Is my CPU bad/dead/whatever?

[rking12345678]

I recently upgraded from an Athlon x2 5000+ 2.2ghz CPU to a Phenom II x4 945 and since doing so I've had stability issues in Prime95 and Borderlands, and possibly other areas that I may not have noticed. System specs that should be relevant:

MSI K9N6PGM2-V2
Phenom II x4 945
XFX HD 5770
4 GB RAM
OCZ ModXStream 500w
Windows 7 64bit Home Premium OEM

When running Prime95 I would get errors in one or two cores almost instantly. With Borderlands I would play for a random amount of time between a few seconds and a few minutes and I'd get greeted with a General Protection Fault message. I spent hours reading online trying to find a solution to why the game wouldn't run, these are the following steps I've taken to resolve the issue.

- Flashed BIOS to most current
- Reseated heatsink and reapplied thermal compound
- Updated chipset drivers to most current
- Updated Physx software to most current

In order to get Prime95 to run without error I had to manually disable Cool'n'Quiet in the BIOS and set the CPU voltage to 1.25v, after I did that Prime95 would run for 3 hours without error. After 3 hours I got impatient and bored so I quit the program...in hindsight maybe I should have let it go longer. I've been able to get Borderlands to run by setting affinity one core but this has a less than perfect success rate, it crashes about half the time when I do this. Earlier today while playing Borderlands my computer reset itself and I was greeted upon restarting with this error (aside from the asterisks in place of my username).

-------------------

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 50
BCP1: FFFFF88006F414B0
BCP2: 0000000000000000
BCP3: FFFFF8800430EF23
BCP4: 0000000000000001
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\091110-13915-01.dmp
C:\Users\******\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-61136-0.sysdata.xml

Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?link...8&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

-------------------

Is this a sign of a bad CPU? Thanks for any information, I'm getting rather annoyed at this and I'm tempted to install my old CPU since I didn't have issues with that.

 

[Gillbot]

Typically ram, motherboard and/or PSU dies before a CPU unless it's been severely abused. Rum memtest, etc at stock settings with all voltages MANUALLY set to their proper values. Do NOT use auto as they have a tendency to be inaccurate.

 

[superccs]

Does your Mobo support 125W CPUs? It may be that it can't handle 125W processor loads and you got a 125W pII x4 945 part with C2 stepping (HDX945FBK4DGI). Try kicking the voltage up to 1.35V... your mobo may be giving it the incorrect amount of juice.

 

[nyker96]

which catalyst are you using? I hope it's not 10.7, that one has problem with Borderlands. Get the latest 10.8.

 

[richierich1212]

http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1872

The first line under CPU says "Support socket AM2 for AMD® Athlon 64/Athlon 64X2 CPU / AM2+ for AMD® Phenom CPU / AM3 for AMD® Phenom II / Athlon II CPU. (95W only)"

Sorry, doesn't look like your mobo supports anything higher than 95W.

 

[mizzou]

hope you fix it, the athlon x2 5000+ plays borderlands just fine, so that would suck if your new CPU broke

 

[rking12345678]

Typically ram, motherboard and/or PSU dies before a CPU unless it's been severely abused. Rum memtest, etc at stock settings with all voltages MANUALLY set to their proper values. Do NOT use auto as they have a tendency to be inaccurate.

I ran memtest with everything set to auto before I started any of the above listed steps and it made it through the tests without errors. I'll do it again with the voltage set manually to 1.325v (as high as my BIOS goes) in a moment.

Does your Mobo support 125W CPUs? It may be that it can't handle 125W processor loads and you got a 125W pII x4 945 part with C2 stepping (HDX945FBK4DGI). Try kicking the voltage up to 1.35V... your mobo may be giving it the incorrect amount of juice.

My motherboard supports up to 95w CPUs including the CPU currently in my motherboard, according to the packaging the CPU is the 95w variety (http://shop.amd.com/US/_layouts/shop/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=HDX945WFGMBOX&region=us-en) and short of taking the CPU out again and looking at it I have no reason to believe I have the wrong one. I can't set my BIOS past 1.325v as that's the highest setting available in my BIOS. When I set it that high HWmonitor reports it at 100.7w although I'm less than certain HWmonitor is completely accurate, at 1.25v HWmonitor reports it at 95w. With Prime95 running for the past 10 minutes with voltage set to 1.325v I haven't seen an error, I'm going to let it go to 30 minutes and then run memtest since when I was getting errors they'd appear between 10-15 minutes.

which catalyst are you using? I hope it's not 10.7, that one has problem with Borderlands. Get the latest 10.8.

I'm currently using 10.8 although I had the same problems with 10.5.

 

[rking12345678]

I removed my heatsink and took a look at my CPU, it is this one:

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=619

which is a 95w CPU. I ran memtest with the voltage manually set to 1.325v and it went through without an error.

 

[richierich1212]

Oh ok so you got the C3 version, I didn't know they released a C3 version. What's your BOX part #? Or CPU part#?

 

[rking12345678]

The box says "HDX945WFGMBOX", the CPU says "HDX945WFK4DGM".

http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd325/rking_1_1/p2x4945.jpg

I took a picture of it while I had it out.

 

[richierich1212]

Awesome so it is indeed the latest C3 version. So are you still getting blue screens?

 

[rking12345678]

I've only ever got one blue screen so far. I haven't tried Borderlands again, but I somehow expect errors when I do.

 

[richierich1212]

Is there an option in your BIOS to bump up CPU-NB voltage just a little?

 

[rking12345678]

Yeah, that's set to auto since I don't know what it does.

 

[richierich1212]

Yeah, that's set to auto since I don't know what it does.

Try putting a setting, like 1.2v.

 

[rking12345678]

With the CPU voltage set to 1.325v, Cool'n'Quiet disabled, and everything else on auto I was able to play Borderlands for 3 hours without issue.

 

[rking12345678]

I was able to get about 4 hours worth of gameplay in today with only one error which happened when I tried launching a second instance of the game, it looks like manually setting the voltage to 1.325v worked. Thanks for the help, it's appreciated.