Random parts of the mobo fail and general instability

[Canai]

Ok I've got an E6600 in a P5W DH with a Scythe Infinity cooler on it. I have great airflow in my case. Memory is O/Ced too, more on that later

I'm running a 400fsb with 7x multiplier, stock voltages. (default is 266). During the winter, ambient temps in the room were around 15ºC. Now temps can get upwards of 30ºC in the room during the day. I leave my comp on 24/7 running Rosetta@Home, and my previous load temps were around 35ºC (at the core via Everest) at the most. Now they get up around 55-60ºC at load (via orthos, more demanding than folding), but never any higher.

Yesterday I get home, xfire had crashed, BOINC manager had crashed. and firefox wouldn't open. So I restart, no POST, so I restart I get a BIOS message saying the Overclock had failed. I drop my FSB down to 375 and it POSTs fine.

A few weeks ago, right when it started getting warmer in the room, one of the ethernet ports on my mobo stops working and gives a 'limited or no conectivity' message. So I switch to the other one. Fast forward to last weekend. I went to a LAN, and the second port wasn't even detecting being plugged in, but the other port worked again.

Anyone have any idea what's going on? Is it the O/C failing when temps rise a bit? The temps never get to dangerous levels, so I'm rather confounded.

 

[Canai]

Anyone?

 

[Canai]

Bump for night people ?

No one else has similar problems?

 

[DrMrLordX]

I haven't had ethernet port failure on a motherboard since my Sempron when I was overvolting some things too aggressively (I think?). And honestly, I'm not sure how your chip is hitting 60C with stock volts, though my experience with Core 2 chips is a bit limited in that respect.

Anyway, it sounds mostly like a stability problem which you'll need to fix with better cooling and/or more vcore. The ethernet port strangeness is not something I would associate with too little vcore, though. Heat pooling around certain parts of the motherboard might cause that . . . or possibly problems with your power supply, but I doubt that somehow.

 

[Canai]

Do you think upping the VCORE a little would offset the rising ambient temps?

There are no areas in the case where air could pool, and I actually have a 120mm intake blowing directly on the mobo.

The second Ethernet port died again last night after working for close to a week.

 

[DrMrLordX]

upping vcore would offset the effects of high temperatures, but it would also raise your CPU temperature, so it may take more vcore than you'd think. I would not recommend it without better cooling.

I'm still not sure why you're suffering ethernet port loss . . . are any of the chips on your motherboard running hot?

 

[hardwareking]

u cud do away with ur overclock and check if things get stable again
try running everything at stock and check for stability

if it still doesn't work RMA it

 

[myocardia]

Either your northbridge or southbridge is overheating, or not receiving enough voltage. It shouldn't have anything to do with your vcore, unless your power supply is failing.

 

[The-Noid]

Take some stress off the NB. Run 320x9 . Your NB is passively cooled and if your ambient temp is that hot it is overheating for sure.

 

[Canai]

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I think I may need to pull the chipset heatsinks off and put some AS5 on them, and maybe look into active cooling for them.

And Yoxxy, I would do that, but I like the high FSB, and the CPU being clocked at 2.8 is just a side effect of that

I think I might just see what the highest FSB between 375 and 400 I can POST at, and leave it there until I get my A/C set up.

 

[The-Noid]

high fsb provides very very little performance increase.

I will run some benchmarks today of E6750 vs E6700. It is <1%.

 

[Canai]

FSB of 400 vs 266?

Also, I like the FSB high so my RAM is high. I have 677 clocked at 800 right now with a 1:1 divider, so any lowering of the FSB will lower the RAM clocks too

If I get time tonight I'll do some Everest benchmarks at various speeds to see if the 375 vs. 400 is making any difference at all.

WHOA I just noticed that you have an X6800 @ 4.35. Wow.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Keep in mind that high memory speeds don't necessarily help Core 2 chips all that much. It's nice, but if your NB is overheating, it's not worth sacrificing system stability (or your ethernet ports) over it.

With all the airflow you have in your case, you might want to consider cooling your NB with a large passive heatsink rather than using active cooling. The airflow is there already, so you don't want to introduce anything that's going to introduce turbulence. You just need more surface area on your NB heatsink.

 

[The-Noid]

Originally posted by: Canai
FSB of 400 vs 266?

Also, I like the FSB high so my RAM is high. I have 677 clocked at 800 right now with a 1:1 divider, so any lowering of the FSB will lower the RAM clocks too

If I get time tonight I'll do some Everest benchmarks at various speeds to see if the 375 vs. 400 is making any difference at all.

WHOA I just noticed that you have an X6800 @ 4.35. Wow.

If you 333x9 you will be able to use the 4:5 divider to still get the same memory speed.

 

[Canai]

The comp has been running stable at 375x7 for a few days, and then this morning NEITHER PORT works. WTF.

Is my mobo dying?!??

 

[The-Noid]

No. Have you locked PCI-E frequency to 100 or left it at auto?

PCI should also be 33 mhz sync.

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: Yoxxy
No. Have you locked PCI-E frequency to 100 or left it at auto?

PCI should also be 33 mhz sync.

I'll check those when I get home. I'm guessing it was left at auto. I'm thinking I might go to 400x8 and have the memory at a different divider.

 

[The-Noid]

400x8 will restrap pci-e. If you are letting them float on auto you are losing ports because pci-e frequency has risen too far. 1333 strap kicks in on p5w around 385 fsb.

 

[Canai]

Do the pci and pci-e frequencies matter for the onboard ethernet controllers?

Could you link some info on what straps are?

 

[The-Noid]

The ethernet ports use a lane on the motherboard that is either pci or pci-e. If they can't sync to the frequency that the motherboard is using (if auto it will increase when overclocking) the ports will not sync.

 

[Canai]

So that would lead to spontaneous disconnects at random times? I think that this just might be what's going on... I can't wait to get home and see if it fixes it!

 

[Canai]

I set the values like you said, and everything's working good right now!

Thanks!

edit: my O/C failed again, I think I need to get my comp into a room with A/C asap. I'll just keep it at 375x7 for now