Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

[wallypiper]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

Backup completed.
Reboot successful two times.

I believe the problem was really my graphics card. On this board, the SATA sockets are on the right side, near the bottom of the board. The PCI-E slot is just a little higher up the board. The graphics card I have is so thick at that end, that I believe it was "leaning" on the SATA connector when it was in the -0 slot. It's now in the -5 slot and is working fine there.

All those settings. All these hours of scratching my head and beating it against the wall. And it was a mechanical problem with the location of the socket and size of the graphics card. I assume that it has been like that all along but maybe when I moved stuff around putting the new drive in, it got worse somehow. At any rate, there are 6 sockets and I only need 3 so -0 can just remain empty.


I'm going to bed.

[wallypiper]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

A bit more news. Right after I posted the above, I put the side cover back on the case and moved the box back into it's normal position (just a little turn) and when I looked up - BSOD. Being attuned to the connector problem I took a hard look and spotted a power cable that was pushing against one or both HD SATA cables, sort of pushing them up. Powered down and cover back off, I noted that the fit in the sockets on the mobo is pretty loose. I don't know if that's the mobo sockets or the ends of the SATA cables I have. At any rate, I put a wrap on the power wire to get it away from them and rebooted and all seems OK. Drive wise. No problems booting and no BSOD's since then which was, as you can see, almost 6 hours ago.
BUT, having fixed that I started Prime95 before going to bed and I'm sort of back where I started. All four workers eventually stopped with errors, one after just less than an hour, the last one after about 4 hours. High temps were similar to before, around the low 70s, maybe 69-72. Back at the beginning of yesterdays horrorshow, I thoroughly cleaned the inside of the case. There was a lot of dust but I think I did about as good a job as can be done without removing the cpu fan. I used both vacuum and some compressed air to blow/suck the dust from the heat sink fins on the processor and cleaned all the fans and screens. Back in April, when the stability appeared to be rock solid, the high temps running P95 were pretty similar to this. Obviously the P95 issues have nothing to do with the SATA problem. I guess I'll check into a better cooler of some kind for the cpu but I'd also love to hear of any BIOS tweaks that might help or what other tests I can run that might pin the problem down. To that end, my current BIOS settings follow. (Hey, Award, Gigabye, why don't you guys export the BIOS settings to a text file?)

[wallypiper]

Complete current bios settings list

Don't bother chastizing me for the format (tabbed text file gets trashed by the Vbulletin editor) or the lines with a value and "AUTO" listed. The information is listed the way that the BIOS screens present it. If you know that a value listed to the left of the "Auto" entry is meaningless, ignore it. Award doesn't label those values and no documentation of how to interpret these screens is included with the mobo from Gigabyte and, as far as I know, is not available from Award either.

Here it is, in its total and complete glory. The thing that currently intrigues me the most is that the new Hitachi HD is not listed anywhere. The old Seagate drive is there (and it's working) and the CD drive is there but not the new Hitachi drive. It is plugged into SATA2-2. The CD is in SATA2-1 and the Seagate is in SATA2-5. However, in Windows I can see the Hitachi drive, write to it, read from it, it has a drive letter and in all ways I can check is fully functional even though the BIOS doesn't appear to know its there.

One other thing, the setting for Performance Enhance was "Turbo" during the Prime95 test last night. I've changed that to Standard, as shown below, and will try a new Prime95 run with this setting.

BIOS settings at 7:40 AM on 8-30-2010 - System functional

INTELLIGENT TWEAKER

Robust Graphics Booster Auto
CPU Clock Ratio 8x
Fine Clock Ratio +0.5
---CPU Frequnecy 2.83GHz (333x8.5)

Clock Chip Control
CPU Host Clock Control Disabled
CPU Hots Frequency 333
PCI-E Frequency 100
C.I.A.2 Disabled

Advanced Clock Control
CPU clock drive 800mV
PCI-E clock drive 800mV
CPU Clock Skew 0ps
MCH Clock Skew 0ps

DRAM Performance Control
Performance Enhance Standard
X.M.P. Extreme Memory Profile Disabled
(G)MCH Frequency Latch Auto
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) Auto
Memory Frequency (Mhz) 1066
DRAM Timeing Selectable (SPD) Manual

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time 5
tRCD 5
tRP 5
tRAS 15
Advanced Timing Control
tRRD 4 Auto
tWTR 4 Auto
tWR 8 Auto
tRFC 68 Auto
tRTP 4 Auto
Command Rate (CMD) 0 Auto

Channel A Timing Settings
tRD Phase 0 adjustment 0 Auto
tRD Phase 1 adjustment 0 Auto
tRD Phase 2 adjustment 0 Auto
rRD Phase 3 adjustment 0 Auto
Trd 2nd (Different Rank) 8 Auto
Twr2wr (Different Rank) 8 Auto
Twr2rd (Different Rank) 7 Auto
Trd2wr (Same/Diff Rank) 9 Auto
DIMM1 Clock Skew Control Auto
DIMM2 Clock Skew Control Auto
DDR Write Training Auto
Channel A Driving Settings
Driving Strength Profile 1066 MHz
Data Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Cmd Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Ctrl Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Clk Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Data Driving Pull-Down Level Auto
Cmd Driving Pull-Down Level Auto
Ctrl Driving Pull-Down Level Auto
Clk Driving Pull-Down Level Auto

Channel B Timing Settings
tRD Phase 0 adjustment 0 Auto
tRD Phase 1 adjustment 0 Auto
tRD Phase 2 adjustment 0 Auto
rRD Phase 3 adjustment 0 Auto
Trd 2nd (Different Rank) 8 Auto
Twr2wr (Different Rank) 8 Auto
Twr2rd (Different Rank) 7 Auto
Trd2wr (Same/Diff Rank) 9 Auto
DIMM1 Clock Skew Control Auto
DIMM2 Clock Skew Control Auto
DDR Write Training Auto
Channel B Driving Settings
Driving Strength Profile 1066 MHz
Data Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Cmd Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Ctrl Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Clk Driving Pull-Up Level Auto
Data Driving Pull-Down Level Auto
Cmd Driving Pull-Down Level Auto
Ctrl Driving Pull-Down Level Auto
Clk Driving Pull-Down Level Auto

Motherboard Voltage Control
CPU
Load-Line Calibration Disabled
CPU Vcore 1.15000V Auto
CPU Termination 1.200V Auto
CPU PLL 1.550V Auto
CPU Reference 0.805V Auto
MCH/ICH
MCH Core 1.100V 1.200V
MCH Reference 0.760V Auto
ICH I/O 1.550V 1.550V
ICH Core 1.100V 1.100V
DRAM
DRAM Voltage 1.800V 2.100V

STANDARD CMOS FEATURES

IDE Channel 0 Master None
IDE Channel 0 Master Auto
Access Mode LBA
IDE Channel 0 Slave None
IDE Channel 0 Slave None
Access Mode LBA
IDE Channel 1 Master TSSTCorp CCDDVDW SH-S (CD drive)
IDE Channel 1 Master Auto
Acess Mode LBA
IDE Channel 1 Slave None
IDE Channel 1 Slave Auto
Access Mode Auto
IDE Channel 2 Master None
IDE Channel 2 Master Auto
Access Mode Auto
IDE Channel 3 Master ST31500341AS (Seagate HD, boot drive)
Extended IDE Drive Auto
Acess Mode Auto
Capacity 1500GB
Cylinder 65535
Head 16
Precomp 0
Landing Zone 65534
Sector 255
IDE Channel 4 Master None
Extended IDE Drive Auto
Access Mode Auto
IDE Channel 4 Slave None
Extended IDE Drive Auto
Access Mode Auto
Drive A None
Floppy 3 Mode Support Disabled
Halt On All, but keyboard
Base Memory 640K
Extended Memory 4094M
Total Memory 4096M

ADVANCED BIOS FEATURES
Hard Disk Boot Priority
1. Ch3M ST31500341AS
2. Bootable Add-in Cards
Quick Boot Disabled
First Boot Device Hard Disk
Second Boot Device CD ROM
Third Boot Device Disabled
Password Check Setup (never used this)
HDD S.M.A.R.T Capability Enabled
Limit CPUID Max. to 3 Disabled
No-Execute Memory Protect Enabled
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) Enabled
C2/C2E State Support Disabled
xC4/C4E State Support Disabled
CPU Thermal Monitor 2 (TM2) Enabled
CPU EIST Function Enabled
Virtualization Technology Enabled
Delay for HDD (Secs) 2
Full Screen LOGO Show Enabled
Backup BIOS Image to HDD Enabled
Init Display First PCI

INTEGRATED PERIPHERALS
ICH SATA Control Mode IDE
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode Enabled
Azalia Codec Auto
Onboard H/W LAN Enabled
Green LAN Disabled
>>Smart LAN (seems to work OK, built in test of some kind)
Onboard LAN Boot ROM Disabled
Onboard IDE Controller Enabled
Onboard Serial Port 1 3F8/IRQ4
Onboard Parallel Port 378/IRQ7
Parallel Port Mode SPP
USB 1.0 Controller Enabled
USB 2.0 Controller Enabled
USB Keyboard Function Enabled
USB Mouse Function Enabled
USB Storage Function Enabled

POWER MANAGEMENT SETUP
ACPI Suspend Type S3 (STR)
Soft-Off by PWR-BTTN Instant-Off
PME Event Wake Up Enabled
Power On by Ring Enabled
Resume by Alarm Disabled
x Date (of Month) Alarm Everyday
x Time (hh:mm:ss) Alarm 0:0:0
HPET Support Enabled
HPET Mode 64-bit mode
Power On by Mouse Disabled
Power On by Keyboard Disabled
xKeyboard Power On Password (never used it)
AC BAck Function Soft-Off

PNP/PCI CONFIGURATIONS
PCI1 IRQ Assignments Auto
PCI2 IRQ Assignments Auto

PC HEALTH STATUS
Reset Case Open Status Disabled
Vcore 1.124V
DDR18V 2.080V
+3.3V 3.328V
+12V 12.175V
Current System Temp 39C
Current CPU Temp 37C
Current CPU Fan Speed 1483 RPM
Current System Fan2 Speed 0 RPM
Current System Fan Speed 0 RPM
Current Power Fan Speed 0 RPM
Current System Fan1 Speed 0 RPM
CPU Warning Temperature Disabled
CPU Fan Fail Warning Disabled
System FAN2 Fail Warning Disabled
System FAN Fail Warning Disabled
System FAN1 Fail Warning Disabled
CPU Smart FAN Control Auto
CPU Smart FAN Mode Auto

[wallypiper]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

9 hours 20 minutes of Prime95. Zero errors.

!!!

Still happy to hear feedback on the BIOS, especially the missing drive thing.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

Nice to see you got the drive issues solved! I was about to mention, all that standard CMOS page stuff you are changing can ALL be left on auto, no changes are needed or suggested.

As for your BIOS settings and stress testing issues, all we need is the settings in a template from my signature, but I can gather those from your above post.

Can you please link us to your exact memory. Then I'll advise back some optimal settings to get you going on stress testing.

You should really use AHCI, what OS are you now using? If windows Vista or 7 you can easily make this change with a registry mod (Please wait for our reply on that), if it's XP you are using a clean install would be easier.

I really think you should start over in the BIOS, by loading optimized defaults, then save/apply/reboot back to BIOS. Then do not touch the Standard CMOS page, only the Integrated Peripherals page.

[wallypiper]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

Windows 7

The memory is Corsair. I'm not certain what you mean by "link". As far as I can tell, Corsair doesn't have individual spec pages. Here is the blurb from the product data page (which includes data for many different part numbers).

TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF
Speed Rating: PC2-8500
Tested Speed: 1066Mhz
Size: 4GB Kit (2 x 2GB)
Tested Latency: 5-5-5-15
Tested Voltage: 2.1
Performance Profile: EPP
SPD Speed: 800Mhz
SPD Latency: 5-5-5-18
Package: 240pin DIMM
Fan Included: Yes (I have removed the fan because one of them was dragging and I though it might be putting a load on the mobo power outlet that feeds it.)

I had tried AHCI while trying to get the two drives working and it didn't work but as I have found out and you have also stated, it requires some registry changes to work. I would be happy to hear about how to get it implemented.
Start over?!?!?
My computer doesn't work worth a crap with optimized defaults. It puts timing settings in place for the memory that simply do not work, fails prime95 within minutes and generates BSODs. It won't set the DRAM voltage high enough. Sets it at 1.8 and that doesn't work.
A lot of the stuff in the standard CMOS page is from trying to get the drives working and, once they started to work after fixing the cable issue, I just haven't changed them since all was working.
I can load optimized defaults but have to immediately tweak the DRAM settings to avoid constant crashes. If you look back through the old thread (don't bother, just saying) you'd see that this was discussed some back then. There was consternation and head scratching at the settings optimized defaults was applying. I can try it, but it didn't work well at all before.

Frankly, given 9 hours of Prime95 with no errors, I'm not too concerned about stability at the moment. I believe that all of the problems I was seeing that led to the current "project" were caused by the funky SATA connection. I was having random drive errors which was crashing Windows and then blocking reboots. Moving the boot drive to a new connector where the cable is not being molested by anything has, I believe right now, solved that problem.

It is certainly odd, though, that the BIOS has no information for the new Hitachi drive. The drive works. It's totally visible and functional in Windows. I made a complete system image from the boot drive and stored it on the Hitachi drive using Paragon Backup and Recovery.

I'm not saying I don't want you guys' help but I am saying I'm reluctant to go back to square one with optimized defaults as I know from past experience and from the last couple of days that they cause problems. I have saved the current BIOS settings so I can always get back to them.

Let's start with the drive settings and getting AHCI going.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

Thanks, that was all I needed.

First the registry info. If you are using Windows Vista or 7 you can switch to AHCI by making the following changes in the registry, then shut down and enable AHCI in the BIOS.

NOT FOR XP

Enable switching between all IDE/AHCI/RAID modes by changing "Start" Values in these keys to 0

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci\Start
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide\Start  
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorV\Start

You must start from optimized, I did not say you need to use it, only to start there is all. So please do, then make the following changes plus whatever other changes you want or need to make, such as AHCI Settings, ect.

And no need to worry about loosing settings, you can save a BIOS profile if you want using F11 on the MAIN page (F12 is load), and also you have your settings written here too.

These would be optimal, but like you said you are fairly stable now anyway so using them is up to you for now, or you could come back to them later if you want.

Robust Graphics Booster Auto or fast
CPU Clock Ratio 8x
Fine Clock Ratio +0.5
---CPU Frequnecy 2.83GHz (333x8.5)

Clock Chip Control
CPU Host Clock Control Disabled
CPU Hots Frequency 333
PCI-E Frequency 100
C.I.A.2 Disabled

Advanced Clock Control
CPU clock drive 800mV
PCI-E clock drive 900mV (Will be set properly once you load optimized, please do that and don't just change this)
CPU Clock Skew 0ps
MCH Clock Skew 0ps

DRAM Performance Control
Performance Enhance Standard
X.M.P. Extreme Memory Profile Disabled
(G)MCH Frequency Latch Auto
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) Auto  << Set 2.40B for 800Mhz or 3.20B for 1066Mhz
Memory Frequency (Mhz) 1066
DRAM Timeing Selectable (SPD) Manual

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time 5
tRCD 5
tRP 5
tRAS 15

Advanced Timing Control
tRRD 3-4  or can be left in Auto
tWTR 3-6  or can be left in Auto
tWR 4-6  or can be left in Auto
tRFC 52-62  or can be left in Auto
tRTP 3-5 or can be left in Auto
Command Rate (CMD) Set 2T

[b]Channel A+B[/b]
Static tRead Value.........................:6/7-10 (try 6-7 for stock FSB)
Channel A Driving Settings
Driving Strength Profile 1066 MHz

Channel B Driving Settings
Driving Strength Profile 1066 MHz

Motherboard Voltage Control
CPU
Load-Line Calibration Disabled
CPU Vcore 1.15000V Auto
CPU Termination 1.200V Auto  << Set 1.225-1.25
CPU PLL 1.550V Auto
CPU Reference 0.805V Auto

MCH/ICH
MCH Core 1.100V 1.200V  << 1.2-1.24 is normally good for 2x2GB, some boards this does not work on and you may need to test to see if yours is one of those.   Some boards need less than default for 4GB, so test 1.0-1.05 if you think your board might be one of the odd ones

MCH Reference 0.760V Auto
ICH I/O 1.550V 1.550V
ICH Core 1.100V 1.100V

DRAM
DRAM Voltage 1.800V 2.100V  << Set 2.1 as you have

[Reggie]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

I use that memory, Corsair DDR2 CM2X2048-8500C5D, on a Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 which is an AMD motherboard. The EPP Performance Profile automatically sets the memory settings fine on that AMD board. Your Intel board uses Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) which is different from Performance Profile: EPP.

Optimized defaults don't automatically set the correct DRAM voltage and timings for Corsair DDR2 CM2X2048-8500C5D, so you need to set that manually after loading optimized defaults.

[Chike]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

I use that memory, Corsair DDR2 CM2X2048-8500C5D, on a Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 which is an AMD motherboard. The EPP Performance Profile automatically sets the memory settings fine on that AMD board. Your Intel board uses Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) which is different from Performance Profile: EPP.

Optimized defaults don't automatically set the correct DRAM voltage and timings for Corsair DDR2 CM2X2048-8500C5D, so you need to set that manually after loading optimized defaults.

The "XMP" is EPP and does just the same as your AMD board.
Optimized defaults will set XMP to auto and memory voltage and timings as specified by EPP.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

How's things going Wally? Just checking in

[wallypiper]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

All is mostly good. Disks and disk system working fine. No crashes.

I'm occasionally having trouble with the keyboard and mouse. In Windows, in Device Manager, there are at least 12 entries relating to those two devices. I can disable them one at a time until I get down to maybe 4 and both the keyboard and mouse still function. If I remove the ones that are disabled, everything keeps working but on a reboot and maybe sometimes even without a reboot, they re-appear.
Both keyboard and mouse are wireless with USB receivers. The mouse is Logitech. I've removed all the Logitech drivers and utilities and I'm just letting Windows load it's own mouse drivers, but not Intellipoint. The keyboard is Microsoft and I also let Windows load whatever keyboard drivers it wants for that but not Intellitype.

Both seem to have periods when they just quit communicating. Right now, for example, the keyboard is periodically not working. I type but no characters appear. Then it will just start working again.

I downloaded a little utility that was linked on the Logitech forums called DPC Latency Checker which is supposed to spot and display problems with signal latency but it doesn't show any problems. It's a bit of a mystery. Now, the keyboard is working fine. It's baffling but I think it's a software problem. I did learn that each USB port has an assigned portion of the available bandwidth and that if a device is plugged in to a slot that only has 10% or less as opposed to 20% (the most any seems to get assigned), there can be problems like I've had with the mouse and presumably with the keyboard also but that doesn't explain why it comes and goes. It's not the whole computer stopping. Just a second ago as I was trying to type "DPC Latency Checker", the keyboard was "frozen" but the mouse worked fine. I selected copied and pasted the words from the "Run . . ." box, no problem. But now the keyboard is acting totally normal.

I've posted some info over at Techsupportforum.com but not gotten any responses.

Mobowise, I haven't changed anything yet. Everything is working so good (except for the mouse and keyboard), that I'm leaving it alone for the moment.
I'll get back into it and try the changes discussed above, maybe tomorrow or Monday.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

Good to hear!

I use Intellitype keyboards (Ergo 4000, and Media Pro) and don't have any issues, so not sure what would be the problem there. Can you test with a wired mouse to see if you can get around the mouse issues?

[wallypiper]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

I could, but I am addicted to the wireless mouse. I had a MS wireless mouse for a long time that worked fine but the left button wore out, I thought, so I replaced it. Now, it actually looks like the problems may not have been the mouse since this one is also suffering from some similar issues. I used to have both Intellitype and Intellipoint installed but removed them thinking there might have been conflicts with the Logitech software. I've had a lot of Logitech products over the years that have been great but the last couple (a marble mouse i use with my laptop and this mouse) have had issues.

It could be USB issues also since both are connected via USB ports. In my DM, there are 22 entries under "Universal Serial Bus Controllers". That includes 8 Root Hubs, 8 Host Controllers, 1 Mouse and Keyboard Detection Driver, 2 USB Composite Devices, 1 USB Mass Storage Device, 1 USB Printing Support and 1 listed printer. The actual connected devices are 1 printer, one keyboard, one mouse and one multi function card reader with 6 slots in it. The only thing I use that for is the miniSD slot for the memory card from my camera. It's a pretty anonymous device.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

I hear that, I have a MS Wireless I love, Blue Intellimouse 2.0. I got tired of always changing the battery on it and the button died for the third time (Same one as you mentioned) so I just set it in the corner for now.

I have replaced the button a few times, they usually last about a year for me. It's easy to change them if you want to do it, all you need is a solder pen/gun and a secondary dead mouse to take the replacement switch from.

A lot of the MS mice/KB I have used that are USB function fine connected via USB to PS/2 adapter, have you tried one of those for both devices yet?

[wallypiper]

Re: Some problems, some symptoms, one clue

No, I haven't. I'm sort of stubborn I guess. I want USB to live up to the promise. It drives me a little nuts when I have one mouse and one keyboard connected to USB ports and there are 10 entries in device manager under "Human Interface Devices". I can disable over half of them with no apparent loss of function for any device I'm aware of. But when I reboot, they all come back. Grrrrrr. What are they? Why are they there?

Maybe I'll try the USB thing and/or repairing my old mouse. I'm not fully convinced it was a hardware problem but your story of your dedication to and TLC for your beloved mouse makes me thing maybe it is. And right now, at this moment, both keyboard and mouse are functioning flawlessly.

That's the thing about Windows. Problems appear and disappear.