A7N8X-E Memory Question / Blue Screens of Death

download a program called memtest86 and let it run a diagnostic on the
memory..maybe you have a bad stick...and non-matching memory may cause some
issues also.

The Old Man wrote:

Hi all,
I have an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe based system (my sons computer) and have been
receiving intermittent blue screens of death (I also here the hard drive
power down) when playing games. Sometimes the error mentions nvdisplay but
usually it doesn't but varies which random numbers. Sorry to be vague. It
sometimes happens shortly after Windows has loaded and before I get chance
to start a game or application.

Things I've tried:
I have switched my graphics card and the fault remains.
I have ran Memory test for hours and it found no faults.
I have run 3DMark2003 for successive tests without it happening.
I have reinstalled my graphics card drivers and installed Windows XP Pro
Service Pack 2.
I have replaced the Power Supply.

The temperatures seem fine and the case is well ventilated 18C to 25C
motherboard temp, CPU runs about 38C-45C according to Asus monitoring
software. The system was fine for months and not used much as my son is
seldom here.

Its driving me nuts as all intermittent faults do. I looked at the memory
and noticed although one stick is single sided DDR 400 Crucial, the other
stick (they run in dual mode) is double sided with chips on both sides of
the DIMM (again a Crucial DDR 400). They are not the same as one was an
upgrade from 512MB to 1024MB some time ago. Would mixing single sided and
double sided DIMMS cause this error?

The system specs:
AMD XP2500 Barton Mobile version.

Do you overclock this processor ? I suppose you do, as I don't see any
reason to buy a more expansive mobile processor for a desktop. What if
you run it at stock speed ?

Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
2x512MB Crucial DIMM (1GB total)
Aopen FX5900 128MB Graphics Card with latest Nvida Driver (61.77?)
Onboard sound
80GB IBM Deskstart HDD EIDE
Pioneer DVD-Rom (which now doesn't recognise DVD's only CD's for some
reason!)

Well, if it does that even if you install it on another computer, the
DVD reading parts are dead...

WinXP Pro SP2

Many thanks for any advice on how to track this annoying problem. Mys on has
given up using his PC because of it.

Regards,
Graham

In article , "The Old
Man" wrote:

Hi all,
I have an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe based system (my sons computer) and have been
receiving intermittent blue screens of death (I also here the hard drive
power down) when playing games. Sometimes the error mentions nvdisplay but
usually it doesn't but varies which random numbers. Sorry to be vague. It
sometimes happens shortly after Windows has loaded and before I get chance
to start a game or application.

Things I've tried:
I have switched my graphics card and the fault remains.
I have ran Memory test for hours and it found no faults.
I have run 3DMark2003 for successive tests without it happening.
I have reinstalled my graphics card drivers and installed Windows XP Pro
Service Pack 2.
I have replaced the Power Supply.

The temperatures seem fine and the case is well ventilated 18C to 25C
motherboard temp, CPU runs about 38C-45C according to Asus monitoring
software. The system was fine for months and not used much as my son is
seldom here.

Its driving me nuts as all intermittent faults do. I looked at the memory
and noticed although one stick is single sided DDR 400 Crucial, the other
stick (they run in dual mode) is double sided with chips on both sides of
the DIMM (again a Crucial DDR 400). They are not the same as one was an
upgrade from 512MB to 1024MB some time ago. Would mixing single sided and
double sided DIMMS cause this error?

The system specs:
AMD XP2500 Barton Mobile version.
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
2x512MB Crucial DIMM (1GB total)
Aopen FX5900 128MB Graphics Card with latest Nvida Driver (61.77?)
Onboard sound
80GB IBM Deskstart HDD EIDE
Pioneer DVD-Rom (which now doesn't recognise DVD's only CD's for some
reason!)
WinXP Pro SP2

Many thanks for any advice on how to track this annoying problem. Mys on has
given up using his PC because of it.

Regards,
Graham

I've been experimenting here the last few days with that board and
a mobile processor, and here are my results so far (still
working on it):

1) My mobile doesn't like too much voltage. Setting it to 1.75 would
give an overclocking failure at startup. Using 1.65 seems to make
it happier.
2) In dual channel mode, I find problems at 200MHz clock speed.
I get some stability at 180MHz (which gives DDR360/FSB360), and
tried 12x180. 3DMark2001 = 16660. Rather than test for complete
Prime95 stability, I moved on.
3) I moved the two DIMMs to slot 1 and slot 2, for single channel
mode. This allowed me to get to 200MHz. I tried 12x200 and it
will run Prime95 for about 30 minutes before it gets an error.
3DMark2001 = 17746. At this point, I don't know if this is
still a memory problem, or if dropping the multiplier will help.
(My only reason for the 12x multiplier, was to get it to fail
faster, if it was going to.)

I find memtest86 tends to pass all these configurations, and
doesn't seem to be as sensitive a test as Prime95 (mersenne.org).

The power consumption under load is about 110W, with the worst
offender the +5V @ 15.6A, so I doubt it will be the power supply
at fault.

Over on nforcershq.com, there were reports that earlier BIOS may
have been better for overclocking, but at this point I'm not
really interested in trying to find and flash a bunch of old
BIOS. I don't know if I could find an old BIOS like 1004 if I
had to anyway. The board shipped with 1011 in it.

To do stability testing, I don't immediately boot into Windows,
as this could corrupt the disk or the registry. What I cooked
up as a test method, is I downloaded the ISO for Knoppix3.6
(700MB) and made a test CD. Knoppix is a read-only Linux system,
that sets up a ramdisk for storage when it runs. I use a floppy
to carry test code, such as Super_PI for Linux and Prime95
for Linux. There are a few problems with memory management, so
you have to be a little careful interpreting test results.
I find I can run several copies of Prime95, by setting limits
on memory consumption to say 32MB for each one, and then surf
while the tests are running. Running "vmstat 5" in a console
window allows monitoring free memory in the system. This is
how I've been tuning the system. Once a config is stable enough
not to crash for an hour or so, I can then connect up the hard
drive, boot into Windows, and try 3DMark for a benchmark.

So, things to try are, drop CPU clock and stay in dual channel
mode, bump up multiplier. Or, move the two sticks to single
channel mode, and leave the clock at 200MHz. As I'm still not
finished, that is the best advice I can give so far. I haven't
tried volt modding the Vchipset, as one post on nforcershq
claims that for a system at 200MHz, you can only squeeze an
extra 10MHz out with more than 1.6V on the chipset core
voltage. The Vchipset mod used to help rev 1.04 A7N8X boards
get above 180-185MHz, until the claim was a BIOS fix allowed
higher speed operation.

I am using CAS3 memory, and I vaguely remember someone suggesting
that CAS2 memory might make the board happier. Maybe someone
else who has tried both CAS2 and CAS3 can comment on that.

HTH,
Paul

The Old Man wrote:

Hi all,
I have an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe based system (my sons computer) and have been
receiving intermittent blue screens of death (I also here the hard drive
power down) when playing games. Sometimes the error mentions nvdisplay but
usually it doesn't but varies which random numbers. Sorry to be vague. It
sometimes happens shortly after Windows has loaded and before I get chance
to start a game or application.

Things I've tried:
I have switched my graphics card and the fault remains.
I have ran Memory test for hours and it found no faults.
I have run 3DMark2003 for successive tests without it happening.
I have reinstalled my graphics card drivers and installed Windows XP Pro
Service Pack 2.
I have replaced the Power Supply.

The temperatures seem fine and the case is well ventilated 18C to 25C
motherboard temp, CPU runs about 38C-45C according to Asus monitoring
software. The system was fine for months and not used much as my son is
seldom here.

Its driving me nuts as all intermittent faults do. I looked at the memory
and noticed although one stick is single sided DDR 400 Crucial, the other
stick (they run in dual mode) is double sided with chips on both sides of
the DIMM (again a Crucial DDR 400). They are not the same as one was an
upgrade from 512MB to 1024MB some time ago. Would mixing single sided and
double sided DIMMS cause this error?

The system specs:
AMD XP2500 Barton Mobile version.
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
2x512MB Crucial DIMM (1GB total)
Aopen FX5900 128MB Graphics Card with latest Nvida Driver (61.77?)
Onboard sound
80GB IBM Deskstart HDD EIDE
Pioneer DVD-Rom (which now doesn't recognise DVD's only CD's for some
reason!)
WinXP Pro SP2

Many thanks for any advice on how to track this annoying problem. Mys on has
given up using his PC because of it.

Regards,
Graham

Oh my G**. I am having the *exact some problem with my brothers PC.
Getting random BSOD's, last one mentioning nv4disp.dll?? I think.
Also getting "Page_Fault_in_non-paged area" BSODs. Changed pagefile size location and
drive settings.

Have rebuilt his PC and have been fighting this POS for weeks trying initially to even get
a clean Windows install. Replaced PSU to get Windows to install.
Now is BSODing frequently and have swapped tested and replaced almost everything at
different times.

System is Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
AMD1700+ changed to AMD2400+
New Maxtor SATA 80G HDD, old 15G IDE Maxtor for file storage.
Replaced Thermaltake 360W PSU with old one for testing
Uses No-name-ish 256Mb PC2700 RAM. Memtested for hours without errors
Geforce3 Ti-200 64meg video card
Running Win2K SP4

I hear your pain and sympathize. Let's nail this issue as I am sick or trying to rebuild
his PC. :-\
J
--
Jethro[AGHL] aka Phat_Pinger
Reply Email: jeff (at) tibben (dot) ca

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53194

here is some more info

"dino" wrote in message
. ..
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53194

here is some more info



Hi all, thanks for the replies.

Dino,
I have tried Memtest86 and ran it for several hours with no problems. I can
run 3DMark without problems too.
I also read the thread you linked to and am wondering if it might be the
Nforce drivers. On the site they say it might be the Nvida sound driver.
(3DMark might be working becasue there is no sound.)
I just checked and I'm using Nvidia Driver v4.27 with the audio drivers too.
I just checked and a new version is out, v5.10 which I'm downloading now.

When I look at the remove options under Nvida Driver in the Control Panel,
there are a few other possibilities:
NVIDIA IDE Driver - it does actually warn about this when installing come to
think about it.
NVIDIA Memory Control Driver
NVIDIA nforce PCI System Management Driver

Chong Woo:
The system specs:
AMD XP2500 Barton Mobile version.
Do you overclock this processor ? I suppose you do, as I don't see any
reason to buy a more expansive mobile processor for a desktop. What if
you run it at stock speed ?

Hi,
I originally ran this Mobile CPU as it was guranteed overclockable out of
the box with standard heatsink and fan and to be fair its been fine at
2300Mhz from www.overclockers.co.uk . I have dropped it to normal though and
the problem persists.

Pioneer DVD-Rom (which now doesn't recognise DVD's only CD's for some
reason!)

Well, if it does that even if you install it on another computer, the
DVD reading parts are dead...

Yes its def dead but not bothered about that at the moment, something I can
replace at a later time.

Paul,
Thanks for the extremely detailed advice. I will try with one stick at a
time to see what happens. Perhaps one stick is bad although Memtest86 has
found nothing wrong.

On the subject of the CPU, its currently running at 200x11.5=2300Mhz at
1.70v
I'm using Asus BIOS v1010.

Jethro,
I'm sorry to hear of your problems too. Your errors are duplicates of mine,
completely at random times but usually after starting a game or doing a
windows task. Perhaps we can nail this!

Regards,
Graham.


Regards,
Graham.

In article , "The Old
Man" wrote:

"dino" wrote in message
. ..
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53194

here is some more info



Hi all, thanks for the replies.

Dino,
I have tried Memtest86 and ran it for several hours with no problems. I can
run 3DMark without problems too.
I also read the thread you linked to and am wondering if it might be the
Nforce drivers. On the site they say it might be the Nvida sound driver.
(3DMark might be working becasue there is no sound.)
I just checked and I'm using Nvidia Driver v4.27 with the audio drivers too.
I just checked and a new version is out, v5.10 which I'm downloading now.

When I look at the remove options under Nvida Driver in the Control Panel,
there are a few other possibilities:
NVIDIA IDE Driver - it does actually warn about this when installing come to
think about it.
NVIDIA Memory Control Driver
NVIDIA nforce PCI System Management Driver

Chong Woo:
The system specs:
AMD XP2500 Barton Mobile version.
Do you overclock this processor ? I suppose you do, as I don't see any
reason to buy a more expansive mobile processor for a desktop. What if
you run it at stock speed ?

Hi,
I originally ran this Mobile CPU as it was guranteed overclockable out of
the box with standard heatsink and fan and to be fair its been fine at
2300Mhz from www.overclockers.co.uk . I have dropped it to normal though and
the problem persists.

Pioneer DVD-Rom (which now doesn't recognise DVD's only CD's for some
reason!)

Well, if it does that even if you install it on another computer, the
DVD reading parts are dead...

Yes its def dead but not bothered about that at the moment, something I can
replace at a later time.

Paul,
Thanks for the extremely detailed advice. I will try with one stick at a
time to see what happens. Perhaps one stick is bad although Memtest86 has
found nothing wrong.

On the subject of the CPU, its currently running at 200x11.5=2300Mhz at
1.70v
I'm using Asus BIOS v1010.

Jethro,
I'm sorry to hear of your problems too. Your errors are duplicates of mine,
completely at random times but usually after starting a game or doing a
windows task. Perhaps we can nail this!

Regards,
Graham.


Regards,
Graham.

An update on my testing.

I am back to 12x180MHz in dual channel mode. I seemed to be
able to pass memtest86, but was still having trouble with
prime95. What I discovered by running Knoppix (read-only
Linux) is that, if I run three copies of "mprime" executable,
with the memory allocation limited to 32MB, the same instance
of mprime fails each time (the first one launched). That
implies a particular part of the ram has a reproducible
fault. It doesn't imply the ram is bad, as I can pass memtest.
(For the record, my Knoppix boot command is "knoppix26
screen=1280x1024 noapic". Running the 2.6 kernel fixed all
the memory management problems I was seeing, allowing me to
surf and test at the same time without a problem.)

I was using the nominal timing for my ram, some cheap Azenram
with LEI chips on it, rated by SPD for 3-3-3-8. Last night
I discovered if I modified the timing to 3-4-4-11, that I am
Prime clean. I ram three copies of Prime95 overnight and no
errors were found. I suggest you set the memory timing up
manually and relax the numbers a bit. (I was a bit worried
that perhaps the BIOS wouldn't like those settings, but it
POSTed fine after the change to 3-4-4-11.) I can run the
nominal timing in single channel mode, but again, the bandwidth
as reported by memtest86 is significantly reduced.

It seems some people, even using fast 2-2-2 ram, have to
back off at least one of the parameter to get stability.
One guy ended up at CAS2.5 (2.5-2-2) with his fast ram.

I've also been reading about CPC. It turns out that CPC
stands for "command per clock", and is none other than the
1T versus 2T command rate option seen on some other motherboard
families. It seems nforce2 BIOSes hide this option, and it
is possible that some of the overclocking BIOS that have
existed, were running 2T, with a big penalty on memory bandwidth.
"CPC off" BIOS means 2T command rate timing. "CPC on" BIOS
means 1T command rate timing. Basically, 2T timing is supposed
to be used on a Northbridge, whenever the designers think a
particular RAM configuration will load the address bus to such
an extent that the address bus has to be set up for a cycle,
before a second cycle delivers the strobe, to clock the address
into the memory chips. On some Intel boards, this seems to be
necessary when two double sided DIMMs are sitting on a channel.
It is hard to tell what rules are being used with the Nforce2
chipsets, but the basic premise is that if a BIOS uses 2T
command rate timing, a larger overclock results, but the
lower memory bandwidth that results, defeats the whole purpose
of the higher FSB.

Anyway, executive summary is, try slower timing, like my
transition from 3-3-3-8 nominal to 3-4-4-11 manual (the CAS
stays at 3). Report back what you find, using stability testing
like prime95 "torture test" from mersenne.org. They have a
Windows version you can run if you want.

Paul

"The Old Man" wrote in message
...

"dino" wrote in message
. ..
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53194

here is some more info



Hi all, thanks for the replies.

Dino,
I have tried Memtest86 and ran it for several hours with no problems. I
can run 3DMark without problems too.
I also read the thread you linked to and am wondering if it might be the
Nforce drivers. On the site they say it might be the Nvida sound driver.
(3DMark might be working becasue there is no sound.)
I just checked and I'm using Nvidia Driver v4.27 with the audio drivers
too.
I just checked and a new version is out, v5.10 which I'm downloading now.

When I look at the remove options under Nvida Driver in the Control Panel,
there are a few other possibilities:
NVIDIA IDE Driver - it does actually warn about this when installing come
to think about it.
NVIDIA Memory Control Driver
NVIDIA nforce PCI System Management Driver

Chong Woo:
The system specs:
AMD XP2500 Barton Mobile version.
Do you overclock this processor ? I suppose you do, as I don't see any
reason to buy a more expansive mobile processor for a desktop. What if
you run it at stock speed ?

Hi,
I originally ran this Mobile CPU as it was guranteed overclockable out of
the box with standard heatsink and fan and to be fair its been fine at
2300Mhz from www.overclockers.co.uk . I have dropped it to normal though
and the problem persists.

Pioneer DVD-Rom (which now doesn't recognise DVD's only CD's for some
reason!)

Well, if it does that even if you install it on another computer, the
DVD reading parts are dead...

Yes its def dead but not bothered about that at the moment, something I
can replace at a later time.

Paul,
Thanks for the extremely detailed advice. I will try with one stick at a
time to see what happens. Perhaps one stick is bad although Memtest86 has
found nothing wrong.

On the subject of the CPU, its currently running at 200x11.5=2300Mhz at
1.70v
I'm using Asus BIOS v1010.

Jethro,
I'm sorry to hear of your problems too. Your errors are duplicates of
mine, completely at random times but usually after starting a game or
doing a windows task. Perhaps we can nail this!

Regards,
Graham.

Further to my last post, I've upgraded the nForce drivers to v5.10 and so
far touch wood it hasn't crashed.

Graham.

The Old Man wrote:

snip

Further to my last post, I've upgraded the nForce drivers to v5.10 and so
far touch wood it hasn't crashed.

Graham.

Good to hear, Graham.
I'm downloading the newest 5.10's also. The previous drivers I was using were from the
Asus site. There were fairly old as i forgot to go to the source (nVidia) and get the
latest drivers.
*crossing fingers*

--
Jethro[AGHL] aka Phat_Pinger
Reply Email: jeff (at) tibben (dot) ca

glad to hear..I have stopped using the onboard sound due to my Z5300's not
being SPDIF speakers...but yes I have read issues of the SW IDE drivers I
believe they are called. All my crashes are my own making (OC'ing too
high..wrong timings ect.)...but I know when I format next am going to leave
the SW alone.
A7N8X-Deluxe rev2.0 Uber BIOS 1007
Barton 2500 Unlocked @ 11x200
OCZ PC3200EL 3x256 (2-3-3-6)
etc...etc...

keep us posted..am curious