Hi there all! I have been noticing some odd behaviour from my PC recently and I concerned it may be a failing mobo, cpu, or ram - if i list the symptoms, can someone more techie-minded than me let me know what they think? My hardware is all just two years old and comprises: Asus P8P67 Pro Mobo Intel 2500K Crucial DDR3 1600mhz 2x2Gb Gigabyte GeForce 560Ti OC ASUS Xonar DX HiPoint Rocket SATA 6Gb PCIe It might be worth mentioning I have the B2 stepping of this motherboard, but have nothing plugged in to the SATA 3Gb ports. When I first got the kit it would work fine but whether I overcloked it (using Bit-Tech/CPC's OCing guide) or not, from a cold start the unit would freeze when the red LED got to the RAM section of the motherboard. I would have to turn off the power and then reboot, and all would work fine. Eventually I updated the BIOS and this seemed to clear the problem for over a year. In the apst couple of weeks I noticed that my OC had disappeared so I went back into the EFI and reprogrammed it in - now the hanging on cold boot is back again, whether I OC the chip or not. The same red LED is lit up by the RAM slots, and clears ok if I cut the power and then turn back on again. When going into the EFI it also keeps insisting, from cold boot, that my memory is only 1333Mhz, when it is native 1600Mhz, at 1.65v. I have also noticed that looking at CPU-Z the chip sometimes appears to be sticking at 3.3Ghz and not stepping down or stepping up in the normal way. More alarmingly, I have also noticed that the 'Cores' box only has a '1' in it, and the 'Threads' box also only has a '1'! Does anyone know what this could be suggestive of, please? I'd rather not repalce the PC wholesale just yet! Thanks very much for any and all help!
Added: Looking on Task Managerr in Windows where usually I had four graphs for my CPU I now only have ONE. This is making me slightly more than concerned now - have three of my cores just died???
I'd be more inclined to say the mobo is on the way out, rather than the cpu has just decided to more or less die; cpus are hardy things and are hard to kill unless you have them seriously overclocked with poor cooling constantly. Obvious thing to do is test the cpu in another compatible board, though that's easier said than done- what's the warranty like on your mobo ( some have a good 3-5 year period- depends where you bought it & if they insist you have to deal with the manufacturer ). Since it is B2 stepping you may still be able to get it replaced for a B3 stepping no matter what- that's another one to check out with the manufacturer.
yeah on next board, it's important to keep your temps consistent.. that's one of the main reasons they go- fan goes out or it's never cleaned.. which leads to fans going out =] could even be power related if your using a cheap supply.. pull it out, take out the cmos battery for 30 seconds, put it back and bench it on a table, try one stick of memory at a time.. you can narrow down the issue there
Hi all, Thank you very much for your input. I have thought that since the RAM LED is lit when the boot up hangs, it may have something to do with that, although after turning off and back on again, the POST says 'Overclock failed' and directs me to the EFi. Strangely enough, it does this even when there is no overclock set at all, and the EFi is at default settings. If it is overclocked, then the EFi doesn't forget any settings at all, either. I should mention the overclock is a relatively gentle one, using 1.3v for the CPU and a multiplier of 45. My RAM is 1.65v, and I have a couple of other very small overvolts as recommended for my board and CPU by CustomPC in one of their previous magazines. Cooling my CPU is a Thermaltake Frio with both fans installed and on medium strength. The PC is in an unheated room with 8 120mm case fans. CPU temps have never been an issue before and I believe board temps have been ok as well. My case is always impeccable on the inside and I always clean any collection of dust using cotton buds (or q-tips for our American cousins!). I may purchase a new set of RAM and see if that makes any difference to booting up, although I am a little more inclined to agree with SuicideNeil in that the supposed weakness of the B2 motherboards perhaps runs further than just the SATA3Gbps interface? I purchased the motherboard via Scan, and being an ASUS I understand they are quite good in aftersales, both of them? I may try and dig out my documentation and see what either of them suggest? My power supply is a Corsair 530watt model, also just two years old. Whilst not a massively expensive unit, I think that its ok for the tasks asked of it by my pc? I have now cured the '1 core 1 thread' issue - in my ignorance I had altered the configuration of the CPU in Windows to only use 1 core whislt trying to make Skyrim more stable. I have removed this and now report 4 cores and 4 threads in CPU-Z. It's obvious to me now that this wasn't related to my boot-up issue. Thanks for your input everyone - if anyone else has anything to add, please do! Many thanks, Den
