random reboots after upgrading to x2 4200+ from a64 3400+

[WildHorse]

well my new 4200+ X2 is at:

HTT 243
LDT multiplier 4
CPU multiplier 11
CPU clock 2673 MHz
vcore 1.300 volts
cpu vid special 113%
volts to cpu: calculated:1.469, actual as reported in bios: 1.440 volts
temps as reported by the AMD core temp application v0.95, and also by Everest Ultimate Ed. v4.00
.....during ordinary use: Core 0 = 41 deg C, Core 2 = 35 deg C.
.....during OCCT 30 min stress test: tops out at approx 61 deg C max for a short time

(the large temp inequality between the 2 cores concerns me.)

To OC the cpu higher than HTT 243 X 11 = 2673 MHz it requires too many volts, gets too hot. I had expected maybe 2750 MHz on air cooling.

To pass stress testing at HTT = 244 this new 4200+ X2 needed 1.35 X 113% , but temp climbed to 63 deg C, which is getting too high for me.

So right now I'm disappointedly running it at HTT 243 for daily use.

Who knows, maybe I"ll replace the XP-90 air cooler with something else to attempt better performance, if I find time to do that.

This new AMD 4200+ X2 underperforms the capability of my RAM by a lot. At least so far.

 

[GeezerMan]

The temp difference you have between the 2 cores is normal

 

[WildHorse]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
The temp difference you have between the 2 cores is normal

Thank you GeezerMan.

 

[Bosconian]

Originally posted by: myocardia
That's why those Ultra psu's are so cheap; they're very, very overrated in their output capabilities.

Proof or shens.

I'm leaning towards the board on this one myself.

 

[vexingv]

i got my cpu and it still reboots!! but i think it may be driver/software related as i have been able to stress test in vista and using mprime (minimal linux shell) for over 10+ hrs and manually terminated each time.

in summary:
-cooler temps on new cpu
-replacement CPU still reboots in old WinXP installation (with all peripheral drivers installed)
-orthos ran for 13 hrs (before manual test termination) on a fresh Vista install (all peripherals installed except for bluetooth driver/software)
-computer rebooted twice while using (or immediately after using) skype with bluetooth headset in Vista
-was able to use ubuntu for 2 hrs (i was trying unsuccessfully to run mprime; i'm a linux noob) w/o reboot
-able to run 2 instances of mprime (using T Mod bootcd) for close to 11 hrs before manually terminating torture test.
-currently 4 hrs into orhtos testing on a fresh XP install (only NF4, video, and sound drivers installed; no usb peripherals plugged in)

plans
A. hopefully current test runs well for a few more hours:
-install tv tuner drivers and install usb peripherals + drivers one by one (this is going to be very tedious so i may just skip to plan B)
B. go back to my existing Winxp partition (the one i have been using w/ the single core) and:
1. unplug bluetooth dongle and remove bluetooth driver and stress test
2. unplug all usb devices (except keyboard/mouse) and stress test
3. disable onboard USB and stress test

hopeful solutions:
1. removing bluetooth dongle and/or drivers will resolve reboots
2. find out which is the incompatible peripheral/driver and remove/replace it
2. buy usb pci card (if it is onboard usb/NF4 chipset issue)
3. give up on the x2 and go back to single core

See any possible incompatibilities in my peripherals list below?
my usb peripherals:
connected directly to the mobo:
-logitech elite keyboard
-logitech G5 laser mouse
-samsung ml-1710 laser printer
-usb hub
connected to externally-powered 7-port Belkin usb hub:
-xbox 360 wireless receiver
-dazzle 8-in-1 flash card reader
-targus 25-in-1 flash card reader
-various flashdrives
-Iogear GBU321 bluetooth dongle (i also have a spare Belkin F8T013 bluetooth dongle that i have never used but may try instead)

add-in cards:
-hauppauge hvr1600 tuner card
-firewire card (automatically installed w/o drivers)

 

[vexingv]

i was impatient and stopped orthos on the fresh xp installation after 5 hrs of testing. i plugged the peripherals back (hub, laser printer, scanner) in and booted up into my old xp partition and removed the bluetooth driver/software. i ran orthos and in less than 3 minutes the machine rebooted. so it doesn't look like the bluetooth is solely at fault. i've unplugged usb for the printer and hub and am now 25 minutes into orthos testing again....

 

[GeezerMan]

I would remove the USB hub for now and anything else that is not absolutely needed, then test and add items back in one by one

 

[vexingv]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
I would remove the USB hub for now and anything else that is not absolutely needed, then test and add items back in one by one

i'm working on that right now. i was able to test with only keyboard and mouse for 3 hrs and felt confident enough that it was stable (previously, if it had rebooted it usually did so within minutes but never past much more than an hour). now i've got my laser printer plugged in and i'll try to leave it testing overnight.

in regards to peripherals that are on the hub:
-should i test those devices with a direct connection to the mobo usb port? or should i test them connected to the hub? (realistically, i probably wouldn't use them on the mobo since they are frequently plugged/unplugged or not convenient to place behind the pc)
-i saw this on engadget which talked about the 360 wireless receiver damaging usb ports and/or other usb devices when attached directly to the mobo usb ports. i've always had mine on the hub, so i don't know if this is an issue.
-should i test the hub with no devices attached, but plugged into the computer (perhaps it a faulty hub, if that's possible)?

 

[robmurphy]

Just to be nosey what temps are you getting on the CPU now? I've just got a couple of the arctic cooling freezer pro 64 HSF (not fitted yet), and it would be interesting to compare idle/load temps.

Rob.

 

[vexingv]

Rob, i've been using Coretemp to monitor my cpu temps and it reports separate temps for each core. the difference b/t the two cores are usually b/t 2-4C. at idle, i've seen it as low as 29//26C for the two cores respectively (this was probably at night, as my apt isn't especially well ventilated during the day). at load, temps range from 44-47//50-53 C. i don't have the greatest case as it's a small atx (ultra wizard) case with only a 80mm intake and 120mm exhaust. right now temps are a bit higher (55//59C at load) as i moved the computer back into the shelf/bay underneath the desk, which makes ventilation worse as it's a smaller, confined area but unfortunately i have no other place to keep it.

anyway, testing with the laser printer plugged in went fine last night as it ran for close to 10 hrs before i stopped it. it's now 2.5 hrs into testing with the hub connected (but no devices attached to the hub itself). i'm about to terminate the test, restart the pc, and add a device to the hub and continue testing. i'm finally glad that i'm getting some progress as it was really hopeless earlier.

 

[vexingv]

i think i've isolated it to my xbox wireless receiver. when plugged in (into the usb hub), orthos ran for 30 minutes and then my machine rebooted. with everything else, the system was fine and did not reboot for hours under orthos. i decided to give it another try with the wireless receiver and thought things were going well until it rebooted just now (although after a fairly long time; almost 2 hrs). i guess this is just another problem with the 360 wireless receiver. i think i'll leave the receiver unplugged and only plug it in when i actually use it.

update: hmmm, just rebooted again (almost 2 hrs into orthos) and the 360 wireless receiver wasn't plugged in...

 

[felang]

I just bought the exact same cpu about 2 weeks ago. I was also experiencing intermittent reboots. After awhile I figured out that CoreTemp 0.95 was the culprit. Since I stopped using CoreTemp I have not experienced a single reboot. I read at some forum that apparently CoreTemp 0.95 does not get along well with socket 939 boards you might want to try 0.94. Also, I am running at 2.8 ghz with a tuniq tower @1.45 VCORE, completely stable. Max temp during Orthos is about 55 C.

I upgraded from a single core 4000+ at 3.0ghz and definitely got a nice performance boost, especially while playing multithreaded games (MOHA) and video encoding.

Hope this helps...

 

[vexingv]

Originally posted by: felang
I just bought the exact same cpu about 2 weeks ago. I was also experiencing intermittent reboots. After awhile I figured out that CoreTemp 0.95 was the culprit. Since I stopped using CoreTemp I have not experienced a single reboot. I read at some forum that apparently CoreTemp 0.95 does not get along well with socket 939 boards you might want to try 0.94. Also, I am running at 2.8 ghz with a tuniq tower @1.45 VCORE, completely stable. Max temp during Orthos is about 55 C.

I upgraded from a single core 4000+ at 3.0ghz and definitely got a nice performance boost, especially while playing multithreaded games (MOHA) and video encoding.

Hope this helps...

what are the rest of your system specs? (specifically mobo and its chipset)

before i received my replacement cpu, i was using speedfan during testing and experienced reboots. since receiving the new cpu, i've been using coretemp exclusively while testing. for me, i didn't really care for temp monitoring too much as the temps are what they are (i don't OC), but i used its log file's timestamp to time how long orthos runs before rebooting. coretemp itself crashes with enough frequency for it to be noticeable. i guess i can close it for now, and rely on the orthos log timestamp, which can be inaccurate as it only write after each step is completed.

also, that last reboot seems aberrant considering how things have been faring with my tests through the day (i'm sure not if i actually unplugged the 360 receiver before windows started or whether i had removed it after logging into windows).

 

[bryanW1995]

I have experienced many many reboots on my skt 939 system with both coretemp and speedfan in xp. both work fine on my e6750 system.

 

[felang]

Originally posted by: vexingv

Originally posted by: felang
I just bought the exact same cpu about 2 weeks ago. I was also experiencing intermittent reboots. After awhile I figured out that CoreTemp 0.95 was the culprit. Since I stopped using CoreTemp I have not experienced a single reboot. I read at some forum that apparently CoreTemp 0.95 does not get along well with socket 939 boards you might want to try 0.94. Also, I am running at 2.8 ghz with a tuniq tower @1.45 VCORE, completely stable. Max temp during Orthos is about 55 C.

I upgraded from a single core 4000+ at 3.0ghz and definitely got a nice performance boost, especially while playing multithreaded games (MOHA) and video encoding.

Hope this helps...

what are the rest of your system specs? (specifically mobo and its chipset)

before i received my replacement cpu, i was using speedfan during testing and experienced reboots. since receiving the new cpu, i've been using coretemp exclusively while testing. for me, i didn't really care for temp monitoring too much as the temps are what they are (i don't OC), but i used its log file's timestamp to time how long orthos runs before rebooting. coretemp itself crashes with enough frequency for it to be noticeable. i guess i can close it for now, and rely on the orthos log timestamp, which can be inaccurate as it only write after each step is completed.

also, that last reboot seems aberrant considering how things have been faring with my tests through the day (i'm sure not if i actually unplugged the 360 receiver before windows started or whether i had removed it after logging into windows).

Well, I run a DFI Infinity mb (NF4 ultra) at 255 fsb 11X multi with ram at 166 divider. VCORE is 1.425 in bios but CPU-Z reports it as 1.45. HT is at 4x. Ram is at 2.6 volts and chipset is at 1.5V.

This mb is actually not that good, nowhere near as good as other DFI models (lanparty), it's only good for up to about 270 fsb.

Just for the heck of it I tried to run an OCCT 30 min stress test with speedfan and Coretemp enabled and my system rebooted after about 10 min. Then I ran the test again without any monitoring progs enabled and the test ended succesfully.

It's worth a try before you go ahead and RMA again.

 

[vexingv]

well i'm definitely not rma-ing again. i don't believe it's a cpu issue (i successfully ran mprime for 14 hrs and a fresh winxp orthos with no peripherals installed for 11 hrs!) and the problem resides in my own configuration (not faulty hardware). i ask about your mobo/chipset since i've read about issues involving dual core x2's and usb on nf4 platforms. DFI's are pretty high-end and well-supported mobos unlike my ECS board. i have no intention to OC; i just want a stable system. in day-to-day use i would never even use coretemp or speedfan. the reason why i don't think it's solely software related to either coretemp or speedfan is the fact that i've seen it reboot when idle (just logged in) in windows. it has also rebooted in basic desktop usage when coretemp and speedfan were not running.

i have neither coretemp or speedfan running at the moment and i'm now 2.5 hrs into orthos without the 360 adapter plugged in. i'm satisfied with the stability i've seen today and realistically wouldn't be stressing the system as extensively it's being stressed by orthos. anyway, let's see how far i get overnight...

 

[felang]

Originally posted by: vexingv
well i'm definitely not rma-ing again. i don't believe it's a cpu issue (i successfully ran mprime for 14 hrs and a fresh winxp orthos with no peripherals installed for 11 hrs!) and the problem resides in my own configuration (not faulty hardware). i ask about your mobo/chipset since i've read about issues involving dual core x2's and usb on nf4 platforms. DFI's are pretty high-end and well-supported mobos unlike my ECS board. i have no intention to OC; i just want a stable system. in day-to-day use i would never even use coretemp or speedfan. the reason why i don't think it's solely software related to either coretemp or speedfan is the fact that i've seen it reboot when idle (just logged in) in windows. it has also rebooted in basic desktop usage when coretemp and speedfan were not running.

i have neither coretemp or speedfan running at the moment and i'm now 2.5 hrs into orthos without the 360 adapter plugged in. i'm satisfied with the stability i've seen today and realistically wouldn't be stressing the system as extensively it's being stressed by orthos. anyway, let's see how far i get overnight...

ORTHOS is very agressive, I've actually had fairly long gaming sessions at 2.9ghz with no problems. At that speed though ORTHOS fails even though two simultaneous instances of SUPER PI 32M finish succesfully. That's why I now run at 2.8ghz. I think OCCT stress testing is a good middle ground, and that's what I'll be using from now on. The actual performance difference from 2.8 to 2.9 is not really noticeable anyway. Don't really care about synthetic benchmarks.

Also, although some people might not agree, I believe going up to about 1.45V is safe with all 90nm X2's (obviously you'll need adequate cooling). Ok, so you might shorten its lifespan a bit but most people on these forums change their systems every couple of years anyway. I've seen cheap mobos that undervolt quite a bit, even with updated bioses that are supposed to support dual core processors.

You could also try to deactivate cool n quiet in the bios, as some of these 939 boards dont really seem to like it enabled on X2's. Don't remember if you mentioned trying that and I am to lazy to start reading all of the posts again...

I also use the xbox wireless usb receiver and the only problem I have had with it is that it did not work when my logitech wireless keyb and mouse was also plugged in to usb, the problem went away when I connected the logitech receiver to the PS/2 ports instead.

 

[vexingv]

i woke up this morning and the machine had rebooted itself overnight after about 3.5 hrs or so. seems like i'm back to square one again.

felang you offer some good suggestions. i may try turning off cool and quiet feature (when i tested in mprime and that fresh xp install, which ran for 10+ hrs, there were no amd drivers installed to support the cool and quiet feature although it was enabled in the bios). i don't think i would want to resort to raising the core voltage as i don't think i can adequately cool the cpu.

i'm also thinking of just picking up a NEC chipset usb pci card as they're not that expensive.

well i've read opinions about synthetic benchmarks/testing and how unrealistic they are. some have suggested that one should test using normal day-to-day applications. i've never heard of OCCT, but i've just downloaded and installed it. i'll try testing with OCCT with the usb hub disconnected from the computer.

 

[Zap]

The ECS KN1 Lite used the same PCB as the ECS NFORCE4-A939 board, and may have used the same BIOS.

ECS NFORCE4-A939 MINI REVIEW

ECS nforce4a-939 locking up like crazy

Some of the people in the second thread had problems similar to yours. Seems to be USB, BIOS and dual core related, but not 100% sure.

 

[vexingv]

Originally posted by: Zap
The ECS KN1 Lite used the same PCB as the ECS NFORCE4-A939 board, and may have used the same BIOS.

ECS NFORCE4-A939 MINI REVIEW

ECS nforce4a-939 locking up like crazy

Some of the people in the second thread had problems similar to yours. Seems to be USB, BIOS and dual core related, but not 100% sure.

thanks for sharing those links. while the A939 might have a similar PCB, it's a completely different platform (NF3) from the KN1 (NF4). while my symptoms are different, i'm leaning towards the same conclusion that this is related to USB.

as suggested, i used OCCT. for this testing, i unplugged the USB hub from the computer, but left my keyboard, mouse, and printer plugged in. those 3 devices aren't very taxing but then again neither is a bluetooth dongle, card reader, and wireless receiver. anyway, OCCT is currently 28 hrs into testing so i think the system is stable. just to see what happens, i'm about to shutdown and plug the usb hub back in for comparison.

 

[charris]

@vexingv

Yeah our situations seem to be strangely similar. I upgraded my system after 2 years with the KN1 extreme to an X2. I had no problems for a while until I started plugging in USB devices. Right now its the Maxtor One Touch III that's having a problem at completely random times when copying files. Reboot, without any BSOD or any error at all.

Tonight I'll probably throw in a PCI usb 2.0 card that I used on a previously USB 1 P4 system I know my USB devices worked with.

 

[charris]

Alright, after all my tests, I think I'm going to blame the USB external HD as the culprit. Whether it's the Kn1 board + latest BIOS, or if it has to do with X2 and the USB support on this particular board, I have no idea, all I know is my random reboot can be reproduced by doing some file copying tests from internal HDs to the external HD and eventually it reboots without BSOD.

I've verified this so far by 1. keeping the USB drive unplugged for the day, using the PC under heavy loads w/o a single problem and 2. I just installed a PCI USB/Firewire adapter and I've run some file copying tests that usually fail without any problems. I did not yet disable USB in BIOS. Again I'm not 100% sure - only time will tell if this really is working.

It was a long road of detective work, I really hope this is it, last thing I expected thats for sure (then again I know I shouldn't be surprised), I hope a BIOS fix comes out if this is a real issue....

-charris

 

[GeezerMan]

The Nvidia IDE driver caused many problems for people, and me too, on more than one board. I had a Biostar 939 board that would blue screen on me while transferring large files to a external drive via USB. The cure was to uninstall the Nvidia IDE drive and let the Windows IDE driver do the job. This same driver is used for SATA drives too.

 

[vexingv]

charris (i just realized you came here from the thread i posted at planetamd64)
i've read elsewhere that some NF4 mobos have issues with external usb drives and usb flash drives, but i haven't tested it myself. in my case, i'm fairly certain it is related to the 360 receiver (or some combination of it). i plugged the receiver into my hub and within 15 minutes of OCCT testing, the system rebooted. the only doubt i have is that it had rebooted once or twice when the 360 receiver had not been plugged in. my usb pci card should be arriving tomorrow and i'm going to plug my hub into one of those ports or perhaps i may disable the onboard usb ports entirely.

i highly doubt a new bios will be made as socket 939 is obsolete. the last bios update was 7/06 and the last 939 processors came out at around that time too. i also agree that it's very bizarre how this seems to be a usb issue and that it this issue is only apparent when an x2 processor is used.

geezerman,
i never use the nvidia ide drivers (something i've learned from way back on the NF2 platform) and use the default drivers provided by windows. also, AFAIK a SATA driver has been available since in windows since XP SP2, which is why some have had difficulty installing XP on a SATA drive when using an older, unslipstreamed XP install disc. from how i see it, there's really no reason to use the nvidia drivers unless the onboard RAID functionality is utilized.

update:
i had another reboot and now the more i think about it, i think it has more to deal with usb utilization (any device) than solely my 360 receiver. this morning, occt had been running for 8 hrs before i terminated the test. i then made a skype call using bluetooth (via a usb dongle) and 5 minutes into the call, my computer rebooted. this was not the first time that my computer rebooted during a bluetooth skype call.

 

[vexingv]

just wanted to say i've resolved it!!!
i received my Syba usb pci card on thursday. i now have my usb hub connected to my computer via the pci usb port. connected to the hub are the 360 receiver, bluetooth dongle, 2 multi-format card readers, and the occasional flash drive. the devices connected directly to the motherboard usb are the keyboard, mouse, and laser printer. i have not run into any issues since i've set it up this way.

thanks again to all those who have participated in this thread.