BSOD when running Core2 Quad Q9550 at stock 8.5 multiplier

Just put together a machine using a Gigabyte EP45 DS3L mobo and a Core2 Quad 9550 2.83ghz stepping A Rev E0. Updated to latest non-beta bios for the board.

I went into the bios to try oc'ing it and noticed it was only running at 8.0 multiplier netting 2.66ghz speed so I bumped it up to 8.5 where it's supposed to be to get 2.83ghz. But as soon as I did that I started noticing Firefox crashing, getting BSOD's when shutting down or doing online gaming. When I back it off to 8.0 again, the problems stop happening.

When I do "Load Optimized Defaults" or "Load Failsafe Defaults" it still happens until I back the multiplier down to 8.0 instead of 8.5 where it's supposed to be.

Any suggestions? Is there another setting I need to be looking at to go along with the ?

Thanks for all input.

Brassplyer wrote:
Just put together a machine using a Gigabyte EP45 DS3L mobo and a Core2 Quad 9550 2.83ghz stepping A Rev E0. Updated to latest non-beta bios for the board.

I went into the bios to try oc'ing it and noticed it was only running at 8.0 multiplier netting 2.66ghz speed so I bumped it up to 8.5 where it's supposed to be to get 2.83ghz. But as soon as I did that I started noticing Firefox crashing, getting BSOD's when shutting down or doing online gaming. When I back it off to 8.0 again, the problems stop happening.

When I do "Load Optimized Defaults" or "Load Failsafe Defaults" it still happens until I back the multiplier down to 8.0 instead of 8.5 where it's supposed to be.

Any suggestions? Is there another setting I need to be looking at to go along with the ?

Thanks for all input.

Normally, you'd just bump VCore up a little
bit and move on.

But the symptoms suggest that perhaps this
processor has lived most of its life in an
overclocked state, and is suffering from
electromigration.

If that was the case, then eventually you would
need to apply an unsafe amount of VCore, to get
it to run at stock. It might take a number of
years for that to happen.

You may find, even if the processor is not abused
from now on, maybe six months from now it needs
another 0.05V to prevent it from crashing.

There's a picture here of electromigration damage,
if you need to see what is happening. The usage of
copper was supposed to be a big improvement over
aluminum metalization, but every tech is eventually
abused to the point of breaking stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration

Paul

On Sun, 6 Sep 2015 21:57:15 -0700 (PDT), Brassplyer
wrote:

Just put together a machine using a Gigabyte EP45 DS3L mobo and a
Core2 Quad 9550 2.83ghz stepping A Rev E0. Updated to latest non-beta
bios for the board.

I went into the bios to try oc'ing it and noticed it was only running
at 8.0 multiplier netting 2.66ghz speed so I bumped it up to 8.5 where
it's supposed to be to get 2.83ghz. But as soon as I did that I
started noticing Firefox crashing, getting BSOD's when shutting down
or doing online gaming. When I back it off to 8.0 again, the problems
stop happening.

When I do "Load Optimized Defaults" or "Load Failsafe Defaults" it
still happens until I back the multiplier down to 8.0 instead of 8.5
where it's supposed to be.

Any suggestions? Is there another setting I need to be looking at to
go along with the ?

Thanks for all input.

-
So, the BIOS is defaulting to x8. Identifying the CPU at that
integral. And your BIOS revision is the latest. (Mine, btw, is also
a Gigabyte MB & Core2 Q8200 - 2.33.)

With that intent, I'd personally not sweat the 16Mhz difference,
hardly much of one, for at least a hint of instability. Not that
Firefox means much of anything to me. Any program latently has some
potential to introduce OS instability - Firefox being perhaps more
involved and resource intensive in that regard. I'd let the MB alone
to do its "thing," on your nickel/dime, all else being correctly
configured.

There may be tweaks, hacking and debugging tools for what you're
experiencing. Games, video intensive and support drivers being more
demanding than other resources -- prone to introduce an OS failure, so
MB hardware, limits of program support, cannot entirely be said
suspect or lacking.

I just don't see a PC build for any certain optimal. Sure, I've got
an occasional issue here and there over time and with upgrades. An
additional SSD I put in, for instance, doesn't boot well with apparent
OS detection, which crashes itself if I don't stop to delay my login;-
sometimes I have to do hardboots to reinitialize the USB ports.
They're all more or less at issue and prone the way I see it -- just a
matter of demands, improper calls and programming combinations, for
probing for weaknesses.

Could start with a fresh OS install for Firefox, see what happens,
although over time with increased variables introduced, stability is
apt to be as much a complexity of empirical calls for what experiences
you have that work best for you.

I changed the bios to the settings the guy lists in the first post in the thread link below which actually involved lowering the Vcore voltage a bit. It was originally showing at 1.2875, these settings took it down to 1.26875, and so far it's running okay with the 8.5 multiplier at 3.612.49mhz up from 2.83 stock. I've been able to do a round in Battlefield 4. No recurrence of the crashing browsers (I found it was doing it with IE too) or BSODs so far.

http://www.overclock.net/t/590947/q9...clock-tweaking

I don't profess to fully understand all the settings but since it was regarding the same CPU and mobo I figured it might work. I tried bumping it up to 3.8 but haven't been successful. Seems to work well at 3.6. I'll probably be happy with that modest bump in performance, I was just looking for a bit more headroom for Battlefield 4.

Brassplyer wrote:
I changed the bios to the settings the guy lists in the first post in the thread link below which actually involved lowering the Vcore voltage a bit. It was originally showing at 1.2875, these settings took it down to 1.26875, and so far it's running okay with the 8.5 multiplier at 3.612.49mhz up from 2.83 stock. I've been able to do a round in Battlefield 4. No recurrence of the crashing browsers (I found it was doing it with IE too) or BSODs so far.

http://www.overclock.net/t/590947/q9...clock-tweaking

I don't profess to fully understand all the settings but since it was regarding the same CPU and mobo I figured it might work. I tried bumping it up to 3.8 but haven't been successful. Seems to work well at 3.6. I'll probably be happy with that modest bump in performance, I was just looking for a bit more headroom for Battlefield 4.


I would use the Prime95 Torture Test, or a program similar
to it. It's a kind of stress test. It opens a thread
per core. It does a math problem with a known answer.
A thread will stop, if even one error is detected.

The program will run forever unless you stop it. I
use four hours of error-free testing, as a "good enough"
metric.

http://www.mersenne.org/download/

When it says "Join GIMPS", answer "No, just testing".
Set the amount of RAM according to the amount available
on your computer. You can use Task Manager, and have a
look after a while to see how much it is using.

The program helps test CPU, Northbridge, RAM. Any of those
could contribute to an error. To test more memory locations,
use memtest (memtest.org). Prime95 tests fewer memory
locations, but is more stressful than a memory tester
would be. Prime95, as far as I know, uses FFTs computed
in assembler, for finding Mersenne Prime numbers. Which
is supposed to be a faster sieve than a classical bignum
math calculation. And it also happens to be a decent
stress test, at the same time.

The reason for using this after overclocking, is
to determine whether the computer is really stable
or not. You want the computer to be generally stable
and trustworthy, and Prime95 or a similar program,
is what I'd recommend.

Paul