SoB & A Curious System Instability

[Coquito]

Last night, my "S" key was jamming. At least that's what I thought. The A, S, E, J, L, ;, all started crapping out on me within the hour. Granted, I never liked the layout anyway, but to have it die slowly like that was strange.

Soon enough, I reboot, thinking it just needed a fresh start. On the boot-up, I get a few system beeps, but that makes way for one long, continuous irritating tone. Oh, & for some reason, Firefox looses all my bookmarks, settings, everything. I couldn't recover my profile, any hint of it was gone.

I pulled the keyboard, & temporarily replaced it with a MS PS2, but the "Emergency Broadcast System" still persisted. I closed down my two instances of SoB & suddenly the noise stopped. I believe it was the CPU heat warning at the 90C degree threshold. I went into the bios, & apparently, on optimized settings, that warning buzzer is off. Just pressing down on the heatsink lowers the cpu reported temps from 70 idle, to around 50. This pc has never had anything close to these temperatures. Is the AS5 just plain evaporating away? The screws aren't coming loose, & all the fans are working; minimal dust collected.

So I try & start up SoB, thinking that "sensors are always inaccurate", & SoB is running at about 1.4-1.6 per core, when normally, they are between 3.2-4.5. So something is definitely odd here. Concerning the beeps, "long, short, short", is a memory error, as I did here that a couple times before the inevitable "This is only a test". I tested both sticks separately, but couldn't run Memtest86 because DOS doesn't agree with me.

This system is nearly a year old, & has experienced absolutely no problems, till now. I was even going to dabble a bit & see if i could get the clock up a little.

C2D 6300(stock)
GB GA-965P-S3(stock)
Fortron Blue Storm II 500w
Corsair ValueRam 667 (1GB x2)

 

[Smoke]

I have had some problems in the last couple of weeks and I've seen others reports various errors around AT. I'm starting to believe it is the summer heat that is pushing some systems over the edge.

Coquito, has your computer room temps climbed very much?

I've been in discussions in the past where there seems to be a consensus that systems definitely degrade after a year of constant DC use. oops, I didn't say that in the DC Forum ... did I?

 

[Coquito]

The temperatures of course have gone up. The case temperature is still 39/40c, so whatever is suddenly pushing my cpu up nearly 40c definitely lives inside. I'm going to buy a better then decent hsf & hope for the best.

Completely stable, solid, then my keyboard gets has a heart attack & loses a quarter of its buttons on the left side. How that relates to my browser, I have no idea.

This is what I get. I didn't even run SoB all of last summer.

 

[NicColt]

Originally posted by: Coquito
SoB is running at about 1.4-1.6 per core, when normally, they are between 3.2-4.5. So something is definitely odd here.

how can that be.... that IS odd.

one thing I'm thinking is that maybe your CPU timmings are way out of wack...

I've read a few threads where users would underclock to get the absolute low temps only to find some of the symptoms you talk about.

try reloading your bios defaults and see if that helps it. I'm just guessing.

 

[Coquito]

Originally posted by: NicColt

Originally posted by: Coquito
SoB is running at about 1.4-1.6 per core, when normally, they are between 3.2-4.5. So something is definitely odd here.

how can that be.... that IS odd.

one thing I'm thinking is that maybe your CPU timmings are way out of wack...

I've read a few threads where users would underclock to get the absolute low temps only to find some of the symptoms you talk about.

try reloading your bios defaults and see if that helps it. I'm just guessing.

I've always been at stock. I even went back, CMOSed it, set everything to optimized defaults & then just plain bios defaults. I reseated the hsf, layed the case on its side open, & I'm still getting mean temperatures. I don't hear that ugly note yet, but cores are at 1.47 & 1.57. I'll let them run through & start a new batch. Maybe they just caught a funky angle.

 

[Alyx]

My old roommate has that exact same board and his temp sensor is way wacked out, possibly your sensor also bit the big one. Maybe find a cheap temp sensor and see how different the core is from what you are getting from the MB BIOS.

 

[Coquito]

Originally posted by: Alyx
My old roommate has that exact same board and his temp sensor is way wacked out, possibly your sensor also bit the big one. Maybe find a cheap temp sensor and see how different the core is from what you are getting from the MB BIOS.

I used Core Temp v.95 & it kept throwing popups at me. The pc eventually shut down.

...but there's good news.

After grabbing a flashlight, I double checked the cpu. :Q
The AS5 was evaporating!

I'm very careful not to put too much gunk on my chips, so maybe it was spread a bit too thin last time. Actually, when I reapplied it the first time, the core shot up even faster. I just decided to put a pea in the middle & let the heatsink smooth it out itself.

Voilà!

:beer::beer:

 

[TallBill]

Blow out the dust on or around the hsf. I have a pc that overheats and beeps if the dust bunnies build up. I disassemble the hsf, wipe it out, and good to go.

 

[Smoke]

Originally posted by: Coquito

Originally posted by: Alyx
My old roommate has that exact same board and his temp sensor is way wacked out, possibly your sensor also bit the big one. Maybe find a cheap temp sensor and see how different the core is from what you are getting from the MB BIOS.

I used Core Temp v.95 & it kept throwing popups at me. The pc eventually shut down.

...but there's good news.

After grabbing a flashlight, I double checked the cpu. :Q
The AS5 was evaporating!

I'm very careful not to put too much gunk on my chips, so maybe it was spread a bit too thin last time. Actually, when I reapplied it the first time, the core shot up even faster. I just decided to put a pea in the middle & let the heatsink smooth it out itself.

Voilà!

:beer::beer:

I should have thought of that. Freewolf put me onto redoing the AS at least once a year.

So are you good to go now?

 

[Coquito]

Originally posted by: Smoke

I should have thought of that. Freewolf put me onto redoing the AS at least once a year.

So are you good to go now?

Ooh ooh! Where are we going?

/puts on shoes backwards

¤

/plªys ??-h chå®a?ter map while researching new keyboard

 

[Ken g6]

Originally posted by: Coquito

Originally posted by: Smoke

I should have thought of that. Freewolf put me onto redoing the AS at least once a year.

So are you good to go now?

Ooh ooh! Where are we going?

/puts on shoes backwards

:music:
A hunting we will go,
A hunting we will go,
To catch a giant prime,
A hunting we will go!
:music:

Don't anyone forget their LLR BeatStick (or SB or PRP stick.)

 

[NicColt]

yea but what are your temps now ???

90 C wow

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: NicColt

Originally posted by: Coquito
SoB is running at about 1.4-1.6 per core, when normally, they are between 3.2-4.5. So something is definitely odd here.

how can that be.... that IS odd.

Pretty simple. Sounds like thermal throttling to me.

You can download CPU Rightmark and run it, it will tell you if you are throttling.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Coquito
Just pressing down on the heatsink lowers the cpu reported temps from 70 idle, to around 50. This pc has never had anything close to these temperatures. Is the AS5 just plain evaporating away? The screws aren't coming loose, & all the fans are working; minimal dust collected.

If you can push down on the HSF and cause temp changes, then obviously the HSF is not seated correctly, or is not firmly attached. Remove it, re-apply paste, and if that still doesn't work, replace the cooler altogether.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Coquito
The AS5 was evaporating!

Was the AS5 old? Did it start to seperate out? Perhaps it was defective? (I don't see how silver particles can evaporate.)