System shuts down immediately with a loud beeping when I run Prime95 *UPDATE @ 187 FSB*

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This must be an easy problem. NF7-S with Barton 2500+. At 3200+ rating and 1.65 I could not quite get into windows. 1.675 windows good, but 3d mark fails. 1.7 3dmark is good. However, with prime 95 the second I go to torture test and try the first one the system shuts down immediately with loud beeping. The CPU is running about 45 celcius. I have the system set to warn me when at 52C (this was not that warning though), or shutdown when CPU fan fails (which it didn't, and prime95 killed it twice in a row).

Why's it do that? What am I setting wrong in the BIOS to tell it to do this? Ram rated at 3500 BTW.

Oh, and I'm now back at 190 X 11 and 1.65 stock voltage running prime95 right this second.

*UPDATE 192 FSB*

Well, I bumped it all the way up to 1.775 and it still bailed on Prime 95. I thought I'd bring it to 1.825 and let it have it, but this time the system actually beep and shut itself off as I was logging in with windows. I find that peculiar, since I can do 200 @ 1.7 and get into windows and complete 3d mark, but now at 1.825 it just won't even get into windows! So it seems like the CPU just doesn't want to hit 200 unless there is something funky going on elsewhere. I'm now at 192 @ 1.65 and will continue to raise that and test it.

Edit: Still at 192. I was getting warnings with P95, so I'm up to 1.675.

EDIT: Won't run 192 even at 1.75. Seems something fishy going on here. I have cpu interface set now to enabled instead of disabled. Is that bad? I am reading the manual, but it's scant on what I'm actually doing AGP is of course set at 66 and I've left the rsb/dram on auto.

EDIT: This badboy just won't run at 192 at _all_. I'm at 190 again and I'll really blast away at this speed to confirm it works.

*UPDATE 187*

Well, it locked up at 190, so I'm down to 187 with default voltage. I'm definitely thinking something is weird here. The average barton 2500+ on the cpudatabase site is reaching 2316 mhz and I can't even hit 2100 properly? That seems wrong.

*MORNING*: I just had it run overnight for 5.5 hours on the prime95 first test at 187, default voltage, without a hitch. So really I think that 187 is pretty much in the bag at least.

 

[kyparrish]

skoorb, P95 might need even more voltage than the 1.7 you're giving it to pass 3dmark.....try P95 w/ 1.75 volts...your cpu temps shouldn't climb up much more w/ the extra voltage

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: kyparrish
skoorb, P95 might need even more voltage than the 1.7 you're giving it to pass 3dmark.....try P95 w/ 1.75 volts...your cpu temps shouldn't climb up much more w/ the extra voltage

But what exactly is happening? Is the CPU just hitting a brick wall? I tried it again at 1.725 and had the same, but 1.775 and scale back could be an idea too. 190 now seems to be going like a champ at stock voltage.

 

[kyparrish]

it is a possibility that your chip is "hitting its wall"...sometimes just giving it that little extra bit of juice can "push the wall back"...

However, if your chip is hitting 190 at stock voltage, then the chip should be able to push a little bit farther w/ more voltage. Are you using a quality power supply? An inferior PS might not be delivering enough juice @ the higher FSB speed.

I played around a lot w/ my Barton this weekend, and the Artic Silver ceramique I applied along with better cooling helped me push my chip a little farther too. Try taking the side panel off of your case to drop the temps a little bit to see if heat might be an issue.

 

[myocardia]

Skoorb, heat isn't your issue, vcore is. Overclocking a cpu nearly always giving the cpu more voltage, it's as simple as that. 1.75v vcore is considered safe long-term by everyone who overclocks (for an Athlon, that is), and 1.80v or less is considered safe by most. My vcore temp only goes up about 2 or 3°C when I raise my vcore from 1.65v to 1.80v. And unless you plan on keeping your Barton until your grandchildren retire, you aren't going to shorten it's life much at all by raising the vcore to anything less than 1.8v. From what I've read (I can't remember now where, but it was a reputable source), a cpu core is designed to last roughly 10 years. You aren't really planning on having that Barton in 7 or 8 years anyway, are you? Because if you do still have it, you're going to be hearing about it every day from us, anyway! Just keep your cpu fan turned all the way up, or if you have the money, and don't mind spending it, I would recommend you buying a 92mm fan (more airflow, less revolutions), an 80mm to 92mm fan adapter, and a rheobus. A rheobus allows you to slow a fan down, so it makes less noise. Since I read in your last post that you are worried about noise, you would be able to keep your cpu quite a bit cooler with a 92mm fan turned most of the way down than you can with the cheap fan on your heatsink now turned all the way up.

 

[kyparrish]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Skoorb, heat isn't your issue, vcore is. Overclocking a cpu nearly always giving the cpu more voltage, it's as simple as that. 1.75v vcore is considered safe long-term by everyone who overclocks (for an Athlon, that is), and 1.80v or less is considered safe by most. My vcore temp only goes up about 2 or 3°C when I raise my vcore from 1.65v to 1.80v. And unless you plan on keeping your Barton until your grandchildren retire, you aren't going to shorten it's life much at all by raising the vcore to anything less than 1.8v. From what I've read (I can't remember now where, but it was a reputable source), a cpu core is designed to last roughly 10 years. You aren't really planning on having that Barton in 7 or 8 years anyway, are you? Because if you do still have it, you're going to be hearing about it every day from us, anyway! Just keep your cpu fan turned all the way up, or if you have the money, and don't mind spending it, I would recommend you buying a 92mm fan (more airflow, less revolutions), an 80mm to 92mm fan adapter, and a rheobus. A rheobus allows you to slow a fan down, so it makes less noise. Since I read in your last post that you are worried about noise, you would be able to keep your cpu quite a bit cooler with a 92mm fan turned most of the way down than you can with the cheap fan on your heatsink now turned all the way up.

said it better than i could

 

[StageLeft]

Side of case is off with 27 system temp or so. I have a generic cheap 420 W powersource. I think i"ll give it a go at 1.75 now... yeah 190 with 1.65 I must be able to hit 200 with a vcore bump!

I will bump with results

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: kyparrish
said it better than i could

Well, I try, and sometimes I'm even successful!

 

[kyparrish]

skoorb, we never asked what type of ram you are running?

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: kyparrish
skoorb, we never asked what type of ram you are running?

Some Kreton stuff I got from newegg rated at 3500.


This

 

[myocardia]

Then what memory timings are you running with it?

 

[kyparrish]

hmmm if it was rated at slower speeds, i'd say that the ram might be the culprit if you were trying to push it too far...can you change the multiplier on your chip, or is it locked? b/c if you can change the multiplier, set it at something conservative like 10, and then see if you can get a 200mhz FSB speed...

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Then what memory timings are you running with it?

Default across the board...

Is that cpu interface disabled/enabled worth consideration?

 

[StageLeft]

CPU is clock locked (I assume; I bought it pretty recently from newegg after they were locking them). The Ram is good for over 200 fsb supposedly!

 

[kyparrish]

yeah i was just wondering if it was in fact an older chip...i suggested lowering the multi just to make sure there was absolutely no problem w/ getting to 200fsb speed...

have you tried increasing voltage to the memory? vdimm?

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: kyparrish
yeah i was just wondering if it was in fact an older chip...i suggested lowering the multi just to make sure there was absolutely no problem w/ getting to 200fsb speed...

have you tried increasing voltage to the memory? vdimm?

I didn't try that, simply because I didn't think the ram was getting stressed much...I'll see now if it's multiplier locked, and if it is I'll boot back up at 187 and leave it overnight to confirm that it can definitely hack that FSB. Thanks for the help btw

 

[kyparrish]

yeah no problem, pm me if i can help anymore...

btw, now that i think about it, increasing that vdimm a little might help a whole lot

 

[StageLeft]

It's clock-locked definitely

I can try vdimm increase, but do you know why it would help if the ram is so "underclocked" as it is now anyway? 3200 is at spec with a 200 FSB and this is 3500 stuff.

Sadly I have to go to bed but will give it a go tomorrow!

 

[StageLeft]

still no lovins! Any more ideas?

 

[MDE]

Try increasing the northbridge voltage a bit. Also set it to 200MHz FSB and try running Memtest or swapping RAM that will do 200MHz FSB.

 

[suklee]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: myocardia
Then what memory timings are you running with it?

Default across the board...

Is that cpu interface disabled/enabled worth consideration?

I dont think cpu interface will have any pos/neg effects...

What are those default memory timings?

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Kai920

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: myocardia
Then what memory timings are you running with it?

Default across the board...

Is that cpu interface disabled/enabled worth consideration?

I dont think cpu interface will have any pos/neg effects...

What are those default memory timings?

I'm not sure what they are. Just whatever the bios has in there based on what it read from the kreton I suppose I could try increasing the northbridge a bit. Is ram and chipset voltage safe to raise by 10%, like on CPUs?

 

[kyparrish]

yeah skoorb, ram voltage is safe to raise a little bit

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If you are using a rev.2 NF7-s then you shouldn't need to bump up the vdd, if it's the older A3 chipset then it's almost a must o hit 400DDR stable. I ran my A3 chipset board@1.8vdd for many months with no issues, I just used a Vantec iceberg kit for chipset cooling. Bumping the Vcore and vDIMM is always a good idea when having stability issues that aren't heat related since the extra voltage helps increase fault tolerance. BTW, your heat warning of 52c is a bit drastic, even with temp reading error that temp is far too mild to warrant action, 65-70c would be a better setting and ensure it doesn't get triggered except during a real problem.