ECS nforce4a-939 locking up like crazy

[yukit]

I got the X2 3800 & A939 combo special at Fry's as well. I did not realize # of people running into lockups with this MB.
I was going to wait till this weekend to install Windows (I don't have a PCIe video card yet) but sounds like I should do that ASAP to see if I can get a stable system going. I will just be using a single SATA drive with an IDE CD-ROM.

 

[Zap]

Keep the reports coming in!

I'm still waiting for a PCIe video card to show up. Ordered one from Monarch, one from Newegg minutes apart... which one will show up first? I'm in-between the two places.

 

[Zap]

Oh yeah, are any of you guys with problems overclocking? Have any of you run Memtest or Prime to rule out CPU or RAM?

 

[Octoparrot]

My brother & I both got reproducible lockups with USB 2.0 engaged and heavy use of the USB 2.0 ports under Windows XP SP2--I don't think he has had the same problems with Linux. (External WD USB 2 hard drive, USB2 flash drive, USB2 wireless all did this) I haven't had lockups once I forced the ports to USB 1.1 and got a Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card. Although now my machine has abruptly SHUTS OFF when playing a certain portion of the Quake 4 demo singleplayer with high reproducibility. I'd love to blame this on a driver conflict, but the symptom seems more like a hardware failure.

My own system:
AMD athlon X2 3800+
Antec Sonata II case (450W Antec-supplied PS)
Evga geforce 7800GT PCI-express
PATA Maxtor 160GB 7200 rpm drive
generic EIDE DVD+RW
3.5" floppy
Creative Labs X-Fi Xtrememusic PCI card
Belkin USB 2.0 5-port PCI card
2 one GB Kingston value RAM sticks DDR400
No overclocking at all
Win XP SP2 Pro

I also have USB inkjet & keyboard connected, but I doubt this is a power issue. This motherboard just seems to be cursed. Maybe I should buy the new Asus ATI-based system.

 

[dovac]

ok a update on my side, 13 hours later the system is still up and running...running minimal services though, apache/mysql...i'm going to test usb when i'm back from class see if it will keep crashing for me. I did use my usb scanner for 30min scanning various images without it locking up, will test some usb hds

and no i'm not overclocking my system at all.

edit, add another 2hours..had to reboot so i'll restart the clock..

 

[bboy]

Wow, I haven't been keeping up enough with this thread.

Anyway, my system does not lock up at all if I don't have my USB card reader or external HDD plugged in.

I am using the nVidia sound drivers and did not install their firewall.

b

 

[Zap]

So far USB problems? I hope not because I use a USB 2.0 HDD really often, plus both my wife and I use USB 2.0 flash drives.

I just got my stuff from Newegg - PCIe video card and 2GB G.Skill. :thumbsup: Now my turn to test stability... trying to figure out how... Want to upgrade BIOS, no floppy. Suppose I can do a bootable CDRW... where's my RW discs... also how long to test it before proclaiming success? I'll make sure to use some USB 2.0 devices.

 

[Octoparrot]

With the USB 2.0 lockups, I got them within 45-60 minutes. I first encountered it with retrospect express 6.5 bundled with the western digital external USB drives. My brother provoked the crash by endlessly loop replaying an MPEG file stored on a USB flash drive, and walking away--always crashed overnight, and soon he discovered it would happen within 2 hours.. I eventually discovered that Western Digital's utility for scanning sectors could easily provoke it--couldn't finish a single scan without problems (the sector count would abruptly slow down as it progressed) before the crash hit.

I don't think he had problems with Linux, but I have not tested extensively. I got fed up & bought a Belkin USB card (NEC chipset, I distrust VIA USB chipsets based on unscientific anecdotal reports.)

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Octoparrot
I distrust VIA USB chipsets based on unscientific anecdotal reports

LMAO!!!

 

[dovac]

cool and quiet doesn't seem to work well either, had a hard lock after enabling it...

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: AkumaX

It did exhibit one problem... couldn't get the nForce drivers (v5.10) to install. Install would start... then disappear. This was on a fresh install of Windows XP.

i had that problem too! i just ended up d/ling nForce4_amd_6.70_winxp2k_english.exe and that worked

My bad. I went to the Nvidia driver page and noticed that the 5.XX versions are for Nforce3. No wonder it wouldn't work on Nforce4!!! Downloaded latest and will hook up the stuff on my desk again.

 

[darley]

Complete reinstall here, disabled onboard Parallel, Serial and Ethernet. No help.
Noticed the SMBus and IDE controller are sharing the same IRQ (11). Hmm. I emailed the ECS support.
They pretty much tell me to talk to the place where I bought it.

Uggh. On the reinstall I let Window do its thing with all the drivers. The only thing I had to install was the ATI updated driver.
Still freezing.

 

[darley]

I disabled the onboard USB now. Want to see if that helps.

 

[darley]

Seems to help the stability, but now my processor is running at 825Mhz

 

[darley]

okay processor is back to 2011Ghz, I called Fry's no help, they just said bring the board in to swap out with same board.
Still have the USB diabled, using PCI Usb card now. No freeze...yet!

 

[bboy]

Originally posted by: darley
Complete reinstall here, disabled onboard Parallel, Serial and Ethernet. No help.
Noticed the SMBus and IDE controller are sharing the same IRQ (11). Hmm. I emailed the ECS support.
They pretty much tell me to talk to the place where I bought it.

Uggh. On the reinstall I let Window do its thing with all the drivers. The only thing I had to install was the ATI updated driver.
Still freezing.

Keep bugging ECS. I responded to every solution they tried to give me. Hopefully we can bother them enough to actually do something.

b

 

[dovac]

still getting random bsods though...this time it was about a device driver causing a stack baised buffer overflow...still haven't touched usb drives yet, might do a fresh system install this weekend of win2k3 x64

 

[darley]

well, well, no REAL solution, but a temp fix.
i disabled the USB from the MOBO and voila!

Check page 34 of the manual for where in the BIOS.

I have called Fry's to see if they have any other complaints from other customers. They told me they had not heard anything, but I could bring the board in for a replacement.
I told them it was not the board but conflicts that were causing problems. Ah well.

So to recap...
I updated the BIOS to version 1.1a and disabled the serial, parallel and USB from the MOBO.
I did install the AMD driver for the chip, too.

I left the audio intact. And installed the Realtek drivers (version 5.10.0.5750, date:11/17/2004).
I using a PCI USB card and have 2 External USB drives attached to that as well as my wireless network adapter.

Well, keep posting if someone finds a REAL solution we will ALL be happy.

I would suggest calling Fry's and bugging them, too.
I am SURE someone has called them or gone in and asked about this issue.

Let's keep on them!!!

 

[Zap]

Quick update on mine. So far over 4 hours uptime (just checked, 4:12) with no BSOD or locks. Running a video on repeat off a USB 2.0 flash drive.

ECS NFORCE4-A939 BIOS 1.1a
A64 x2 3800+ @2.5GHz default vcore retail box HSF
2GB G.Skill @DDR418 CAS 2 default vDIMM
PNY Geforce 6600GT PCIe stock/default
Antec TruePower II 480W
Maxtor ATA133 160GB 7200RPM
Toshiba DVD
Emprex 256MB USB 2.0 flash drive ($9.99 at Fry's BF sale)

Central heating set to 66ºF (outside is about 18ºF).
WinXP Pro SP2 no updates
no AMD drivers
nForce4 AMD 6.70 chipset drivers
Forceware 81.95
nTune installed (haven't touched)
Rivatuner installed (just using for checking GPU temp, stable at 39ºC at 300MHz 2D mode)

Heh, now 4:19 uptime and going... Dayam, Madonna looks good. I'm hoping my wife looks that good in a few years. Testing the USB 2.0 by repeating the video "Hung On."

 

[Zap]

Uptime 7:44 and still going. Video still playing on loop from USB 2.0 flash drive. I'm shutting it off for the evening because I think it's working fine - plus the noise is driving me batty! Can't wait for the passive heatsinks to arrive from SVC.

Of course it can be argued that I need to test it longer, but at which point do you say "enough?" For instance, I've found out that most of the time Prime will error out within first few minutes if CPU is unstable because if it lasts past 5-10min (I guess after CPU has chance to warm up) then I've never seen it fail on my systems. But, but, but, what if it fails after 10 hours? Run it for 24 hours. What if it fails on the 25th hour? Run it for a week. What if it fails on the 8th day? Run it for a month. If you keep this up you'll never get to use your system. It's like HDD manufacturers and MTBF (well, maybe not but it is in spirit) where you know that the manufacturer doesn't actually test several HDDs for years on end to get a MTBF before they sell a drive.

I think we're now at 2 working, 6 problematic. At this point I think the problematic ones should be brought back to Fry's for an exchange since it would appear that there are working ones. This may sound like a bad failure rate, but problems tend to be "squeeky wheels" while people with working boards usually don't go around parading "guess what, my board WORKS like it should!!!"

WORKING:
AkumaX
Zap

NOT WORKING:
bboy
vck6v3
darley
dovac
Octoparrot
Octoparrot's friend

 

[darley]

I am working right now, but not without trickery. I still have to turn off the MOBO stuff.
I have turned off:

parallel
serial
USB
quiet n' cool

 

[Zap]

I don't have Cool and Quiet turned on, nor any Windows updates or AMD CPU drivers. Don't know if I'll use Cool and Quiet, but when I use this board in a system I will install Windows updates and AMD driver. I do have all the ports still enabled. If you can't run stable without disabling those ports, I'd say go to Fry's and exchange the board.

 

[yukit]

I am still priming at 2.4GHz default vcore with retail box HSF, PC3200 value RAM also at DDR480 (I am surprised).
The system was stable overnight.

I will try USB this weekend.

 

[Zap]

WORKING:
AkumaX
Zap
yukit

NOT WORKING:
bboy
vck6v3
darley
dovac
Octoparrot
Octoparrot's friend

 

[dovac]

i gave up and bought a new mobo as i dont have time to deal with the lockups and random bsods, my new mobo is a gigabyte ga-k8n51gmf-9 (sounds like a mobile suit..) and its rock solid stable for the past 3hours of copying things off usb hds compaired to the ecs one which locked up every 20min