "CMOS checksum error, defaults loaded".
Ok, I thought. Perhaps it is a memory problem. Ran memtest86 on each stick individually and both installed, finished without errors.
Contacted Abit support who had never heard of a bF error code. But suggested that I up my Dimm Voltage. Duh! quite hard to do as those settings do not take effect because it freeze when I try to save the changes.
Then I decided to replace the CMOS battery (yes I had done a full CMOS reset including removing battery many times before when testing), suspecting it to be bad. But that did nothing.
At that point I contacted the vendor from which I had ordered the board. And I have now sent it to them for testing and hopefully replacement. But it bothers me greatly that I can not assertain the exact reason to why it behaved like this.
My first conclusion was that the CMOS circuit somehow was bad.
My second conclusion was that I had killed the socket pins somehow (as it seems not all the golden connectors on my cpy have their mark in the middle or any mark at all) when I first tightened the heatsink too hard.
The problem is that I can not for my life through reason understand which of these two possibilities are correct. Which leaves me at risk of repeating a misstake should I get a new board.
What do you think? was it the pressure on the CPU from the heatsink, or was the CMOS bad?
I wish I had read more about installing LGA775 CPUs (this was my first one) so that I had known how fragile they seem to be, or rather their sockets. But are they so fragile as to make it impossible to have heavy heatsink on them?
To give you more information I will give you a link to the heatsink in question; http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Cooler/Retail/CL-P0323/cl-p0323.asp
There is no special mounting to bear the weight of the heatsink, as that is transfered to the CPU and mounting brackets through the I-bar, that adds further pressure on the cpu.
And to get to a point; what do you think causes/caused my AW9D Max to freeze when exiting bios (post code bF)? Did I kill it with the thermaltake sonic tower? and exactly how fragile are the LGA775 cpus and sockets when it comes to using heatsinks that puts a lot of pressure on the CPU itself? (the cpu retention mechanism does not seem to bear any weight at all, as the core is higher than it by a couble of millimeters.
Sorry for a long post. But I am desperate to find a reason to what went wrong. To avoid the same misstake in the future.
Chucked the intel heatsink aside. Mounted the required mounting sprackets for the heatsink. Mounted the cpu in the socket. Applied heatpaste. And then I found out that when I tightened the tiny screw that holds the I-bar (which is sort of feather, that presses the CPU heatsink towards the CPU) in one end, the other was 1.5 centimeters above its mounting position, so I had to push rather hard to get the I-bar spring to bend enough so that I could fasten it.
Well, when I powered up the motherboard. I was greeted with a familiar "beep" and saw the fullscreen logo. Pressed del to enter the setup bios. Made my changes, exited and saved. And there the motherboard hanged with the post code bF (which of course is not in the manual). Suspicious of the mounting of the heatsink since I had to push so hard, I removed the heatsink to inspect CPH with a strong magnifying glass. I noticed that the indentions in the golden connectors of the cpu, made by the socket pins, were mostly in the middle all, some were to the edge of the golden connector, and some of the small golden connector bears no mark att all to show they have been in contact with the CPU.
After thinking for a while I mounted some spacers below the mounting sprackets (two metal pieces that you fasten with screws through the motherboard, and then fasten the I-bar that goes over the baseplate of the heatsink to keep it in place, into these sprackets. This allowed me to mount the heatsink with a little less pressure on the CPU than previously.
So I tried again. Once more after exit + save the motherboad froze with the bF error code. Same happened if I just entered and exited the bios. Thinking now that I was dealing with a bios problem (was early 11 bios revision) I tried every available bios (12, and even a beta 13). Same phenomenon in each bios. After over 200 tests, I got perhaps 5 that worked in that I could enter the bios and set my changes and not freeze when exiting.
Note; That when it freeze during saving and exiting bios, it does not keep the settings. First reboot it shows the message "CMOS checksum error, defaults loaded".
Ok, I thought. Perhaps it is a memory problem. Ran memtest86 on each stick individually and both installed, finished without errors.
Contacted Abit support who had never heard of a bF error code. But suggested that I up my Dimm Voltage. Duh! quite hard to do as those settings do not take effect because it freeze when I try to save the changes.
Then I decided to replace the CMOS battery (yes I had done a full CMOS reset including removing battery many times before when testing), suspecting it to be bad. But that did nothing.
At that point I contacted the vendor from which I had ordered the board. And I have now sent it to them for testing and hopefully replacement. But it bothers me greatly that I can not assertain the exact reason to why it behaved like this.
My first conclusion was that the CMOS circuit somehow was bad.
My second conclusion was that I had killed the socket pins somehow (as it seems not all the golden connectors on my cpy have their mark in the middle or any mark at all) when I first tightened the heatsink too hard.
The problem is that I can not for my life through reason understand which of these two possibilities are correct. Which leaves me at risk of repeating a misstake should I get a new board.
What do you think? was it the pressure on the CPU from the heatsink, or was the CMOS bad?
I wish I had read more about installing LGA775 CPUs (this was my first one) so that I had known how fragile they seem to be, or rather their sockets. But are they so fragile as to make it impossible to have heavy heatsink on them?
To give you more information I will give you a link to the heatsink in question; http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Cooler/Retail/CL-P0323/cl-p0323.asp
There is no special mounting to bear the weight of the heatsink, as that is transfered to the CPU and mounting brackets through the I-bar, that adds further pressure on the cpu.
And to get to a point; what do you think causes/caused my AW9D Max to freeze when exiting bios (post code bF)? Did I kill it with the thermaltake sonic tower? and exactly how fragile are the LGA775 cpus and sockets when it comes to using heatsinks that puts a lot of pressure on the CPU itself? (the cpu retention mechanism does not seem to bear any weight at all, as the core is higher than it by a couble of millimeters.
Sorry for a long post. But I am desperate to find a reason to what went wrong. To avoid the same misstake in the future.
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