x2 3800+ and ram instabilities - USB related crashing

[MrDudeMan]

Problems and Updates:

(1) - USB issues - usb mass storage devices are causing lock-ups. keyboard and mouse work fine on usb, but my external drive and thumb drive cause a reboot or lockup.

Suggested Solution: uninstall NV ide drivers and usb drivers, use the windows drivers instead.

Did that work? will try at 5:30 (after lab)


(2) - Raptor 74 speed? - HDTach is showing an average seek time of 8.6ms on my raptor74. is that normal? my 7200rpm drive i had before this one had an average seek time of 13.6ms, so i know it is faster than a normal drive but i thought it was supposed to be better.

Suggested Reason - ????


(3) - Slow boot time - when i first installed windows (xp pro) the loading progress bar before the welcome screen either didnt show at all or went away in less than half a bar. now it stays up for 3.5-5 bars. what gives?

Suggested Reason - ????


(4) - SP 2 - how necessary is service pack 2 for a dual core system?

Response - ????

End of Updates



x2 3800+ having stability problems at stock speeds and it wont OC at all obviously...

X2 3800+ @ stock speeds
HSF: Scythe Ninja, Coolermaster 120mm 32cfm 19dBa, AS5 applied
Epox 9NPA+Ultra
G.Skill 2x 1gb 3-4-4-8 DDR500 @ DDR400
3dFuzion 7800GT @ stock speeds
WD Raptor 74
using onboard sound and lan
Seasonic S12-500
Antec P180 w/ 4 case fans (2 in, 2 out)
Plextor 4x DVD-RW

So far i have been able to install windows and some programs, but it has rebooted a few times and been hung up several times before the welcome screen. i installed the newest nvidia drivers and that froze it up, so i uninstalled them in safe mode and it then booted normally. i installed the last release, 78.xx, and now it seems to work ok. ive noticed it will freeze whenever i try to copy anything off of my USB external hard drive and i can reproduce this on call.

the computer is very fast, when it gets to windows, and will even run 2 instances of prime95 for an hour...it might last longer but i tried to copy something from my external drive and the computer locked up, lol.

i am in class now, but when i get back to my room i will post all of my bios settings. i dont know what is going on with all the different numbers available to change because only 4 are listed on the package...

im going to also try looping some 3dmark05 today and see what happens. i have a really strong feeling that the reason the system is so unstable is because of the ram timings, but i dont know for sure.


i changed the HTT to 220 just for fun at stock voltage and it posted the 2200mhz, but then it froze. i increased the voltage to 1.58 and left it at 220x10, but it still froze. that leads me to believe it is the ram, unless i got a dud X2. i put the voltage back to auto and the board is showing 1.42V...i get 35C idle and 48C load at that voltage (between 45 and 48 actually).

more to come soon...

 

[DragonReborn]

have u tried uninstalling the usb drivers from device manager, restarting, and letting windows reinstall them?

also, I know this isn't a great solution, but does the usb drive lock up on all usb ports or just one of them? i've had just weak usb ports sometime.

you have upgraded your bios, right?

 

[Some1ne]

You're running the 3800+ at 1.58V? The default is 1.35V, so that's quite a bit of a jump. Perhaps your stability issues are heat-related? At 1.51V mine gets hotter than I would like at full load on both cores (but remains stable).

If you're running DDR500 RAM at DDR400, 3-4-4-8, then I don't think RAM timings are the problem. Even value RAM can take those settings just fine.

And if I don't ask it somebody else will...what are your PSU specs?

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: Some1ne
You're running the 3800+ at 1.58V? The default is 1.35V, so that's quite a bit of a jump. Perhaps your stability issues are heat-related? At 1.51V mine gets hotter than I would like at full load on both cores (but remains stable).

If you're running DDR500 RAM at DDR400, 3-4-4-8, then I don't think RAM timings are the problem. Even value RAM can take those settings just fine.

And if I don't ask it somebody else will...what are your PSU specs?

i put the voltage that high just to see what would happen. i put it back to default, which the board is showing as 1.42V.

the motherboard is registering the CPU temps as 35C idle and 48C load @ 1.42V. those are pretty decent i guess.

i dont remember the PSU voltages...ill post them when i get back to my room

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: DragonReborn
have u tried uninstalling the usb drivers from device manager, restarting, and letting windows reinstall them?

also, I know this isn't a great solution, but does the usb drive lock up on all usb ports or just one of them? i've had just weak usb ports sometime.

you have upgraded your bios, right?

i havent tried uninstalling the USB drivers, but i will do that and change the port.

why do i need to upgrade the bios? the board is like a week old and the bios flashed to it says its from (i think) 8/4/2005. is there already a newer one?

 

[Some1ne]

Flashing the BIOS could help (if there's a newer version), as could updating your chipset drivers and patching your OS, if applicable. Did you install the AMD processor driver and the Win XP SP2 dual-core hotfix?

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: Some1ne
Flashing the BIOS could help (if there's a newer version), as could updating your chipset drivers and patching your OS, if applicable. Did you install the AMD processor driver and the Win XP SP2 dual-core hotfix?

AMD processor driver? yes

Win XP SP2 dual-core hotfix? no, didnt know there was such a thing...

 

[Some1ne]

Win XP SP2 dual-core hotfix? no, didnt know there was such a thing...

There is, my copy did not recognize my X2 as a dual-core CPU until after I installed both the processor driver and the hotfix. I guess if your X2 is already properly recognized, maybe you don't need it, but with the processor driver alone, my copy of Win XP still thought that I only had a single-core CPU.

The hotfix exists at:

http://www.amdzone.com/files/WinXPdualcorehotfix.exe

 

[MrDudeMan]

Update on PSU:

CPU(v): 1.42
+3.3V: 3.26
chipset(v): 1.52
dimm(v): 2.73
+5v: 4.94
battery(v): 3.12
5vsb: 4.99

system temp: 30C
idle temp: 36C

 

[rise]

make sure you using the latest nv chipset drivers 66.6 at least.

if you installed the nv ide drivers or usb drivers, unistall them and use the windows drivers.

you're using sp2?

try setting your ram to 2.8v.

 

[Some1ne]

On the PSU, what is the make/model/specced amperages? For example, my PSU is:

Vantec Stealth 520W 24-pin PSU (+3.3V@26A, +5V@52A, +12V@28A)

 

[MrDudeMan]

+3.3v 30A, +5v 30A, +12v1 17A, +12v2 16A

make sure you using the latest nv chipset drivers 66.6 at least.

if you installed the nv ide drivers or usb drivers, unistall them and use the windows drivers.

you're using sp2?

try setting your ram to 2.8v.

hmm i think i did install the nv ide drivers and the usb drivers. i will uninstall them and use the windows drivers instead.


update:

the USB problem is only with mass storage devices. my keyboard, mouse, and webcam work fine on USB, but my external drive and thumb drive cause it to freeze almost every time.

 

[rxrfrx]

Answer of the week: double-check it's not your nVidia IDE drivers, even though you think you successfully uninstalled them.

Go to your IDE controllers in the device manager, "update driver," and pick the generic windows IDE drivers.

It might not be a USB problem so much as it's a copying-lots-of-data-to-your-SATA problem.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: rxrfrx
Answer of the week: double-check it's not your nVidia IDE drivers, even though you think you successfully uninstalled them.

Go to your IDE controllers in the device manager, "update driver," and pick the generic windows IDE drivers.

It might not be a USB problem so much as it's a copying-lots-of-data-to-your-SATA problem.

so the NV ide drivers really suck, eh? thats pretty annoying...ill have to double and triple check that

 

[rxrfrx]

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th

Originally posted by: rxrfrx
Answer of the week: double-check it's not your nVidia IDE drivers, even though you think you successfully uninstalled them.

Go to your IDE controllers in the device manager, "update driver," and pick the generic windows IDE drivers.

It might not be a USB problem so much as it's a copying-lots-of-data-to-your-SATA problem.

so the NV ide drivers really suck, eh? thats pretty annoying...ill have to double and triple check that

Yeah, I was having some really bizarre Windows/hardware issues, then I removed them and that fixed it. Looks like this isn't an uncommon thing.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: rxrfrx

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th

Originally posted by: rxrfrx
Answer of the week: double-check it's not your nVidia IDE drivers, even though you think you successfully uninstalled them.

Go to your IDE controllers in the device manager, "update driver," and pick the generic windows IDE drivers.

It might not be a USB problem so much as it's a copying-lots-of-data-to-your-SATA problem.

so the NV ide drivers really suck, eh? thats pretty annoying...ill have to double and triple check that

Yeah, I was having some really bizarre Windows/hardware issues, then I removed them and that fixed it. Looks like this isn't an uncommon thing.

cool. i really hope that fixes my reboot/freezing issue so i can start OCing. i want to hit 2.3 at least.

 

[Some1ne]

+3.3v 30A, +5v 30A, +12v1 17A, +12v2 16A

That should be fine for that setup, although I'm sure there are some people who would argue otherwise.

To comment on the updates:

HDTach is showing an average seek time of 8.6ms on my raptor74. is that normal? my 7200rpm drive i had before this one had an average seek time of 13.6ms, so i know it is faster than a normal drive but i thought it was supposed to be better.

That seems about normal, I have a RAID-0 with 2 of the 37 GB models, and it scores about the same seek time. HDTach reported times just seem to have a tendency to be a bit higher than the advertised times on most disks. I wouldn't worry about this too much.

when i first installed windows (xp pro) the loading progress bar before the welcome screen either didnt show at all or went away in less than half a bar. now it stays up for 3.5-5 bars. what gives?

That's just how it goes. I get the same thing if I do a clean install, but then as I add patches and new drivers and additional applications, the load time gets progressively slower. It doesn't bother me though, because really it still loads in like 5 seconds anyways.

how necessary is service pack 2 for a dual core system?

No idea, though it's good to have SP2 for a number of other reasons, like security. For the dual-core part, hit ctrl-alt-delete and bring up the task manager, and click the performance tab, under "CPU Usage History", are there two independent graphs, or one large graph? If you get two graphs, then your system is correctly detecting and using the dual-core CPU, and there's no need to patch just to get dual-core support.