ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

prime 95 has been running for a few hours now:
samsung memory 1600 11-11-11-28 1.35V (all manf spec)
FX-8350 core voltage 1.365 temp 68C

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Prime95 augmented with furmark to stress the video and power system is stable:
core voltage 1.365 memory voltage 1.35
cpu temp 70C gpu temp 77C

I think there is a BIOS defect or a motherboard hardware design defect that is causing incompatibility with the FX-8350

I shouldn't have to overdrive the CPU voltage to have stability at stock speeds.

I'm still open to other suggestions but I'm voting thumbs down for the ASROCK 970 extreme 4 at this point, or I suppose it could be a bad batch of AMD processors which seems unlikely.

[- wardog -]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

vdroop?

Grab HWMonitor and look at your v's when idle and more so when you start up prime95. On stock voltages mind you because errors are happening there much sooner, and shouldn't be. Nice because it shows Current and Min + Max for reference.

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

I have been thinking about and watching voltage droop. I wonder why it is called vroop. I think someone left out the d in droop!

I'm not sure how reliable HW monitor is for the voltage measurement nor how accurate the ADC on the motherboard is. Certainly the resolution isn't great but I have noticed that the voltage seems low if I am to believe it. I'll runs some tests so we can have some data to look at.


with the voltage upped to 1.365...

running idle I see about .9V in HW monitor. With one core running prime 95 (just to get the voltage all the way up without loading the regulators too heavily) I see 1.312 or 1.320.

with prime95 running 8 cores I see 1.25-1.26.

So yes they seem low. I thought LCC was supposed to help with this. I don't know why they don't use a control loop to drive drive the setpoint to match the reading. I guess that is what the LCC feature is supposed to do.

I'll put it back down to stock voltage control and take the readings again.

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Interestingly when set to 1.365, in the bios hardware monitor the voltage reads at 1.31 but when setting back to auto (presumably 1.30V) I see 1.33 in the bios hardware monitor.

Back in windows 8, HW Monitor shows around 0.85V to 0.9V at idle. With one core loaded in Prime95 I see 1.37V and with 8 cores loaded I see 1.23V dropping as low as 1.18V

Not very good regulation. I'm surprised to see 1.37V on stock voltage with 1 core! That said I don't know what the regulation spec is on the FX processors but I'd imagine it's reasonably tight if adjustments are in increments of 10s of mV.

Lost core 5 after 10 minutes.

[- wardog -]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Try something if you would. If you haven't yet, disable LLC in the bios and retest while watching voltages. Any diff in min max?

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Try something if you would. If you haven't yet, disable LLC in the bios and retest while watching voltages. Any diff in min max?

That is not something I have tried (and should have). Will see what it does.

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Turning off LCC didn't go so well with stock voltage:

Core voltage set to automatic
CPU temp 28C
idle at 0.856V
1 core stress as 1.408V
8 core stress locked up windows after 2 sec
rebooted and tried 8 core stress again, also locked up windows

set core voltage to 1.3625, again with LCC off
idle at 0.856V
1 core stress at 1.336V
8 core stress at 1.372V temp at 70C after 10 minutes, windows locked up after 20 minutes.

voltage control on this boards sure seems a bit wonky. Odd that in auto voltage mode (presumably 1.30V?) the 1 core stress voltage is 1.408 while when set to 1.365 for the core voltage the HW monitor reading is lower at 1.336V

[Kornivsky]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

I would recommend you get other mob. Really man,I have asrock 970 extreme3 and an fx 8320...and you know what,I'm in same **** as you.. Now I even had a problem,that I can't boot ( screen goes idle/sleeping mode on booting),so I switched back to my old mob. Also,I had problems with temps,with I never really experienced..

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

I would recommend you get other mob. Really man,I have asrock 970 extreme3 and an fx 8320...and you know what,I'm in same **** as you.. Now I even had a problem,that I can't boot ( screen goes idle/sleeping mode on booting),so I switched back to my old mob. Also,I had problems with temps,with I never really experienced..

Yeah I don't know. It sure seems fishy to have 3 systems all doing the same thing! Maybe I should send them all back. I hate to have to tear all the systems down and rebuild with new motherboards. It'll take a whole day ACK!

Thanks ASRock! :(

[Kornivsky]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Yeah I don't know. It sure seems fishy to have 3 systems all doing the same thing! Maybe I should send them all back. I hate to have to tear all the systems down and rebuild with new motherboards. It'll take a whole day ACK!

Thanks ASRock! :(

I had same problem. Now,I'm just waiting till 27 date comes,then I'll take my mob back to store and get another one,couse CPU seems performing good,all,what is making this mess is mob.

[ASRock TSD - Emily]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Dear all,

I did the test with the old version Prime95 v25.9 and could see the symptom.
Prime95 test will be failed within 30 seconds.

But we use the latest Prime95 ver27.9 to retry the test, 970 Extreme4 with FX-8350 run Prime95 test over 3 hours are passed.
This issue is related to the test tool "Prime95".

Please kindly dowbload the latest Prime95 ver27.9 on internet and then retry the test again.

If any question, please kindly contact me.
Thank you very much!

Have a nice day
ASRock TSD
Emily

[pmarcus]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Dear all,

I did the test with the old version Prime95 v25.9 and could see the symptom.
Prime95 test will be failed within 30 seconds.

But we use the latest Prime95 ver27.9 to retry the test, 970 Extreme4 with FX-8350 run Prime95 test over 3 hours are passed.
This issue is related to the test tool "Prime95".

Please kindly dowbload the latest Prime95 ver27.9 on internet and then retry the test again.

If any question, please kindly contact me.
Thank you very much!

Have a nice day
ASRock TSD
Emily

Thank you Emily, These tests were done with the latest version of PRIME95 released in May 2012 according to the prime95 website. The latest version of prime95 listed is 27.7 which is what was used in the testing( http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/). Can you direct us to the 27.9 version? Or was that a typo.

It appears that your assertion that the version of prime95 causing the problem is incorrect. Additionally we have seen, during the burnins at stock voltages general system instability on top of prime95 failure (i.e. blue screens of death in windows 8). If the problem were just the benchmark tool the system stability would not likely be affected. ( I don't think).

We can certainly run some other stress tests as well if the quality of prime95 is in question.

It also doesn't make sense that if prime95 were at fault, that the stability could be cured with core voltage increase.

ASRock is the expert though, if I am misunderstanding or misinterpreting please let us know. We are absolutely looking to you for customer support in this situation and truly appreciate you expertise.

Could you also share the bios settings you are using during your tests. Are you set at pure factory defaults with BIOS 2.2.

[- wardog -]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

Please kindly dowbload the latest Prime95 ver27.9 on internet and then retry the test again.

prime95 v27.9 is not currently available from the mersenne download page but can be retrieved directly using their mirror/repository at:

mersenneforum GIMPS Mirror

[- wardog -]

Re: ASRock 970 Extreme4 FX-8350 Unstable with Stock Settings

pmarcus, did you see we were posting the same time of prime95 v27.9?

I just added a link to the 27.9 release.

And yes, it would have been nice to have Emily add the link.