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p5nd2-sli deluxe board crashes system every 20 or so minutes

K

krepta

Junior Member
Hey guys,

I recently built an SLI system with the following specs:

P5ND2-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI Intel Edition)
Pentium D 830 3.0 GHz dual-core
dual eVGA GeForce 6800 GT
OCZ DDR2 667 in Dual Channel (512 MB x 2)
dual Hitachi SATA2 160 GB drives in Raid 0
Lite-On SOHW-1693S DVD-RW

The system was running great until I set the performance settings in the nVidia driver settings to max AA and AF and tried playing World of Warcraft. I got a blue screen, and then had to manually restart the system. Furthermore, after that point, (I reinstalled video drivers), 3dMarks2005 would no longer run, WoW would cause a system crash after a few minutes, and Windows idling would crash after 30 minutes or so. By crash, I mean the mouse and system hangs so I have to do a manual restart. Is it safe to assume that this isn't a hardware issue but is a software issue? I'm reinstalling Windows as I type, so I hope that will fix the problem. Any advice is much appreciated.
 
Seasonic 500 Watt certified for SLI (apparently) (model S12-500)

new news: i just reformatted and my system locked up while downloading some nvidia drivers...i'm thinking it might be raid or enabling dual-core

on the other hand...i know now it's a hardware issue...which sucks
 
Strange...I went to the BIOS and it had my CPU as a hyperthreading processor with hyperthreading enabled... The Pentium D 830 is not hyperthreading. So when I thought it had dual-core enabled it was doing something really funky with hyperthreading... That's why it might be crashing. I changed the value for (Enable/Disable) CPUID MaxVal to disable again, which is what the bios recommends for WinXP.

I'll keep you posted on crashes.
 
I think the dual-core processor mimics a single-core Hyperthreading processor so that WinXP Home Edition can use both cores (XP Home won't use two physical processors, unlike XP Pro). That's the report on dual-core AMD processors too.

500W for propelling dual 6800GT's and a 3GHz Prescott strikes me as a bit on the light side. *waits for 10 indignant people to contradict this* Try with one of the two cards removed and see if it behaves.
 
Well, the system is behaving now that I've turned off that option in bios... I guess i'm running with a single core now, but I don't really know what's going on. I might try some more bios options later. All I know is that the system is not crashing at all now. Everything I've read also says 500W is more than enough to power my system. So, do I need to turn hyperthreading back on? Another thing is that EIST is enabled when I turn on the bios option that gives me hyperthreading, but the manual specifically states EIST is not supported for Pentium D on my motherboard. So should I turn that option off? Thanks for all the help.
 
I'll have to download the manual and take a look, which could take a while since I'm on dial-up. With Hyperthreading disabled, does only one core run (look in Task Manager and see if you now have only one CPU graph)?

Lots of people have lots of theories about power supplies; I'm an empirical kind of guy, and if a system with a large appetite for 12V power (like yours) conks out when running 3D acceleration, I tend to suspect the PSU is not quite keeping up with the demands, no matter what the theory-pushers said :evil: But I've been wrong before 😉 Did you try the alternate case where you use only one video card to reduce power demands, as a fact-finding step? That could be worth a try.
 
Yeah I tried it with only one GPU working in non-SLI mode. I still crashed out. The interesting thing is that on the forums for ASUS, the clearly state that the dual-core cannot be disabled. So, am I still running dual cores? Also, another funny thing is that no...I do not see two processor graphs on Task Manager, which bothers me.

EDIT: Sorry forgot to mention. The system conks out regardless of whether or not running a 3d application. It conked out when I was simply downloading a driver LOL.
 
Huh 😕 *reassesses the info* What version and service-pack of Windows do you have, by the way?
 
XP Pro SP2. I might enable the CPUID settings in the bios and DISABLE HT to see if perhaps the motherboard is trying to load four threads into the processor, making it go kaputz.

EDIT: btw the system has not hung up yet and it's been running since ~12:45 PM. I don't think it's a PSU issue because the Pentium D has the same thermal envelope as a high end P4.
 
I Googled for a while and it sort of sounds like it's supposed to mimic a HT processor so it'll work under XP Home, which would give you two CPU graphs. Still downloading the manual...

If you haven't tried this yet, you might try changing your Computer type in Device Manager to ACPI Multiprocessor PC (assuming it shows up as ACPI Uniprocessor now).
 
It says ACPI Multiprocessor PC... Strange. I'm going to try that BIOS thing. I hope my system doesn't die.
 
So if I turn of HT in the bios, then I don't see two processors in Windows and Task Manager only shows one. This is very strange.
 
It sounds like you've done quite a bit of homework on your system, so I apologize if this is another dumb question, but is the "EZ Plug" plugged in, the one they show on page 6-6? 😱
 
Heh, dont' worry I put it in. Lemme check though 😵, just to make sure... Yeah, it's connected and the warning LED isn't on. I checked the voltages when it was hyperthreaded (you know what i mean) and the voltages were all nominal. So I don't think it's a power issue. Ughh. It's like the processor just dies when it's in dual core mode. Another interesting thing worth considering. If I turn on this CPUID MaxVal thing that allows me to turn on HT, then the processor shows up with an L1 cache of 1024 instead of 1024 x2.
 
Here's an interesting twist. I ran the Intel Processor ID utility, and it identifies the processor correctly and also identifies both cores and their frequencies. I don't know what this means, exactly, but yeah.
 
good news. i changed some options around in bios to disable things not supported by my motherboard. i've been running stable on dual-core now for about 30 mins. i've been ripping a dvd the whole time using 100% both cpus, and i haven't locked up. sounds like this is going somewhere. next, i'm going to run 3dmarks...
 
still no luck... computer ended up freezing at the end of the run. i'm sure it's a processor issue now because i wasn't even using my graphics cards.
 
Sounds like you could have a bad dimm, download Memtest86 and test each dimm( 1 at a time) and see if you get any errors?? I experienced constant BSOD because of a bad Corsair dimm installed in my computer, Memtest recorded 200 errors on it!!! UGHHH!! Let Memtest cycle about 7 times and see what you get?? I'm going to call Corsairs RMA number to replace this bad 512mb dimm.
 
Edit: yeah, what he said ^ 🙂

If you didn't try this yet, you might run memtest86 to see how the RAM checks out in a non-Windows situation. It can take a while, could be a good overnight project so it can complete multiple cycles of tests.
 
If it were a bad dimm, wouldn't I get crashes in single core mode as well?

I'm definitey calling ASUS regardless tomorrow to ask them how to enable dual-core mode because I think i'm doing it in a really ghetto way... Hopefully doing it right will stop this crap. :disgust:

I will run memtest86 over night though ^^
 
Figured out what it is I think. Unfortunately, there's no easy fix. When applications are running, in dual-core mode, the cpu gets undervolted since it has a higher demand when it's dual-core, so the system destabilizes and the computer crashes. Now, the basic problem arises because I'm not getting the dual-core option in BIOS, but I have to force it. So i'm gonna ask Asus tomorrow how to get that mode to come up in Bios. Hopefully it will work after that. But we'll see if instability continues. Furthermore, I don't think it's a PSU issue but is rather a mobo issue.
 
I got the mode to come up in BIOS properly. My computer still crashes after a time though in dual-core mode. I think I just need ASUS to come up with a new bios or a beta bios that I can download and use. The ASUS tech support guys think it's probably a bios issue as well.
 
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