Asus P2B v1.10 reboots @beginning of test #6 in memtest

For all the ASUS P2B and 440BX slot1 experts out there, TSIA for the most
part.

The board is flashed to 1014.003, The system used with a bare minimum of
processor, memory and video card.

Initially, using a P2-350, 4MB ATI Rage AGP, and 64MB PC100, the system
passes memtest completely.

If, however, I swap out that processor for a Celeron 600/66, 900/100, or
1300/100 (all in slotkets), the system reboots as soon as it is about 1%
into test #6 (It passes all tests #1-5). I have tried 3 different 64MB
SIMM sticks, one at a time, in different DIMM slots with the same
reset/reboot results. (No USB devices, legacy?!...)

I have tried a different video card, and populating the motherboard
completely with ISA sound, PCI 10/100, PCI aha-2940uw, and AGP GF3 ti200
256MB ram, same reboot. I know power supply and all other components
beside motherboard are OK, as I can swap out the P2B with an MS6119 and
all works fine (Tually 1300/100, 256MB @ fastest memory timings).

The capacitors look fine on the board - hell, they look just about brand
new (though this means nothing, I know - but I've seen a lot of blown caps
lately on recycled materials)...

All stock voltages used for the processors, and look fine in hardware
monitor (1.5V for Tualatin, 1.7V for Coppermines). I can boot P2B/tually
1300 into win2k, but haven't messed around much with stability testing
using quake/cpuburn/etc...


Oh, I got a second one of these boards (same revision), which appears to
have the "bad hardware monitor" syndrome - all voltages are measured at 0
and temperatures are pegged at 130C (even with no CPU thermistor
attached), but fan readings appear to work (CPU fan at 5300rpm). Board
looks clean, no visual clues. Tried reflashing it with the 1014nh.003 (no
hardware monitor) bios, but it still detects the CPU overheating (even
though the bios is not supposed to have a hardware monitor anymore), and
throttles the processor down about 25%... So, I get the long continuous
beep and flashing power light when this throttle down occurs.

Any ideas here? I've done plenty of power cycling, resetting/disabling
bios settings and unplugging of AC power/motherboard CMOS battery. It
almost seems like there might be a DMI/ESCD conflict/issue, or an ISA
irq/address confict somehow (only using AGP Rage). It sure seems odd that
even when using a no hardware monitor bios, it detects overheating CPU and
throttles the processor down...

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

It might be related to this:
http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherar...photoshop.html

I had a similar problem on an Abit BF-6 when used with a
Tualatin Celeron 1.1A with a modified MSI slot adapter that
was solved with a similar modification to the slocket.

Ixnei wrote:
For all the ASUS P2B and 440BX slot1 experts out there, TSIA for the
most part.

The board is flashed to 1014.003, The system used with a bare minimum
of processor, memory and video card.

Initially, using a P2-350, 4MB ATI Rage AGP, and 64MB PC100, the
system passes memtest completely.

If, however, I swap out that processor for a Celeron 600/66, 900/100,
or 1300/100 (all in slotkets), the system reboots as soon as it is
about 1% into test #6 (It passes all tests #1-5). I have tried 3
different 64MB SIMM sticks, one at a time, in different DIMM slots
with the same reset/reboot results. (No USB devices, legacy?!...)

I have tried a different video card, and populating the motherboard
completely with ISA sound, PCI 10/100, PCI aha-2940uw, and AGP GF3
ti200 256MB ram, same reboot. I know power supply and all other
components beside motherboard are OK, as I can swap out the P2B with
an MS6119 and all works fine (Tually 1300/100, 256MB @ fastest
memory timings).
Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
crash at 2%, no matter what.
I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?

The capacitors look fine on the board - hell, they look just about
brand new (though this means nothing, I know - but I've seen a lot of
blown caps lately on recycled materials)...
That board is from a time when asus didn't put any junk they could find
on their boards ;-).

Oh, I got a second one of these boards (same revision), which appears
to have the "bad hardware monitor" syndrome - all voltages are
measured at 0 and temperatures are pegged at 130C (even with no CPU
thermistor attached), but fan readings appear to work (CPU fan at
5300rpm). Board looks clean, no visual clues. Tried reflashing it
with the 1014nh.003 (no hardware monitor) bios, but it still detects
the CPU overheating (even though the bios is not supposed to have a
hardware monitor anymore), and throttles the processor down about
25%... So, I get the long continuous beep and flashing power light
when this throttle down occurs.
Are you sure you get throttling? Since the cpu can't do it, this would
mean the board has to downclock fsb - I don't think the p2b bios will do
that, at least I've never heard that it can do this. No idea how to fix
the problem, I'd have supposed that the bios without hardware monitoring
would have been enough.
btw does memtest86 test #6 crash with that board too?

Roland

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 03:47:23 +0200, Roland Scheidegger wrote:

Ixnei wrote:
For all the ASUS P2B and 440BX slot1 experts out there, TSIA for the
most part.

The board is flashed to 1014.003, The system used with a bare minimum
of processor, memory and video card.

Initially, using a P2-350, 4MB ATI Rage AGP, and 64MB PC100, the system
passes memtest completely.

If, however, I swap out that processor for a Celeron 600/66, 900/100,
or 1300/100 (all in slotkets), the system reboots as soon as it is
about 1% into test #6 (It passes all tests #1-5). I have tried 3
different 64MB SIMM sticks, one at a time, in different DIMM slots with
the same reset/reboot results. (No USB devices, legacy?!...)

I have tried a different video card, and populating the motherboard
completely with ISA sound, PCI 10/100, PCI aha-2940uw, and AGP GF3
ti200 256MB ram, same reboot. I know power supply and all other
components beside motherboard are OK, as I can swap out the P2B with
an MS6119 and all works fine (Tually 1300/100, 256MB @ fastest
memory timings).

Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here. memtest
test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even reboot, but
some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down, power led
will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other tests all day
long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird about that
memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what memory
area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always crash
at 2%, no matter what.
I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?

Curious, Fishface's had a similar response about a mod to Vtt using caps,
to fix an apparent photoshop bug. Do you get that photoshop bug?

http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherar...photoshop.html

I'm using some generic 370SPC slocket, and I will be looking at getting
some tantalum caps soon (if I don't have any appropriate ones already).

The capacitors look fine on the board - hell, they look just about
brand new (though this means nothing, I know - but I've seen a lot of
blown caps lately on recycled materials)...

That board is from a time when asus didn't put any junk they could find
on their boards ;-).

It's just manufacturing - the clean tanks get gunked up, and have to be
refilled/refreshed/etc every so often. Thin residual layers are going to
be deposited on the "foil" if there is any amount of contaminant in the
clean tanks (which there is always going to be). I've seen blown caps on
socket 7 boards. Yes, it's a quality measure of the capacitor vendor, but
stuff happens too, and there's a spectrum of dirtyness to the cleans...

Oh, I got a second one of these boards (same revision), which appears
to have the "bad hardware monitor" syndrome - all voltages are
measured at 0 and temperatures are pegged at 130C (even with no CPU
thermistor attached), but fan readings appear to work (CPU fan at
5300rpm). Board looks clean, no visual clues. Tried reflashing it
with the 1014nh.003 (no hardware monitor) bios, but it still detects
the CPU overheating (even though the bios is not supposed to have a
hardware monitor anymore), and throttles the processor down about
25%... So, I get the long continuous beep and flashing power light
when this throttle down occurs.

Are you sure you get throttling? Since the cpu can't do it, this would
mean the board has to downclock fsb - I don't think the p2b bios will do
that, at least I've never heard that it can do this. No idea how to fix
the problem, I'd have supposed that the bios without hardware monitoring
would have been enough.
btw does memtest86 test #6 crash with that board too?

I know it's throttled, the memory bandwidth drops to about 65MB/s from the
~250MB/s that it should be, as reported by memtest, and testing takes
about 4 times longer. It is something the motherboard performs, and is
evidenced by the non-stop beep and slow flashing power light (as opposed
to power light being solid on with a single short beep).

It did pass memtest with the P2-350, but I didn't bother doing further
testing with faster processors as I already ran into a fairly substantial
roadblock with that board.

I've tried google searches on this - found some people with the same
problem, others with some explanations of the phenomena, but never found a
follow up with a solution...

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:30:23 -0700, Fishface wrote:

It might be related to this:
http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherar...photoshop.html

I had a similar problem on an Abit BF-6 when used with a Tualatin
Celeron 1.1A with a modified MSI slot adapter that was solved with a
similar modification to the slocket.

Sounds like it could be the same thing - how many caps did you use, and
how did you modify your slotket (did it have a Vtt plane?)? For the cap,
did you make the positive lead as short as possible to a Vtt pin, and the
other lead whatever length needed to get to a ground?

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

In article , Roland
Scheidegger wrote:

snip

Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
crash at 2%, no matter what.
I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?

Roland

Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?

http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf

Paul

Ixnei wrote:

Sounds like it could be the same thing - how many caps did you use, and
how did you modify your slotket (did it have a Vtt plane?)? For the cap,
did you make the positive lead as short as possible to a Vtt pin, and the
other lead whatever length needed to get to a ground?

I did it exactly as the picture on that first page shows, connecting the pins
on the back side of the slocket. I don't remember if there was a large
copper area on the back of the socket. There was a space for another
22uf electrolytic capacitor on the front of the board between Vtt and
ground, so I stuck one in there for good measure.

Fishface wrote:
I did it exactly as the picture on that first page shows, connecting
the pins on the back side of the slocket.

Actually, I think I only used one of the 100nF caps...

Paul wrote:

In article , Roland
Scheidegger wrote:

snip

Actually, I've recently noticed exactly the same behaviour here.
memtest test #6 always reboots at 2% (and sometimes it won't even
reboot, but some very odd shutdown happens - fans etc. will spin down,
power led will go off, but hd led stays lit(!)). I can run all other
tests all day long, as well as things like cpuburn. What's very weird
about that memtest #6 failure is also that it doesn't matter at all what
memory area is tested and how large the memory area is - it will always
crash at 2%, no matter what.
I wanted to try some things (like soldering additional caps to vtt)
since I suspect the slotket I have (soltek sl-02a++, modded to work with
tualatin) might not do a good job (it's just a wild guess though), but
didn't have time yet. What slotket do you have?

Roland


Are the symptoms consistent with the HIP6019 latching a fault ?

http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn4587.pdf

Paul

No. The board won't power up if the HIP6019 latches a fault - usually
the CPU fan will 'twitch' at power up, but the board shuts down again
immediately.

P2B

Ixnei wrote:
Curious, Fishface's had a similar response about a mod to Vtt using
caps, to fix an apparent photoshop bug. Do you get that photoshop
bug?

http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherar...photoshop.html
Unfortunately I don't have photoshop, so I couldn't test this.

I'm using some generic 370SPC slocket, and I will be looking at
getting some tantalum caps soon (if I don't have any appropriate ones
already).
Just as a side note, using generic slockets with coppermines (and even
more so modded with tualatins) seems often to be problematic. I'd have
just tried a slot-t, but it's not available in switzerland, and I'm not
willing to pay more than the adapter costs in shipping costs (and the
soltek slotket isn't quite generic, it is listed by intel as meeting
coppermine requirements). If your 370SPC is revision 1.0 from Fastfame
then it's explicitly listed by intel as not coppermine compliant.

Are you sure you get throttling? Since the cpu can't do it, this
would mean the board has to downclock fsb - I don't think the p2b
bios will do that, at least I've never heard that it can do this.
No idea how to fix the problem, I'd have supposed that the bios
without hardware monitoring would have been enough. btw does
memtest86 test #6 crash with that board too?


I know it's throttled, the memory bandwidth drops to about 65MB/s
from the ~250MB/s that it should be, as reported by memtest, and
testing takes about 4 times longer. It is something the motherboard
performs, and is evidenced by the non-stop beep and slow flashing
power light (as opposed to power light being solid on with a single
short beep).
ah ok. Didn't know it actually throttles and not just flash and blink ;-).

It did pass memtest with the P2-350, but I didn't bother doing
further testing with faster processors as I already ran into a fairly
substantial roadblock with that board.

I've tried google searches on this - found some people with the same
problem, others with some explanations of the phenomena, but never
found a follow up with a solution...
Maybe the monitoring chip is defective? I don't know if that is
probable, but if this is indeed the case you might need to replace it
(I'm not sure if there are other differences between boards with/without
monitoring, but it might work if the chip is removed without replacing it).

Roland