What is causing my instability?

[imported_Iketh]

I may have bit off more than I can chew with this DFI 790fx-M2R with a Phenom....

I realize the current bios for this board is still new, but someone plz explain to me why i am prime stable 24/7, f@h stable 24/7, yet moving the mouse cursor gives a slight chance of lock-up, opening/moving a window on the desktop gives a little bit higher chance of lock-up, and loading a 3d game (such as WoW) is a 50/50 crapshoot, and if it does load, is playable for 5-15 mins before lock--up......

what setting (in general) needs to be tweaked here???? I dont want to give any more detail about my setup to avoid theories with brands or incompatibilities, just generally what setting in a bios can aid with this type of instability?

 

[THERESONATOR]

Uh oh... this is the system I want, this report you're giving scares me! I'm after a 9700 and a LANPARTY UT 790FX-M2R. Btw where did you buy your mobo, I'm finding it impossible to get in the UK? Hope your problem gets sorted out soon enough, I aint got a clue whats going on there.

 

[Thor86]

There are lots of issues with this board, and if you wanted to oc your phenom, you should have gotten the Gigabyte DQ6 790FX board.

 

[imported_Iketh]

i bought mine at newegg, but motherboardpro.com, mwave.com and several others had it in stock when i purchased mid-december

my problem only occurs 235+ ht, so im still getting a decent overclock and dfi is releasing beta bioses about every 2 weeks.... but im convinced im overlooking something because there are more options in this bios than i thought possible

 

[imported_Iketh]

Originally posted by: Thor86
There are lots of issues with this board, and if you wanted to oc your phenom, you should have gotten the Gigabyte DQ6 790FX board.

thx gigabyte employee

 

[NXIL]

generally what setting in a bios can aid with this type of instability?

I dont want to give any more detail

Overclocked? Stock?

Memory? Timings?

Mouse problem: driver?

Video card? ATI? nVidia? Drivers?

what setting (in general) needs to be tweaked here????

NO "general" settings, dude.

Doesn't sound like a BIOS problem to me. Hardware issue. If the system is overclocked, BIOS settings are obviously a concern, but, moving mouse does not put much strain on the system--

Yours is sort of an odd question--is this a "snappy" system?

NXIL

 

[imported_Iketh]

yes, the system is snappy, all benchmarks respond accordingly...

the cpu and mem is 100% stable as originally stated...

i rarely post anywhere and just search/read, but i cant find any info on this and there are a ton of pci-e and nb-sb options in the bios that i am unfamiliar with... my problem lies somewhere in there and im hoping a god-of-overclockers can point to something

here's another clue... encoding in virtualdub with divx causes the lock-up every time in the first 5 seconds of a render, yet i can switch to prime95 and run the blend for hours??

 

[NXIL]

the cpu and mem is 100% stable as originally stated...

not = to

playable for 5-15 mins before lock--up......

higher chance of lock-up,

divx causes the lock-up

Not stable.

Here is a link to some Phenom overclockers. Reading through it, looks like they are having issues with stability.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...owthread.php?p=2683670

36 pages of phenom overclocking fun:

http://www.overclock.net/amd-c...g-phenom-9500-a-4.html

Here is my BIOS tweak menu:

* CPU Host Clock Control [Auto/Manual]
-CPU Frequency (Mhz) [200 - 500]
* HT Link Frequency [Auto/ ?Ghz (200Mhz Step-up)
*PCIE Clock (Mhz) - [Auto/100-200]
*Set Memory Clock [Auto/Manual]
- memory clock [400 - 1066]
*DRAM Configuration [Menu]
- DCTs Mode [Gadged/Ungadged]
* DDR2 Timing Items [Auto/Manual]
- CAS# latency (3T - 6T)
-1T/2T Command Timing (1T/2T)
- TwTr Command Delay (1T - 3T)
- Write Recovery Time (3T - 6T)
- Precharge Time (2T/3T)
- ROW Cycle Time (11T - 26T)
- RAS to CAS R/W Delay (3T - 6T)
- RAS to RAS Delay (2T - 5T)
- ROW Precharge Time (3T - 6T)
- Min RAS Active Time (5T - 18T)

* Auto Express [Menu]
-Auto Express (Enabled/Disabled)
- CPU Tweak (Enabled/Disabled)
- Xpress Route (Enabled/Disabled)
-EPP Mode (Auto/Disabled)
-EPP Voltage (Normal/2.0V)

*System Voltage Control [Auto/Manual]
- CPU (Normal/ +0.025 - +0.6)
- DDR2 [Normal/ +0.05 - +0.4)
- Chipset (Normal/ +0.05 - +0.4)
- PCIE (Normal/ +0.05 - +0.4)
- HTT [Normal/ +0.05 - +0.4)
- HTR (Normal/ +0.05 - +0.45)

and


*Good CPU cooling
*Update BIOS and turn off errata fix
*Step up the the FSB (or what ever it's called) about 10-15 at a time
*When it becomes unstable (mine went at 240) up chipset voltage and CPU voltage
*Lower RAM Divider, set HT Link to around x6 and Memory clock frequency to around x7 (keep HT link lower that Mem Clock Freq)
*Raise FSB again, 5 at a time
*Overclocking came a ball ache for me then, but all chips are different
*For stability increase the DDR voltage a notch as well as the PCI-e voltage, and raise the PCI-e bus to around 110-120 (it helped me get stable)
---- Also might be worth mentioning, turn off AMD Cool 'n' Quiet, and set ratio to x11 instead of AUTO

GL

HTH

NXIL

 

[Sylvanas]

OP needs to check out this thread and this one for all they need to know about the DFI 790FX+Phenom.

 

[myocardia]

NXIL, did you buy a Phenom? Your replies in this post lead me to believe you did. If so, how do you like it so far? And Iketh, DFI motherboards are meant more for "gods-of-overclocking" than for people who are building their first system/are fairly new to the game. I had been overclocking since I built my 25 Mhz 486SX system, and had owned computers for more than a decade before the 486SX, yet I was still stumped when I bought my first DFI board, and took a gander inside the BIOS. They're just meant for tweakers, who will do anything for an extra 75 points in 3dMark types.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: myocardia
NXIL, did you buy a Phenom? Your replies in this post lead me to believe you did. If so, how do you like it so far? And Iketh, DFI motherboards are meant more for "gods-of-overclocking" than for people who are building their first system/are fairly new to the game. I had been overclocking since I built my 25 Mhz 486SX system, and had owned computers for more than a decade before the 486SX, yet I was still stumped when I bought my first DFI board, and took a gander inside the BIOS. They're just meant for tweakers, who will do anything for an extra 75 points in 3dMark types.

*Hugs DFI nF4 SLI-DR*

 

[NXIL]

did you buy a Phenom?

Dear Myo,

I have not--currently on an Opteron sckt 939 system which does everything I need in a 100% stable fashion.

Stable is my #1 criteria now--pretty tired of crashes and BSODs, and unfortunately Phenom looks to be a late beta still. (Have used DesqView, Windows 1.0, 2.0, etc, "Win" 95, so I have seen a few....)

Sons are gamers, so they will get next upgrades, and it's looking like Intel CPU + Intel chipset + nVidia graphics is the way to go; have been very happy with AMD over the past few years, but right now for higher end Intel seems to be the way to go.

NXIL

 

[bfdd]

TLB bug?

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: bfdd
TLB bug?

The OP is not doing virtualization in a high-load environment, so the answer to your question is: highly doubtful.

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: bfdd
TLB bug?

The OP is not doing virtualization in a high-load environment, so the answer to your question is: highly doubtful.

Highly doubtful but not out of the question, one reviewer couldn't run Photoshop at stock speeds without crashing so it's a possibility.

 

[Killrose]

Turn the TLB patch on and see if the problems go away.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: bfdd

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: bfdd
TLB bug?

The OP is not doing virtualization in a high-load environment, so the answer to your question is: highly doubtful.

Highly doubtful but not out of the question, one reviewer couldn't run Photoshop at stock speeds without crashing so it's a possibility.

What does Photoshop have to do with virtualization in high-load environments?

Photoshop crashing on a reviewer's demo hardware is hardly a sign of a TLB bug. Not only that, they have no real proof of WHAT caused the crashing in the first place. It could very well have been a borked install image, flaky memory stick or whatnot. Many of these "reviewers" are merley forum posts dressed up with pictures and shouldn't be confsued with reputable sources, such as people in the microprocessor business who have discussed the TLB at length on this board and other experts in the field with real understanding of what the bug is.

The TLB errata isn't quite about potential hard locks and blue screens.

 

[v8envy]

Lostcircuits also saw turning OFF the errata via the overdrive utility improved stability. Try again with the overdrive utility in 'Red' rather than 'Yellow' or 'Green' mode.

But this sounds more like a software issue. Did you wipe out and re-install XP, or is this a hard drive from a completely different PC? I'm guessing it's a USB mouse, and windows is being a bit confused about your chipset/usb drivers. Flaky memory stick or other USB hardware is not a bad guess either.

Try a Ubuntu live CD and see if you can get that to crater. If so, then it could be hardware (but not necessarily BIOS settings). If you don't detonate in a reasonable amount of time, most likely software.

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: bfdd
TLB bug?

Ugh, shut up. Wondering how long it would take for some dufus to bring this up.

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: Iketh

Originally posted by: Thor86
There are lots of issues with this board, and if you wanted to oc your phenom, you should have gotten the Gigabyte DQ6 790FX board.

thx gigabyte employee

Not even a fan of GB, and not an employee of them, but judging from everything I read on Phenom ocing, this board would be on my top list.

 

[imported_Iketh]

thank you v8envy for understanding my question and making a real attempt at pointing to something....

it's a fresh install, thx though

 

[Amaroque]

Perhaps you should try a different vid card, and see if that helps.

 

[v8envy]

Ok, having possibly eliminated software my next guess is PSU and then hard drive. Are they old units? Is the box plugged into a UPS? How are the voltages looking?

Looks like causing your graphics card and/or hard drive do 'stuff' is giving you heartburn, not so much running the processor all out. If your OS and drivers are up to date I'd point a finger at an aging PSU before anything else.

Give the overdrive utility a shot too. Lostcircuits theorized that turning on the bios fix placed additional strain on the memory subsystem causing more instability than you'd face with the once in a blue moon TLB glitch. DFI is a tweakable board, so if you have marginal memory timing settings that could contribute to the problem. Prime95 and F@H have completely different memory access patterns than e.g. a game or Firefox, so that's consistent with the theory.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Iketh
I may have bit off more than I can chew with this DFI 790fx-M2R with a Phenom....

I realize the current bios for this board is still new, but someone plz explain to me why i am prime stable 24/7, f@h stable 24/7, yet moving the mouse cursor gives a slight chance of lock-up, opening/moving a window on the desktop gives a little bit higher chance of lock-up, and loading a 3d game (such as WoW) is a 50/50 crapshoot, and if it does load, is playable for 5-15 mins before lock--up......

what setting (in general) needs to be tweaked here???? I dont want to give any more detail about my setup to avoid theories with brands or incompatibilities, just generally what setting in a bios can aid with this type of instability?

Stoopid comment: IRQ conflict.

Could be bios. Could be video. Could be OS. Could be bios and OS living together like cats and dogs.

I would think you would be better off in a forum where folks are breakin' in similar rigs.

And thank for beta testing for all of us. That DFI mobo looks pretty cool. Is this the first sb700 mobo ???

 

[imported_Iketh]

v8envy:

234ht

phenom 9500@2574mhz 1.3v

crucial ballistix pc2-8500 @ 4-4-4-12-24-2t 468mhz 2.16v

nb+ht @ 1872 mhz

pcie @ 100mhz

xfx 7950gt 512mb

seagate 500gb 7200.11

antec neo 550w

been doing 2mhz jumps from 230ht without touching voltages until i find instability, currently 100% stable all day yesterday playing games with f@h in the background, will bump up to 236 today and see what happens

amaroque:

im dieing to do this but dont have one available... im getting the 3870 soon enough, it's the last piece in my gradual upgrade

i know it's something in the bios tho, i don't think anyone is understanding what i mean when i say there are a shitload of pcie options for this board