Stability - Yes and No

[spacelord]

I have run both Prime95 and Hot CPU Tester on the new computer I built.

Prime95 usually fails by around Test #20 or so. (once it ran for a long time though before I shut it down)
Prime 95 even fails when I bring my memory back to 133x2 Speeds. (I have DDR2700 so I run at 166x2)

however, I ran Hot CPU Tester last night and everything is 100% ok according to that.

Should I continue worrying if my new MB, CPU, or memory are bad?

I have not overclocked anything yet, except my Albatron Ti4200P Turbo which asks for overclocking.
3DMark2001SE runs fine everytime.. no lockups. I have had lockups in games... and 1 reboot.. thats what prompted me to start looking for something to blame..

My System:

Soyo SY-P4X400 Dragon Ultra
P4 2.53GHz Boxed CPU
Kingston DDR2700 512MB
Albatron Ti4200P Turbo
WD 120GB SE

any help, thoughts, ideas would be appreciated!!

Thanks!!

 

[mechBgon]

What kind of power supply do you have it running on? Is it plugged into an uninterruptible power supply, or could power sags be occurring (dishwasher/furnace/vacuum cleaner switching on and off)? The Pentium4 has a couple of types of thermal safeguards built in, so it's not likely to be a pure overheat problem.

 

[spacelord]

I have an Antec True430 so I doubt its a lack of power problem.

I do not have a UPS. The computer is plugged in through a surge protector however.

I have watched my case and CPU temperature and the case and CPU are usually around 30C and 43C while running stress tests.

 

[mechBgon]

The CPU and case temps sound great. Maybe the RAM is not quite all there... I haven't tried it myself, but you might try this: Memtest86 I understand it's pretty aggressive and may give a failing grade to systems that run fine in real life (otherwise it would be boring, right? ).

 

[spacelord]

Thanks, but I have run Memtest86 and everything passes.

Does anyone know if Prime95 ever fails on perfectly fine systems?

 

[Duvie]

ofcourse...it could havea glitch in the program...Have you tried underclocking it and see if an error occurs??? If it doesn't then IMO the prime program is telling you something right...


Go aheadand uninstall the program...clean out any registry info for it...redownload a new copy and load again....


Also some programs fail to test everything where as prime95 is testing ram (somewhat), memory subsystem, cpu....3dmark2k1 IMO test cpu not as much and often doesn't need to test memory as much if the card is more then able....


If you are having game lockups that could be software but any restarts other then having winxp set to restart on errors is a problem...no stability at this point...


Edit: also what is the error at test #20...CPU ROUNDING??? I am have tried other programs and to date prime95 is one of the best at testing and stressing the cpu...sandra burn in?? Absolute f'ing joke of a program. I have seen it say fine when other programs have had issues. Anybody solely using that product I would laugh at.

On the other hand I rarely consider 3dmark2k1 as an effective cpu tester as well though many here think so.

 

[jaybee]

Sounds like something's overheating, but I would like to see the error too. Is it a file error? I've seen that before, where you get a file error at the same point each time. Try running 3dmark right after you get the Prime95 error -- don't let it have any time to cool down. I'm guessing it'll still complete, but I'd like to see.

jaybee

 

[spacelord]

errors I get, for example are:

[Thu Oct 10 21:28:15 2002]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
[Fri Oct 11 09:40:35 2002]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.4999928474, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

 

[Duvie]

In my experience rounding errors have been cpu related....

What are the temps for idle and load???

Are you ocing anything?? If not and you get error at stock I would look at power and heat...

See if the power or vcore spikes a bit....Get mbm5.1.9.1 program and watch heat and vcore levels as you run prime...If vcore fluctuates more then say like .03-.05v or 12v rail fluctuates say like +/- .15-.2 you may have a power supply issue. However power supply issue likely would have crept up in 3dmark as it usually draws moe power do to the vid card stressing.

 

[oldfart]

Prime95 usually fails by around Test #20 or so
Does anyone know if Prime95 ever fails on perfectly fine systems?

Something is not right. No, it does not fail on a good system. With no overclocking, a failure like that is highly unusual. What mem speed are you running?

 

[spacelord]

the HW Monitor that came with my Motherboard shows +12 as 11.97-12.03. usually 12.03 though. MBM shows +12 at 11.43. although MBM shows some other things that I don't think are right.. is there a -12v line?

I am running my DDR2700 at 333.

I tried running it at 266 but same thing happens anyways.

I have tried uping my Core Voltage a little bit on CPU to see if that helped... but no difference.

The only lockups have been during games. the only other sign of problems has been Prime95.
I ran 3Dmark in looping demo mode for a long time today and no probs there either.

cpu temp never goes above 44.

 

[oldfart]

You should not have ANY stability issues with a non overclocked system. Do you have a different stick of memory you can test with? Another thing, I'm not fond (at all) of VIA chipsets. Not saying this is your problem, but it is something to consider.

 

[jaybee]

Originally posted by: spacelord
the HW Monitor that came with my Motherboard shows +12 as 11.97-12.03. usually 12.03 though. MBM shows +12 at 11.43. although MBM shows some other things that I don't think are right.. is there a -12v line?

I am running my DDR2700 at 333.

I tried running it at 266 but same thing happens anyways.

I have tried uping my Core Voltage a little bit on CPU to see if that helped... but no difference.

The only lockups have been during games. the only other sign of problems has been Prime95.
I ran 3Dmark in looping demo mode for a long time today and no probs there either.

cpu temp never goes above 44.

Not sure if it's the problem, but you are running your psu out of spec. Here are the specs for your psu. -3% on the 12v line would be 11.64. Does AGP use 5v or 12v? I thought it was 12v... if it's 12v then 3dmark should crap out.... anyway, like I said your psu is running low.

jaybee

 

[OulOat]

Where do you get Prime 95? All I found on google is a prime number generator, is that it?

Edit - Nm, found it in the sticky thread

 

[spacelord]

well, the motherboard and the application that came with it indicates that I am running right around 12v.

Memtest86 did find memory errors on Test 10. (a bunch of them..) any way to find out what a Test 10 error might indicate? I did not see anything on Memtest86 website, and am scouring the newsgroups on Google.

However, I did call Newegg and they did give me an RMA.. with little questions asked. It took me less than 5 minutes to find the number, call them, describe problems, and next thing I knew he was spitting out an RMA for me.

 

[spacelord]

Would memory problems cause reboots? or is this more likely a power supply problem?

I had another reboot.. right in the middle of playing Mafia.

 

[Duvie]

memory problems would not cause a reboot unless you are running winxp and it is still set to the default of restart on all fatal errors...Are you running winxp??? If not I am thinking PSU like I mentioned above.

 

[drewdogg808]

hmmm...maybe your memory timings are too aggressive and it's not rated as such. good luck. anyone know what could be wrong if prime freezes the computer and requires a hard reboot?

 

[spacelord]

yes, I did have restart on Fatal Errors checked... I have since unchecked it. I think it must WinXP rebooting me, because when I restart and look in Event Viewer I see an even which says the computer has rebooted from a bug check.

I am going to play some games and see if I get a windows error... without the reboot now..

either way, I think I am going to exchange the mem stick.