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Does anyone know of a fix for nForce 2 clock speed/time fluctuation problem?

G

Gerbil333

Diamond Member
I've heard of this issue many times, so I know it's not just me. On my A7N8X Deluxe 2.0, I never noticed a problem with my clock, but I did have occasional trouble with CPU frequency fluctuations. If you're unaware of the issue, I've seen my CPU speed dip down nearly 500mhz and quickly jump back up to some other value, but never exceed the speed it's set at.

A reboot fixes it.

I recently swapped the A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 with an Abit NF7-S 2.0 from another system because I like my NF7-S better. I've done over 50 hours of stress testing, including three sessions of Half-Life 2 that each lasted 5-9 hours (about 16-20 hrs total). It's all stable.

Tonight I glanced at my system tray and realized that it was 20 minutes fast! I synced with the MS time server, and within another hour, the time was about 10 minutes fast. I synced the clock again. Here I am checking the clock again, and it's now 16 minutes fast.

Here's the strange thing: 3DMark 2001/2003/2005 are the only programs that detect the change in CPU speed! CPUz, WCPUID, the BIOS, my mobo monitoring software, SiSoft, etc all report the correct frequency. If I load any of the three 3DMark apps, they'll report a slower frequency, and the speed changes each time I open the program! My benchmarks scores slow down as well by several thousand points in 3DMark 2001.

So, I can reboot, and the problem will go away for now. My temps are fine (40's C), CPU throttling and the spread spectrum settings are disabled, all BIOS options that have anything to do with moderating CPU speed have been disabled, I'm using the latest BIOS, and power isn't a problem. Here's my setup:

Abit NF7-S 2.0
Athlon XP 2500+ w/Retail hsf @ Stock
Kingston 2x512mb HyperX PC3200 @ 2-2-2-11
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Western Digital 74gb Raptor
Black NEC 3500A 16x DVD+/-RW
Black Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive
Black Aluminum Chieftec Dragon Server Tower w/window
Blue 6" Cold Cathode
Black Rounded IDE Cables
Logitech Elite keyboard
Logitech MX500 w/modded blue LED
Enermax 460W Blue dual fan power supply

I just noticed one other thing. My typing repeat rate shows the problem...if I hold a key down, I can see the repeat rate slow down a bit and then speed up.

Well, I guess I'll sync my clock and reboot.

Did anyone ever figure out why this occurs, and if there's a solution to prevent it from happening? It's not a big deal--rebooting takes 35 seconds, but it sure is a strange issue.

Edit: Rebooting fixed it as I'd claimed. This makes no sense!
 
Hmm lets see. Several programs that are designed specifically to detect clock speeds do not detect anything abnormal. 3 Benchmarking applications all from the same company which in fact have a reputation for inaccurately detecting some hardware settings like cpu clock and cpu details are giving you variable cpu clock speeds. I think at least on the cpu frequency thing that you are imagining a problem that doesn't truly exist. 3dmark is notorious for clock frequency errors. Cpu-Z is dead on accurate. I would definately rely on that before 3dmark. As far as your clock gaining time I have seen many boards in the past that kept horribly innacurate time but that was always a hardware issue on the board itself. Typically not a repairable problem either. One of those Try and RMA it or live with issues.
 
I agree with you. However, I can see the fluctuations. As I mentioned, I can see the typing repeat rate speed change. In games, I can feel the CPU slow down when this is happening.

My clock is keeping perfect time right now. I'm not going to RMA the board. I've come across the glitch on every nForce 2 board I've used at some time or another. It can go unnoticed, but I tend to pick up on minor things like this.

OH, I found my original thread from nearly a year ago: nForce2HQ: My CPU Frequency varies. The linked thread is 21pgs. The APIC solution doesn't work, as someone mentions.

That was on a different motherboard with different RAM, for a while a Ti 4600 instead of a 9800 Pro, different hard drive, different optical drives, different sound card, and different fans. The only things that haven't changed throughout this time: CPU, PSU, & Case. I'm sure it's not my case. It's not the CPU; I've experienced the issue with 4 other chips. It's not the PSU; I've seen the problem with 3 other models. Thus, it's a chipset or motherboard problem, as the first response in that thread suggests.

The best theory I read was this:


I arrived at the same conclusion. For me those two are definatly related.
After some months without any probs, after I changed some "harmless" settings in the bios I suddenly started to experience fluctuating FSB readings within CPU-Z, 3dmark2001 etc. (not with WCpuid though!) and I had a huge impact on my 3dmark2001 scores as well (more than 30% lower!).

While I was searching for a clue I realized that my RTC was instable as well (running too fast).

I now fixed it solely by tweaking around in the bios, e.g. setting everything to default and later back to my original settings. I believe there is something fishy in the bios (sometimes e.g. like it is enabling spread spectrum even when you have set it to disabled etc.) and since the bios is largely pre-assembled by Nvidia for all manufacturers this affects everyone who runs into this problem because of being unlucky with the last bios changes they did.
This is so far only a working theory, and I am trying to proove/dis-proove it now.

Cheers,
Bigben

When I first got my A7N8X Deluxe 2.0, I couldn't disable FSB Spread Spectrum. If I disabled it, went to another menu in the BIOS, and then went back to the menu with FSB Spread Spectrum, I'd find it enabled! If I disabled it, saved and exited, and rebooted and entered the BIOS again, the option would once again be enabled. I quickly downloaded and flashed to the latest BIOS at the time, which visually fixed the problem...FSB Spread Spectrum stayed disabled according to the BIOS.

However, if the board was unable to hold that setting, perhaps it's randomly enabling it without showing it in the BIOS, causing the FSB speed to vary.
 
I've had this exact problem (RTC running way fast; except possibly for the CPU speed fluctuation...I haven't really checked). Nforce2 motherboard also.

What fixed it for me (and I saw this over on the nForcersHQ forums) was to change the system driver from "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" to "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC", then reboot and go into the BIOS, and disable "APIC control" (not ACPI). Let me know if you need me to describe this in more detail.

Hope it works for you! 🙂
 
You know, I don't remember why I posted that....I must have been having problems with it still, but lately (this past month or so when the problem popped up again), the settings change fixed it completely...not sure what to say.
 
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