Some odd BSODs, considering an upgrade

[Yuriman]

I'm perfectly content with my system's performance right now:

Q6600 @ 3ghz, undervolted
Gigabyte X38 board
8gb (4x2gb) DDR2 CL5
HD4870
2x Intel X25-M G2 80gb in RAID
Auzentech X-Fi Forte
+ some storage drives
BenQ FP241W (1920x1200 VA panel)

I have a Swiftech Apogee GT on my CPU and a Swiftech block on my GPU as well.

I'm continually impressed when I install a new game, how well my 5.5 year old system is holding up. Elder Scrolls runs well maxed, WoW is plenty smooth when I decide to go on binges with that (though hopefully I'm done), and Starcraft runs well enough that I can't really complain. I'm not a hardcore gamer anymore, but even if I were, games like Cyrsis 2 and Warhead would run fine on this hardware so I'm not interested in spending money just to upgrade.

Just about the only thing that's a little slow is Wii emulation, it typically runs around 95% speed, which I could probably fix with a slight voltage bump and an extra 400mhz.

If I were building from scratch I'd probably opt for quiet hardware, but with the watercooling loop I can silence most anything I drop into it, so that's not much of a concern (though it is a concern that my waterblocks fit).


That said, I've been experiencing random BSODs. At first I thought it was bad memory, but all 4 sticks pass memtest in both this PC and another. I tried different memory combinations, and it *seems* that the BSODs have stopped happening when I run 2 sticks in channel 2 (single channel mode), and that they happen as or more frequently when I have 2 sticks in channel 1. If my memory serves me correctly, Intel did not move the memory controller on-die until Nehalem, so my processor is probably fine.

What I'm trying to justify right now is, should I just get a new motherboard, should I live with this PC with only 4gb of ram in single channel mode, or should I sell the processor and ram and buy a Sandy Bridge CPU/Mobo and some DDR3?

Money doesn't grow on trees but I wouldn't have a problem with getting an i5, especially if I sell some of my current stuff.

What do you guys think?

 

[billyb0b]

post what the bsods say

 

[Yuriman]

Unfortunately I just reformatted because the last one corrupted .NET and a lot of stuff quit working, so I don't have any records of them anymore. Next time I have one I'll post it, but they're very intermittent. I might go 5 days without one, and then have 4 in a day, and typically it seems it's when I'm not really doing anything.

I seem to remember checking to see if it was an xxxxxxxxF4 or an xxxxxxxxF7 and it wasn't, I think the last one might have been 0xc00000035. I've seen a few different ones but I think they were mostly Page Fault or something along those lines. I did see an IRQL NOT LESS EQUAL once or twice, but I suspect it was from corrupted system files.

 

[Yuriman]

Another oddity - when booting, it hangs on Memory Testing (often in the middle of spelling it out, so I see "Memory Testi") for anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. If I change anything from stock, and if the hang is particularly long, the bios thinks it's a failed overclock and reboots the PC, returning to stock settings. If everything is stock, it just hangs until eventually it gets past, and boots normally.

I've tried reverting to older versions of my board's bios, with no change.

I haven't noticed an increase in instability, overclocked or underclocked, overvolted or undervolted.

 

[Yuriman]

Additionally, when I power the PC off completely, it often happens that when I turn it back on, the power supply goes "tick tick tick tick tick" and the lights on the motherboard flash with each tick. I know there's nothing wrong with the power supply, as it works fine in other computers as well. The solution to this is to pull the 24pin connector and hit the power button right as I plug it back in.

So yeah. It's usable, in single channel mode, so long as I don't reboot it and the power doesn't go out.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've got a brand new in box DFI X48 mobo in my FS thread in sig.

 

[Yuriman]

Thanks, but if I'm going to spend that much I'll probably upgrade.

 

[mfenn]

The Q6600 came out in January of 07, so you can't quite be 5 1/2 yet.

From everything you've described, it does sound as if your mobo is going bad. From what I can tell, the Apogee GT only supports up to 1366, so you will need a mobo with 775 or 1366 mounting holes.

i5 2500K $230
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 $122 - has LGA775 mounting holes
Crucial DDR3 1333 8GB $35

I'm extremely surprised that you're happy with the performance on your 4870 at 1920x1200. With a CPU upgrade of this magnitude, you may want to consider a new GPU as well.

 

[Yuriman]

Would you suggest waiting until Ivy Bridge is out, or will it not be worth the premium? Most sites seem to have it pegged at around 2 months.

 

[mfenn]

Would you suggest waiting until Ivy Bridge is out, or will it not be worth the premium? Most sites seem to have it pegged at around 2 months.

IB is focused on improving the IGP and reducing power consumption at the same clock speeds. Its mostly a die shrink, so you won't see huge IPC performance improvements over Sandy Bridge. It will be better in every way than Sandy Bridge, but not by a huge margin. I guess it really depend on how much longer you want to deal with your current rig.