STOP errors maybe related to faulty cache memory? NEED HELP

[Sampson 0]

The error messages you have been receiving are timing related as well as driver related. Your peripherals are not being recognized correctly at 133FSB. You see this on some systems that have been overclocked and some one component be it a controller, memory stick, a pci card or the AGP, or even the processor can't reckon with the higher FSB. Some component cannot keep up with the higher instruction rate. This could be as simple as the DVD drive not having DMA support or it could be what both Harry and Alien have astutely indicated as possible heat problems

 

Harry and Alien suspect overheating. While you have made it abundantly clear that system is not overclocked, you are running the FSB higher which is going to produce more heat. As you have pointed out this system has run fine for six months without a hitch and it is rated for the speed you have been running it at. But, if there are heat problems, even if very slight, it is known that certain components degrade and cannot tolerate a higher FSB after a period of time, even though they ran flawlessly previously.

 

Let us know how your tests come out.

[Alien 1]

Sampson: It could also be that he might have accidently knocked his PC & the HSF might have been jarred slightly out of place - just enough to reduce the effectiveness of the cooling, so that @ 1Ghz it would be just enough, but @ 1.4 Ghz it might not be enough.

 

Another thing that occured to me shassouneh, is whether or not you have any surge protection for your PC, as 1 big surge/spike might have somehow partially damaged something, or smaller surges over time can cause accumulating damage to your system. I have no idea if this is an issue in your case, but just thought I'd mention it.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

I Know for a fact the motherboard has a 266MHZ FSB.

I'd just like to take this oppurtunity to point out the fact that it isn't exactly a 266Mhz FSB but rather a 133Mhz one that transfers two bits per clock cycle (also called "Double Data Rate" or DDR for short.). While the end result is exactly the same as a bus that operates at 266Mhz but only transfers one bit bper clock cycle calling it a "266Mhz" bus is much like saying an Athlon XP 1800+ runs at 1.8Ghz.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Hey Admiral,

there are no Mobos or CPU's or RAM running a true 266 FSB as you describe it. They all do 133 FSB counting one upwards and one downwards on the sinus curve.

 

So - whats your point ?

 

H.

[shassouneh 0]

Dear All,

Thank you for your extensive support and feedback. Allow me to give you some updates / data as Dirty Harry pointed out.

 

1.) Average IDLE CPU temperature (with case open) and as reported by BIOS: 38 C [i beleive in "open case technology" so the case is always open].

 

2.) I cannot manually set the multiplier. The BIOS ONLY allows me to change the RAM cycle speed (100 or 133 MHZ) and the processor cycle speed (100 or 133 MHZ). to get at 1.4GHZ, I have to have them both set at 133MHZ

 

4.) The Voltage (of the CPU) again, as reported by the BIOS and with an open case: 1.8 Volts

 

5.) RAM Latency: I tried ALL of 2T, 2.5T and 3T. Not a da** bit of a difference

 

6.) RAM Slots. I have two DDR ram slots and two SDRAM slots. I tried switching the RAM chip back and forth between the two DDR slots. No difference whatsoever.

 

7.) The processor has NOT been fiddled with, meaning I haven't moved it since I installed it. So I am pretty confident its not a CPU-contact thing.

 

Now allow me to describe the general behaviour of the computer:

 

Windows XP will now ONLY boot at 1.4GHZ. If i set it at 1GHZ, it would just hang after the hidden "starting windows xp" stuff.

When the machine does boot, it runs anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes before giving a STOP error. If I run anything heavey (e.g Return to Castle Wolfenstein), I get a stop error IMMEDIATELY.

 

Now allow me to give you my hardware specs (just in case they may be needed):

 

Motherboard: ECS K75SA Athlon/Athlon XP motherboard. Built in LAN card and sound card

Processor: Genuine AMD Athlon 1.4GHZ

RAM: DDR 2100 256MB chip

Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 2 MX400 AGP 4x 64MB

Sound Card: SBPCI 512 PCI

Hard Drive: IBM Deskstar 60GB 7200 rpm

For More details on my hardware / system information, please click the link below. (NOTE: OPEN IT IN YOUR WEB BROWSER! DO NOT RIGHT CLICK/SAVE TARGET AS). THEN you can save it. Its a ZIP file that contains a text file which describes my exact system!

 

OPEN ME IN A WEB BROWSER

[Sampson 0]

shassouneh,

 

Obviously you've done something to be able to get it to boot at 1.4GHz when last night it would only run stable at a 100FSB. It would be helpful to know how you accomplished that.

 

Issue 1 Heat:

This is what I could find out on the web that others have encountered with this mobo and their advice: "Check your CPU heatsink and make sure it is spec. up to support your processor. Certain older coolers can support up to TB 1.2G. This sort of heatsink will not be good enough for your athlonXP or 1.33G and above processors."

 

"The other possibility is due to the chipset's heatsink. If you remove the heatsink, you will notice that a double sided tape is used instead of thermal paste. The double sided tape is a bad conductor of heat and it will trap the heat of the chipset (that is why when you touch the heatsink, it feels cool). Remove the tape and apply thermal paste onto the surface of the heatsink and attach the heatsink by using two droplets of super glue on two diagnoal corners of the chipset (it might be difficult for you to remove the heatsink, so do it carefully)."

-----------------

 

You said you don't have a floppy. I counted at least two CD's and one DVD device on your sysinfo.txt One CD seems to be to be a scii. On the net there seemed to be an issue about DMA support for these devices for your mobo. Apparently for no reason a device that had DMA support reverts to PIO. A device like a CD-RW which expects DMA support and only has PIO can randomly crash a computer. So, we'll make this

 

Issue 2 DMA support

There were two sets of opinions about how to enable DMA support. Both groups seem to think that simply enabling it through XP didn't resolve the DMA support. One group said, "you do need to run SISIDE.EXE to make sure that all of the drives are in the correct DMA mode. Siside.exe does not produce any output when executed. Be aware that It's not enough to set 'DMA if Available' in the device manager, you need to use the utility." The other group did not like using SISIDE.EXE and had this solution, "1st you have to set everything to PIO mode under device manager 'IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers'. Now After you have set both channels to PIO mode, reboot.When the system boots backup, change everything back to UltraDMA mode just like you did before. Reboot,and presto!"

 

Issue 3 XP shutdown

Some experienced problems in that shutdown proceded so hastily that some settings were not saved or became corrupted. This was given as a suggestion: "Some people suggest that modifying the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory management\ClearPageFileAtShutdown to a value of 1 could help because one is giving a 1-2 secs delay for Windows to properly write HDD cache to disk."

 

There were issues with the USB ports. Some had them configured properly, they just didn't work, yet XP reported them as just fine.

 

There were issues with IRQ sharing especially with SB soundcards. Too many to go into now.

 

There were several reports of those who had run their setup for months and then added a new device like a CD who started to have issues like the one's you've been having. Then, again, one fellow replaced his battery and took care of things.

 

When the machine was running at 100FSB did it ever give you a stop message?

When the machine freezes after 15-20 minutes does it give a stop message? Would you have a screensaver coming up about that time?

Is the stop message different when you try to play something as opposed to letting it fail by itself?

 

I know this is a nightmare for you, maybe something will pan out.

[shassouneh 0]

Dear Sampson,

First of all allow me to express my gratitude for you helping me out and being ever so patient with me. Let me clear up an important few points here.

1.) I only haver TWO CD devices, one is a PlexWriter 8/4/32 (8432A), and the other a DVD drive. Both are running on the IDE channels.

2.) The stop message I get 15 to 20 minutes after the system has booted up differs! For example, when Nero was running (not burning enaything) the stop error was IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Other times its something else like just a series of hexadecimal numbers.

3.) Heating Issues. Even though it seems like an appealing idea that the heatsink isn't installed or mounted right, i HIGHLY doubt it, since the system was working PERFECTLY without a single hitch at 1.4GHZ.

4.) @ 1GHZ (100MHZ FSB) the system works PERFECTLY! However (as described in my previous post) the system will not even boot at 1GHZ any more. Windows will just HANG so I'm stuck at 1.4GHZ and a maximum of 20 to 30 minutes of NON heavy work (again, running a game as demanding as RTCW will IMMEDIATELY cause a stop error).

5.) I have an SB PCI 512 sound card. My onboard sound card has been disabled in the BIOS.I have 5 PCI ports available, and putting the sound card in any of them doesn't help at all regardless of which slot I put the card in.

6.) My mouse is a logitech USB wireless optical mouse. Its running at the USB port right now. To convince myself that its not a mouse issue, I ran it on a PS2 port (using an adapter that came with the mouse). Heck i even completely removed the mouse (and took out the batteries) and plugged in an old-school PS2 mouse. None of what I did with the mouse configuration did anything. The system STILL behaves in exactly the same way.

7.) I tried the trick you described about PIO/DMA and restarted, etc.. No effect at all. The system STILL behaves in the same way.

 

It seems the BEST way to test the system is runn to Return to Castle Wolfenstein since its a demanding application, and it works just fine with the 1 GHZ configuration, but IMMEDIATEY causes a stop error in the 1.4GHZ configuration.

 

Again, Thanx to everyone for all the support and feedback. I really do appreciate it

[Dirty Harry 0]

Now, one thing at a time. Don't try to tinker with Bios, hardware and windows settings at the same time.

 

- Its unlikely a heat issue if your CPU temp is 38C (unless you burn your finger on the heatsink).

 

- Its unlikely a BIOS setting, because you've resetted BIOS by the CMOS jumper.

 

Where does this leave you ? I'd put my next research efforts on the "faulty hardware" theory.

 

Remove all components, put back only the very basics including floppy and see if you can boot. Then test mobo / cpu / ram separately.

 

H.

[Sampson 0]

shassouneh,

 

Cute name - Crashproof

 

Drive C:

Description Local Fixed Disk

Compressed No

File System FAT32

Size 14.64 GB (15,719,546,880 bytes)

Free Space 5.12 GB (5,494,857,728 bytes)

Volume Name WINDOWS

Volume Serial Number 103E17E9

 

Drive D:

Description Local Fixed Disk

Compressed No

File System FAT32

Size 23.64 GB (25,387,204,608 bytes)

Free Space 23.61 GB (25,347,031,040 bytes)

Volume Name STORAGE

Volume Serial Number 086717F4

 

Drive E:

Description Local Fixed Disk

Compressed No

File System FAT32

Size 2.93 GB (3,144,085,504 bytes)

Free Space 2.93 GB (3,143,942,144 bytes)

Volume Name CRASHPROOF

Volume Serial Number 065A17F6

 

Drive F:

Description CD-ROM Disc

 

Drive G:

Description CD-ROM Disc

 

Drive H:

Description Removable Disk

 

Drive I:

Description CD-ROM Disc

 

Drive M:

Description Network Connection

Provider Name \\linuxsux\mp3z

 

This is how your system sees your configuration. It counts 3 partitions on your hard drive and 3 CD Roms. Does that compute?

[shassouneh 0]

Hmm,weird. No it doesn't compute. I have A DVD drive a Burner (Cd rom),

so I have 2 CD ROM drives. The removable media is an external parralel port ZIP drive.

 

I am looking into the defective hardware theory! wish me luck

 

By the way, "crashproof" is a name i came up with since i would use that partition to dump any data i want to back up before an emergency format, hence its almost like "crash proofing" my system

 

ALSO NOTE: The sysinfo file above will be updated soon to reflect my NEW hardware configuration (the troublesome one). Check for the date of the file. Currently the date on the file is Apr 4th.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Good luck, concentrate on getting the sys up full speed on a DOS floppy !

 

H.

[Sampson 0]

Also in your sysinfo.txt it shows your hard disk to have six partitions. They are not accounted for in the portion I pasted in above. If they do exist and overlap with all of these "CD roms" this is where your STOP 0x00000023 error comes into play. The system is identifying a partition as a CD rom or viceversa.

 

Maybe it is time to look at a new controller card.

[shassouneh 0]

6 partitions:

C: (windows partition)

D: (storage partition)

E: ("crashproof" partition)

/: Linux roor partition

/swap: Linux Swap partition

/boot: Linux boot partition.

 

So the 6 partitions are well justfified. Again I shall update that sysinfo file soon, so keep checking it

[Dirty Harry 0]

Quote:

4.) This is a FRESH INSTALL of Windows XP. Meaning I already DID format and fdisk my hard drive.

OK, I took alook at your sysinfo file out of curiosity, altough I've already stated that you should leave Windoze out of the loop before you know your hardware is OK.

Your sysinfo says you have a floppy drive, and on a fresh install of XP you have TweakUI, Nero, Real Player etc etc installed ? You also seem to have plenty of programs loading with Windows. Just outta curiosity, how come your sysinfo is identifying your CPU correctly "Family 6 Model 4 Stepping 4" and saying it is running at the correct speed "AuthenticAMD ~1394 Mhz" and dated two weeks ago ?? I hope you have done a reformat & reinstall since this sysinfo was run... in which case this file doesn't describe your current system at all.

Once more, do your self a favour and don't even try to boot into XP before you get the system booted full speed from a DOS disk. If your current XP install doesn't work then you should try a barebone XP installation from scratch with the bare minimum of hardware connected. No extra cards, no printers, nothing extra.

H.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

Hey Admiral,
there are no Mobos or CPU's or RAM running a true 266 FSB as you describe it. They all do 133 FSB counting one upwards and one downwards on the sinus curve.

So - whats your point ?

H.

My point was that it's not actually a 266Mhz bus and it really shouldn't be referred to as such much like you shouldn't refer to an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ as being an 1800Mhz processor.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Yes, you are right - but not all of the world is listening.

The marketing guys in the DDR dept just love the 266 stuff.

 

H.

[shassouneh 0]

Hey guys,

I just talked to a freind about my problem(s) and he has STRONGLY suggested I look into getting myself a better/bigger fan, even though mine seems to be working OK, at least for 1 GHZ. I think it is an un-eliminatable possibility that my problems are strictly temperature based, so I shall be looking into getting a better fan/heat sink/etc...

 

After you guys have read through this post what fan/heatsink combo would you guys recommend for Athlon THUNDERBIRD processors running around 1GHZ to 1.7GHZ (just in case I decide to upgrade my processor late, my mobo supports AThlon xp processors )

[Sampson 0]

shassouneh,

 

Glad you are looking at the heat issue. The factors you want to consider with the heatsink/fan are the volume of air that it pumps and the noise it makes to do it. Installation of the device is the devil in the details. There isn't a lot of room on some of these mobos so clearance is one problem. How it attaches is a big problem especially with AMD processors. Some heatsinks like the AlphaPal practically require you to tear the whole machine apart to attach it.

 

Humor me once more if you would. Bring up your System Information program. Click on the plus next to Components and the plus next to MultiMedia, then CDRom. What does it say? Do the same for Storage and Drives. What does this say?

 

This process will actively query what you have in there.

 

Harry is urging you to consider that one or more physical devices may be the culprit, which may have been harmed by a possible heat issue or an electrical surge, and a methodical bare bones installation of XP is a good first step to eliminating those as a problem. Only then should you move on to something else.

 

I am still puzzled by the number of CDroms reported, the SCSI devices, etc. Don't worry about an A drive when you don't have one installed, all Windows versions reserve an IRQ and memory map for one whether one is truly there or not. It's a database entry.

 

You won't go wrong in addressing heat management, but you might consider eliminating the possibility that other devices need to be tested before introducing new hardware into the equation.

[shassouneh 0]

You have a point Sampson that is certainly worthy of consideration. Hwoever, due to the fact that the computer functions almost flawlessly at 1GHZ, I am lead to beleive it is an overheating issue. Right now I'm running it at 1 GHZ to avoid damage that can be caused by overheating.

Does anybody know where i can get a decent heatsink and fan combo for Athlona and Athlon XP processors ???

[Brian Frank 0]

www.newegg.com

 

Look for the Vantec CCK-6027D. Copper cooler, and I run a 1.4GHz T-Bird with it. Great performance for the money.

[shassouneh 0]

Copper? I thought Aluminum was much better than copper! ????

[Dirty Harry 0]

1. Copper is definately better than aluminium, but more expensive. Which heatsink speced for an Athlon 1400 or higher you use is less important than the amount of air blowing on it and that you have perfect contact between sink and CPU. Put arctic silver inbetween, and follow the instructions for applying it literally..

 

2. Your CPU temp is reported as a perfectly normal 38 C. An Athlon is speced to work at 70C altough you don't want to see that high temps.

Either your heat sensor is defect, not touching the CPU properly or heat is not your problem.

 

I still think the first steps to perform is to connect a floppy drive and see if you can boot to DOS running 1400 Mhz. You cannot have that big a heat problem that this wouldn't work. I noted that you have the voltage setting at 1.80, if my memory serves me correct the default value for your CPU is 1.75V. So your bios settings are wrong !!

 

I'm starting to wonder what is going on here; it appears

- you ignore the simplest troubleshooting solutions

- your Win install is apparently not a fresh one

- you have not resetted the CMOS succesfully

 

H.

[Palos 0]

I have an Alpha PAL8045 for my TbirdC @ 1.33 GHz, works ok, a bit hot at 54 C full blast...now back to your problem:

 

Did you ever clean the Fan/cooler? Did you try booting/running with other RAM sticks other than yours? Did you change around any hardware since you installed XP Pro? (different PCI slots in use, RAM sticks in different slots, etc, etc...). Do you have an extra network card in use besides the built-in LAN? Where do you have XP Pro from? (pc store or DevilsOwn).

 

Just try to answer to all questions, Im working on an old theory of mine...fyi I had almost the same symptoms a while back.

[Alien 1]

Hey, shassouneh - I don't know why you're complaining about CPU temp with your CPU @ only 38&degC - mine's [Athlon XP 1900 @ 1.6Ghz] @ 52&degC!!!! Time to mod the case fan holes I think - they don't let enough air in & out.

[shassouneh 0]

Correction, CPU Voltage : 1.792 volts

Average CPU temperature:38C as reported by BIOS with an open case.

 

Again, the machione runs perfectly at 1 GHZ but not at 1.4GHZ which urges me to accept an over-heating theory.

 

Please re-read the data given.

 

Can anyone help me still? This problem is way too irritating