OC Gone Bad?? HELP!!

[ac0403]

Alright, so this is what happened, two nights ago I got a blue screen while I was doing some word processing in Windows. I didn't think anything of it, so I just ignored it. But last night, it happened again...this time it did it like three times in one night.

So I thought maybe my system was unstable due to the OC (X2 3800+ @ 2.5GHz), even though I tested stable with Orthos for 8+ hours. So I remove the OC and put everything back to the default settings and booted back into Windows and ran some tests. Memtest86 reported back with errors right from the start. So I took out the RAM and replaced it with another two sticks. Came back and ran Memtest86 for a few minutes with no errors so I decided to run Orthos for a bit. That ran for an hour and then it halted on an error! So what do you guys think is wrong with my system?? Why is it unstable still, even though I removed my OC.

System Specs:

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Motherboard, AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @ 2.5GHz (running default now), 2 Gigs OCZ PC4000 Platinum RAM (swapped it out with 1 Gig Corsair ValueSelect (PC3200))

 

[The-Noid]

Electrostatic Migration on the ram. I would say you are correct with the memory has gone bad. I would check the ventilation inside your case. If orthos fails after an hour or so it is because of heat. Heat has a habit of making parts go bad. If your ram is all of the sudden bad one day, it is usually because of overheat for a long time. Turn to OCZ get an RMA (they are very good about it). OC again when you get the ram back and try it again.

 

[ac0403]

I'm hoping it's just the RAM that went bad. However it still does not make sense to me why orthos would fail after an hour with the stock settings, I tried rerunning orthos again, and it never was able to make it to an hour again. I'm trying to rerun it now as we speak and I guess we'll see how far it gets this time.

 

[The-Noid]

Possibly your northbridge (chipset) is overheating. It puts a lot of strain on the chipset and if you are not getting the desired ventilation orthos will fail. Especially with ram that is clocked higher which your PC-4000 is. This puts even more strain on the memory. Do you have a fan on the chipset, or are you getting very good ventilation to it?

 

[ac0403]

Well the RAM I have installed now is Corsair PC3200 RAM since the PC4000 seems to be bad. Currently as Orthos runs, the CPU is at 47* (CPU is at stock speeds) and the Case Temp is at 37*C, so it seems like I'm getting good ventilation. I have two 120mm fans (1x front, 1x back) and a 80mm fan in the blowhole on top.

Yes, there is a fan on my chipset and I would assume it's getting decent ventilation since it's located near the front of my case close to the intake fan.

 

[The-Noid]

Touch the fan see if it is hot. CPU is getting towards the hot side for stock speeds (but it is orthos), case seems ok, maybe a bit on the hot side. Right now there are to many variables. Try to pass small fft's on orthos for a while and see if that fails. If it passes for a while obviously cpu is fine, that rules that out. Try to pass large FFT's. Large FFT's stresses the chipset and ram. Then you know it is either chipset or ram. RMA your ram and if it comes back and still fails you know it is the motherboard that needs to be RMAed as well.

 

[ac0403]

Alright, since I have never ran the small fft or large fft tests with orthos before (only ran the blended test), how long do I let those run for? Do they just stop when they're done or does it keep going until I stop it. Thanks for all the help, I really appriciate it.

 

[The-Noid]

They will run indefinetly. Usually after 2 hours you can see if a problem is going to happen. Run 2 hours on each. If you make it through 2 hours on each with this system config you know it is the ram that has a problem.

 

[ac0403]

So, the stress test I started earlier ran for 2 hours without any errors....so I'm going to assume all is well now. Going to have to RMA the OCZ RAM though, cause I think that was the culprit. Thanks for all the help!