Help with new X2 3800+ Setup

[ceasar88]

I recently built a system for a friend with the following parts:
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Biostar Tforce6100-939
Corsair CL2 512M x 2
WD 160G
Antec 350W

It overclocks fairly well, and is currently stable at 2.7G with a vcore of 1.4V. I have run two instances of 32M superpi without any issue. What annoys me is the PC will shut itself down once or two times a day out of sudden. The CPU is not really on a huge load when this happens. And it is highly unpredictable. I have updated to the most recent bios.

Any thought?

 

[imported_inspire]

Yes, have you adjusted the voltage on your memory to keep up with the overclock? Raising the HTT also raises the memory bandwidth. You may need to raise the memory voltage to keep up or run a divider to dial the memory bandwidth back to more stable speeds.

Also, having a stable overclock around here on your setup generally means you can pass 2 simultaneous instances of Prime (I recommend SP2004 - more or less just a user-friendly GUI on Prime95) for 12-24 hours without any errors. Before you go messing with other settings you may want to confirm that you pass that level of stability.

 

[ceasar88]

I am using 333 memory settings and effectively 224MHz 2.5-3-3-6. The processors are running at 269 x 10.

I'll try Prime today.

 

[buzzsaw13]

If its shutting itself off in the middle of the day, I'm thinking its your power supply not being able to provide sufficient power for the overclock.

 

[imported_inspire]

Go ahead and enable the BSOD on crash. Right-Click on My Computer and go to properties and then go to Avdanced, then to Startup & Recovery, then click on Settings and uncheck Automatically restart. If and when it crashes again you should have some sort of information to go on. btw - make sure to disable your screensaver / monitor power settings. I had a Prime test lock my box up overnight, and I never found out when it happened.

I had the same random restart problem with my rig and it was fixed with a BIOS update and some extra memory voltage.

Antec makes a good PSU, and 350w should be enough for your system, but there is a possibility that you got a bad one. I wouldn't RMA it just yet, though...

 

[ceasar88]

Thanks for the help guys. inspire, can you please show me where to check the information about crashes?

 

[imported_inspire]

By default, XP restarts your computer everytime you hit a BSOD. If you disable that option, then when you crash, you won't restart - your computer will simply hang on the BSOD until you manually power down. Write down the error message and the addresses it occured at - basically anything that looks unique and not like it came from a template, write down.

Now, once you get that information, you're kind of on your own - I'm not a BSOD expert by any means, but the guys here may be able to help you and you may have some luck if you google the error message.

What I mean is - with one minute and less than a dozen clicks, you can set this up so that you'll have some more information that may help you and us figure out what's causing your problem.

I hope that helps

 

[Kromis]

I'm leaning towards a power supply issue.

Happened to me, got a new PS, stopped happenin'!