STOP errors maybe related to faulty cache memory? NEED HELP

[Dirty Harry 0]

Quote:

[defaulting to 100/100] ... is very common, as a safety factor, to default to the lower system bus speed upon a CMOS reset. Consider it analagous to your video drivers defaulting to 60hz refresh rate.

Can very well be, I've been on Abit-boards for sooo long. My KG7R finds the CPU correctly upon first boot (or after clearing CMOS). But why are the voltages wrong ?
If this is a safety factor the advice is: set the CPU settings as they should be, boot to DOS from a floppy, stress mem and CPU a bit on 11.5 x 133 and see if it works.
BTW, I subscribe to the statement "Just because the system ran for 6 months does not mean it should still run"

H

[Alien 1]

Quote:

If this is a safety factor the advice is: set the CPU settings as they should be, boot to DOS from a floppy, stress mem and CPU a bit on 11.5 x 133 and see if it works.H

You might wanna re-read that Harry...

[shassouneh 0]

Ok dear folks. I'm kinda overwhelmed with questions and information to go through here. Let me reply to as many questions as I can remmember

 

1.) Surge Protection: No I don't have any surge protection of any kind. Sorry folks. And we've been having pretty smooth weather here, so the last thunderstrike was "ages" ago, LOL. The theory that other devices might have caused damage seems still reluctantly very probable

 

2.) Defaulting to 100/100: When the CMOS (BIOS) is reset it ALWAYS defaults to 100/100 MHZ. I always had to manually set it to 133/133MHZ to get the processor running at 1.4GHZ. When I first got the board/memory/cpu/psu, I did just that and it started to work OK on 1.4GHZ.

 

3.) Stressing it under DOS: Does anybody know of command-line software that could start from say a regular win98 boot disk/CD (not full DOS) that I could do to try to stress the CPU under DOS?

 

4.) Stressing it under Other OSs: Should I even try Win2k SP2 or SuSE Linux 7.3, or do you think I'm gonna run into similar problems no matter what OS(s) I have installed?

 

5.) Voltages? As you can tell I'm a complete idiot when dealing with detailed CPU / Voltage terminology. All I do know is that I have NO CONTROL WHATSOEVER on these voltages. I can ONLY change the 100/100, 100/133, or 133/133MHZ setting. The Bios "greys out" everything else.

 

6.) Heat Damage: Again, I never said my problem is not related to heat or heat damage, HOWEVER, judging from the fact that the procesor still CAN run at 1.4GHZ (although unstable) suggests (keyword suggests) that maybe (keyword maybe) heat is not the immediate cause of my headaches.

 

7.)

Quote:

Dump the junk and go Intel...

, yeah, FAT CHANCE that's gonna happen with me being a broke college student. LOL (no offense Palos).

 

Let me see, I'm STILL open to ideas and thoughts, so please do not hesitate to add your 2 cents to this thread

 

PS: Note, again, When I use capital letters I use them for emphasis. I do not intend to "shout" or have a sharp tone of any kind. Its just sort of phonetic.

[ironwalker 0]

I dont want to further confuse you at all here,but is this a proprietory machine (dell,compaq,hp,gateway)?

 

Was this a propritory machine with a new mainboard or cpu?

 

What bios version are ya running(usually tells at post on top)?

 

 

Have you tried to update the bios and if so was it a modded bios or beta version?

 

Please post bios type and version.give me exact modle number of your board and i will do some research:D

[shassouneh 0]

No, Proprietary? He** NO, LOL. I should know better. I built this machine myself. The BIOS date on it is September 20, 2001. I CANNOT UPADTE the BIOS on it since I don't have a floppy disk drive.

 

 

IMPORTAND URGENT UPDATE:

The system will now NOT BOOT WHATSOEVER at 1.4 GHZ. After it goes through the POST/BIOS thingy, it HANGS (freezes)! As a matter of fact, If i try to go into BIOS setup to change it back to 100/100MHZ (1GHZ) then it simply freezes too! THE ONLY way to get the machine to work and boot is to Manualy rest the CMOS/BIOs to 1GHZ and boot that way, so I can now ONLY boot at 1GHZ. Any ideas anyone?

Please respond if you can, this may suggest sever hardware damage, and I really want to know if that's the case!

[Davros 0]

I don't mean to sound harsh, but you've been given tons of ideas, and lists of things to try. Some very logical thinking from everyone participating in this thread, but it doesn't seem to me that you've followed any of the advice yet. You just keep rebooting into 100/100 or 133/133 and then coming here to tell us it still doesn't work. What do you think is going to happen? We can't fix your box over the internet! Print this thread out, get offline, and remove stuff from your comp systematically to see which component is bad. You could have done that 5 times over by now!

 

Again, I'm not trying to insult you or anything, just trying to get the message across. Nothing will change unless YOU do something. So go get to it!

[Dirty Harry 0]

Shassouneh,

Your PC is getting sicker by the day, and I have to agree with Davros feeling that you are not really using the advice you get.

 

After you cleaned the CPU, what type of termal paste did you use ? How did you apply it ? What was there before (paste or sticker)? You do have a heatsink with a working fan on that CPU ? Pls confirm make and model.

 

Please report make and model of the PSU. The overvoltage on your CPU causes extra heat, and the other odd voltages cause instability. You just have to test with another PSU to see if thats the problem

 

What is your current idle CPU temp? Boot to bios, leave it at 100/100, stare at the Bios screen five minutes not touching anything and read the CPU temp. That must be a fairly consistent value.

 

How difficult can it be to put in a floppy drive, after all you can buy them cheaply. You have another computer too, don't you? Take the PSU from there (if 250W or bigger) and try that.

 

Why don't you remove all and any extra hardware ? Your sysinfo still shows, among other things, DVD players and printers installed.

 

Given that you had this system running 6 months with the current BIOS and hardware I would not recommend o update it before you've solved your current problem.

 

A win 98 boot disk is essentially the same thing as a DOS disk. Before you get that running its just a waste of time to try to get into Windows or Linux or whatever. Again, the idea is to establish a minimal working configuration, to eliminate all non essential hard- and software that could cause trouble (or drain power)

 

H.

[Sampson 0]

shassouneh,

It seems that when you built this system, you were one of the fortunate few who assembled it and added feature after feature - DVD's, CD-Roms, various printers, without so much as a hiccup. Your first presumption was that there was a software conflict though all the symptoms pointed to a heat problem and with it timing errors. You were loathe to accept those diagnoses until some friend felt that that was the problem and this only after many posts questioning you.

 

We don't get feedback from you as to what you are actually doing with the machine. As Davros says you keep rebooting, but little else. You answer questions but only partially. You've sent us two sysinfo.txt but I have no idea if these were produced from a clean install or that you simly removed hardware from the device manager.

 

On the message boards there are numerous posts of your motherboard in combination with the 1.4 Athlon having exactly the same problems as yours. The advice there is better heatsink and fan for the CPU and better contact for the heatsink for the chipset.

 

You tell us that you don't know the Bios version but it is dated 9/20/2001. There are some 10 Bios upgrades for this board on the ECS support website. Some of which adjust timing and stability and some of them correct certain readings like temp.

 

Work from the ground up. Harry can't make it plainer. If you want that system to work, go step by step and build it.

[Dirty Harry 0]

I can't believe this. I feel like a complete idiot.

I've spent hours on trying to help this guy, who posted just some 4 months ago IN THIS OTHER THREAD on this very board:

 

"I see. I think it may be overheating actualy. I do NOT have a heat sink! All i have is a mall fan!"

Shassounes himself posted these immortal words November 28th, 2001, while happily running a AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHZ.

 

Several people showed him links why not to do this, and told him what happens if you run an Athlon without a heatsink.

 

And in this, the current thread, just a few messages back Shassounes writes "Does anybody know where i can get a decent heatsink and fan combo for Athlona and Athlon XP processors". That should have made my early warning system go off, just by itself. Well, I was suspecting he is hiding something, I should just have listened to my intuition and told him to water cool his system with the garden hose.

 

Shassounes, sell or give away your computer, this is not a hobby for you. But do it fast, you are likely to hurt yourself on the PC if you persist.

 

H.

 

--------

So many a$$holes, so few bullets...

[shassouneh 0]

THE REPLY TO THIS POST IS TOO LONG. I had to upload it. You can get it HERE:

Its a text file

[shassouneh 0]

Here is the info I collected for my power supply and Temperature, along with the link to the UPDATED sysinfo (with minimal hardware) for those of you who care.

 

Power Supply:

400 W generic (no brand name can be seen). There is some serial numbers and such. It has a model number: LPH2

Made In Thailand. LA112364 Level 3

FCC / UR / and SA symbold appear

 

Temperature And Voltage (from BIOS, sitting idle for about 7 minutes):

Vcore: 1.792 V

Vcc2.5v: 2.496 V

Vcc3.3v: 3.254 V

Vcc5v: 4.865 V / 4.892 V (it varies between them. seithching every 2 to 3 seconds).

+12v: 12.416 V / 12.352 V (it varies between them. swithching every 2 to 3 seconds).

SB3v: 3.472 V

-12v: --11.393 V

SB5V: 5.053 V

VBAT: 3.472 V

SYSTEM Fan Speed: 0 RPM

CPU FAN Speed: 5113 RPM / 5273 RPM (it varies between them. swithching every 2 to 3 seconds).

SYSTEM Temperature: 23C/73F

CPU Temperature: 61C/141F

 

 

Here is the updated sysinfo.zip file. NOTE: You will find a sound card in it called "Sis7012". This is the onboard sound card (comes with the motherboard) and it has been disabled in the BIOS. Also, some form of AMR modem comes onboard and it has also been disabled in the BIOS. The Sis7012 has a status of "error" which is obviously due to it being disabled in the BIOS

 

OPEN ME IN A WEB BROWSER, then use right click/save target as

[Alien 1]

Quote:

<snippage>.........Shassounes, sell or give away your computer, this is not a hobby for you. But do it fast, you are likely to hurt yourself on the PC if you persist.

H.

--------
So many a$$holes, so few bullets...

LMAO I wouldn't even run a P90 without a heatsink!

It might not be relevant, but as soon as I read this I had a flashback of this advert they used to show on british TV [i think it had Harry Enfield in it] for a chocolate coated toffee bar called "Dime". This well-spoken bloke brandishing a mic & a Dime bar & being followed by a camera crew tries to persuade this shabbily dressed country bumpkin/poor farmer type [for the Americans reading this - picture someone out of the Beverly Hillbillies & you won't be too far off] of the merits of a Dime bar, explaining that it's "crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside". The farmer pulls out an Armadilo, & exclaims "Armadilloes!!! Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, armadilloes!!!" without dropping the strand of straw he has stuck in his mouth, & trundles off with his shopping trolley leaving the other guy looking on in disbelief.

BTW. I didn't think a T-bird would last more than a few mins without an adequate HSF without being permanently damaged?

[shassouneh 0]

Quote:

BTW. I didn't think a T-bird would last more than a few mins without an adequate HSF without being permanently damaged?

Quote:

LMAO I wouldn't even run a P90 without a heatsink!

Read my previous post (the text file). It turns out I had a heat sink all along! An Aluminum one I beleive

[Alien 1]

Quote:

Read my previous post (the text file). It turns out I had a heat sink all along! An Aluminum one I beleive

I have done now, you must have posted that whilst I was writing my post.

I think you do need a new HSF though, as your CPU is rather on the warm side. Mine's a 1.6Ghz & currently @ 49&degC - the hottest I've seen it go is 55&degC, & that was only cos my room was really warm.

[Davros 0]

Shassouneh,

 

I'm sorry if we made you feel stupid. I don't think you are an idiot, and I totally understand your lack of time to deal with your computer troubles. Some of us (speaking for myself, guys) have lots of free time to screw around with this stuff and are used to resolving problems very quickly (hopefully), especially if it's on the job. You have been extraordinarily patient and polite in this forum, and for that I will try to help you, and hopefully others will follow suit.

 

After re-reading much of this thread, and the one from a few months ago, it is evident to me, as it should be to you, that the cause of your problem is lack of adequate cooling. Upgrade your HSF (HeatSink/Fan) and use Arctic Silver thermal paste. You can find dozens of tutorials on the tech sites about this and many other hardware topics as well. I suggest that you use some of the scarce free time you have to read some of these articles from time to time, just to keep up on current hardware and how to keep it running top-notch.

 

Your CPU is probably damaged beyond repair and may never run at full capacity. I suggest you just chalk this one up to experience and run it at 100/100 until the day you can buy new parts.

 

Now, about your start menu problem, try copying the Programs folder from your Shassouneh profile to the All Users profile and see what happens.

[shassouneh 0]

Dear Davros,

Thank you for your help and kind words. The same goes to Alien too.

 

As for the CPU being damaged beyond repair, I would sincerely hate for that to be the case, BUT as Alien and yourself have said, i seem to be having heat problems anyways, so I am gonna have to account for that as a possible factor.

As for buying a heat sink, I am more than willing to buy one, but I need some advice. For example, is there a "rating" of any kind to go by? Which is better, Copper or Aluminum? Does it matter HOW MUCH thermal paste I apply? etc...

I know all of my questions may seem euther too simple or trivial for you, but please do humor me and give me some advice. If you don't have the time, direct me to a site or something that has more info about this.

One other question is, is there ANY possibility whatsoever that If i get a quote-unquote "better" heat sink I may be able to operate at 1.4GHZ. I will operate at 1 gig if i have to, but you know how it is..

 

Thank you again for all your help and patience everyone. I appreciate the time, effort, and patience you put in to assist me.

 

 

Oh, btw. I tried what you said for the start menu Davros. It didn't solve the problem. I even logged on with a differnt user name to no avail. I also tried restaring. Is there a way to "repair" the start menu directory?

Maybe there is a registry entry of some sort that is disabling it?

 

Anyways, I await your replies (if any)

[Dirty Harry 0]

Alright Shassounes, maybe I was too harsh with you, sorry. I couldn't know that it was a mistake that you stated that you don't have a heatsink at all, and that would've been a cardinal sin. Don't know why but I feel for your problems.

 

To solve your problem you need to proceed systematically, noting what you've done and how you changed things and what happened. It makes no sence for you to try to fix windows errors (like in your other thread) when you have this problem at hand. You can't start building a new house by putting in the second floor first either. You'll have to do a complete reinstall from scratch before your system is up and running again, if that is ever to be possible. Sorry to say but it is likely that Davros is right and your CPU or another component is permanently damaged.

 

Your CPU idle temp is now ("after 7 minutes idle, case open") extraordinarely high. 61C as a idle temp is in fact so high, that your machine could (would) propably crash just because of the effort of loading windows (or shortly after). Your CPU is specced to run up to 70C under full load, like an hour of intensive Max Payne fraggin. This, the full-load temp, will be 5-20 C higher than the idle temp, depending on your heatsinks efficiency. Previously you reported CPU temps lot lower than now. I suspect that something maybe went wrong when you reassembled (after reading the text on the CPU). The idle value is the lowest one you'll ever have, machine running for a while. Forget the temp at startup, idle temp from now on means as you've just measured it.

 

Question 1. Describe your heatsink (height, width, lenght). How is it attatched to the CPU ? looks aluminium ? fins, pins etc ?

 

Question 2. If you do have a fan attached to the sink, how big is it (40mm/60mm/80mm or in inches if you prefer) and in which direction is it now blowing (onto the sink or away from the sink)?

 

Question 3. Did you use something (thermal grease, a sticky pad, Arctic Silver etc) inbetween heatsink and CPU when you reassembled after checking the CPU numbers? How did you take away the old gooey on sink and CPU?

 

Question 4. Are you sure that the bottom of your heatsink is in firm, flat contact with the CPU. Be careful when checking, if you press and twist too much you could break the ceramic surface of the CPU.

 

 

Voltages... there isn't much you can do about these without another PSU and we do not (cannot) know wether they are reported (by the sensors onboard) inaccurately or if they are truly wrong, unless you have a voltometer handy. The overvoltage on your CPU (1.792 instead of 1.75V) is propably just causing some extra heat, but the undervoltage on some of the others could maybe contribute to the instability. As long as your idle temp is 61 his is a minor problem anyhow.

 

Wait for comments on questions 1-4 before you proceed (just to avoid further damage).

 

When you have a disk drive and a W98 boot disk ready, download the mem test program suggested earlier in this thread. Disconnect all nonessential hardware. Just pull out the cables from your CD's, harddisk etc and take out all extra cards, printers etc. With other words, you only leave the mobo, CPU (with heatsink & fan), one stick of RAM, the shining new floppy drive and the graphics card in the pc and only hook up the monitor and the keyboard. See then if you can boot into 1400 Mhz repetedly with this setup, and when you can, run the memtest program (from a separate floppy) for 30 mins or so. Maybe a CPU test proggy is good too, we can revisit which one later.

 

Just to be absolutely clear: The procedure is to get the PC to boot OK at 1400 mhz, then getting some test programs running OK from a diskette, then adding a hard drive (still booting from floppy), then renstalling XP OK, then adding the rest of the hardware one piece at a time and so on. There are no shortcuts, a machine which cannot boot allright will not run anyhting OK. Forget your WIN install and the sysinfos, they are totally irrelevant as long as you can't even boot the machine consistently at its default.

 

Keep the spirit up !

 

H.

 

P.S. stop calling your CPU "supposedly 266 capable". You've read the text etched onto it yourself, and if you read it and transmitted it correctly it proves your CPU is a 266 one.

[shassouneh 0]

Dear All,

I have just committed and act of Pure Stupidity that is unforgivable indeed. As I took out the fan to measure it and write down various numbers and its dimensions, I then placed it back. Only this time (mr idiot here) forgot to PLUG IN the damn fan to the fan outlet!! This resulted in frying the processor completely, if not the motherboard!

The end result of this is All this thread has been a waste of your time. Allow me to sincerely appologize for your loss in time. I really am an Idiot, and I certainly and sincerely appolgize for wasting your time with an idiot like me. I am lucky to have my old machine running, even though I will miss playing all the games. An idiot like me does not deserve a powerful computer it seems.

 

Yes, you're probably banging your head for the waste of time, and I know Dirty harry, and Sampson are doing it the most. For that All I can do is ask you to accept my appologies. That's the best I can do right now.

 

Since most of the hardware is either unusable or too new for my old machine, I am in the process of testing individual components, and I will be putting the working ones on sale, or maybe on ebay.

Again, I appologize sooooooo much for wasting your time like this. It is a mistake I never intended on doing, and its one of the few things any smart computer science student "should know better".

 

Please do accept my appologies. The last thing I ask is you keep this thread open (for other idiots like me) to read it and learn from my mistakes!

 

Wish me luck.

Peace, and Sorry yet another time

[Davros 0]

Oh man, that sucks! Sorry to hear that. Don't get upset though and rush to sell everything and give up on computers. Everyone that fools with hardware has made mistakes and ruined something at one point or another. I fried a Soundblaster card once when I plugged a powered input into the line out jack, like a retard. A friend of mine was building a brand spanking new box with all the best new stuff, and when he switched it on, it smoked and caught fire because he forgot to put the spacers on the motherboard tray. Consider yourself much wiser than before now. I think you should go to pricewatch.com and find yourself a good amd processor/heatsink/fan bundle. Your hard drive and motherboard are probably still ok, but if you want to check it, the only way now is to get your hands on another cpu. Or maybe just take a break for a few weeks to catch up with school, I know this has been a distraction for a while now. Good luck and try not to be discouraged!

[Dirty Harry 0]

Hey, sh1t happens. And it wasn't really a waste of time, and the moments I tought you're running the rig w/o sink at all were even memorable.

 

Buy a decent heatsink for yor next Athlon (they're bigger and bulkier than any you've seen) and a new CPU and there you go - your system should be up and running in no time. If not, buy a new mobo etc.

 

H.

[ironwalker 0]

sorry to hear that,but not a waste,im sure we all learned somethn' from this grand thread.

good luck and keep us posted:D

[shassouneh 0]

Thank you all for your support and nice gestures. I certainly appreciate them. I have taken the initiative to test various parts to make sure thery're working. The memory, video card, power supply, and sound card are all working (phew). I have yet to test the hard drive and motherboard. I hope the motherboard is not fried as it has a built in lan card I use. If it is not fried, I may buy an athlon Xp processor later when my economic situation allows.

Is there a way I can test the motherboard to see if its working without using a processor? Nobody wants to trust me with borrowing a processor (for OBVIOUS reasons).

Anyways, Thanx again soooooo much for all your help and support. I sincerely hope it has not been a complete waste of your time, and I hope someone learns from my mistakes through this thread (me being the first to learn ironically).

Does Anybody know where i can get a SUPER heatsink for a future processor?I'mthinking of buying an Athlon XP processor sincemy motherboard supports XP processors. That is, of coarse, if its not entirely fried.

[Davros 0]

I'm not too familiar with the Athlon heatsink market, because I have used Intel mostly (chipsets supporting amd suck imho), but I do know many online vendors will sell cpu/hsf bundles. You know you need a cpu, so get one and try it in your mobo. Then buy a new mobo if you need it. Maybe you should wait until you have money for both, just in case you have to buy the mobo also.

[shassouneh 0]

Thanx davros.

Quote:

You know you need a cpu, so get one and try it in your mobo. Then buy a new mobo if you need it. Maybe you should wait until you have money for both, just in case you have to buy the mobo also.

I still think I need to see if my mobo is working. If its NOT I may as well save my money and sell the working components. If it IS, the I can consider a CPU/HSF combo purchase. Please let me know what you guys think. So there is no way I can test the motrherboard as it stands?

[Dirty Harry 0]

If your mobo isn't working you can't sell it, and the other components go in any motherboard, don't they ? But you'll never know if your mobo is working before you've plugged a new CPU in it. If you're short on cash, just buy a new CPU to start with, and when you are at the shop, buy that freaking floppy drive too !!!

 

The by far most likely thing that has happened is that you've fried your CPU (actually I was about to write ..you've just fried your CPU...) My guess is that you've partially damaged it earlier already, and thats why disabling the cache seemed to fix your problem.

 

There is no way a home user (or many PC shops) can test a mobo without CPU and RAM. Personally I would feel very confident (usual disclaimers apply) that you run an almost zero risk if you plug in a brand new CPU in your mobo. It will either work or not work but your mobo is unlikely to damage it, as long as you have a suitable heatsink/fan combo properly installed. Obviously you shouldn't use your old one, and if you buy an Athlon XP dont't get nervous if it boots up funny, your bios is old etc. But check that your Mobo's newest bios update supports that new CPU.

 

As you're not an overclocker, you can buy pretty much any heatsink/fan combo intended for your new Athlon. The differences are really not that big between various sinks, a few degrees at most. Do buy a sink made for a 80 mm fan and a good, sleave bearing 3500-5000 rpm fan to go with it. Make sure its running at all times (big grin). The fan should blow inwards, onto the sink.

 

Plenty of info about coolers you'll find HERE and lots of test results of different coolers is located HERE.

As said, the main thing is the fan, but don't overdo it, a 7000 rpm Delta fan is almost as noisy as a jumbo jet.

 

H.