Re: [vox-tech] Persistant hardware problem kicking my butt
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Karsten M. Self wrote: If you have the option of testing RAM/DVDR on another system, do it. If they're cle Also, double-check the settings for the RAM in BIOS. I had a package of Corsair TwinX RAM that were highly unstable at their default settings. I did manage to tweak the BIOS settings to something stable on the first system they were installed in. Of course, can't find that sheet of notes with the stable settings now, so since I've moved them to a new system, I've had intermittent segfaults. Memtest86 actually runs for hours without error on the new system (had many errors at default settings on the old system), which makes it that much more of a pain to remember exactly how I tweaked the settings. Lesson learned from this: organize my notes better, heh. Second lesson is that memtest86 does not show all memory errors, particularly those rare bit flips and such. So don't take clean output from memtest86 as an indication the RAM and its associated buses and so on are okay. As Karsten said, test the RAM in another machine and see if you can replicate some of the problems. Like I know my problem is the RAM because it's had the same issues on two different systems now. Or if you don't have another system available, find someone who does has the same sort of RAM and do a RAM swap. I did that several years back when I had another set of bad RAM. Swapped with my dad's machine and then my machine was stable and his was crashing. ___ vox-tech mailing list vox-tech@lists.lugod.org http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] Persistant hardware problem kicking my butt
on Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 11:59:14AM -0500, Peter Jay Salzman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > I think that's all the data I have. It's imperative that I have a reliable > fast machine right now to run physics simulations. That's crucial. To me, > the available clues seem contradictory. Somethings points to RAM. Other > things point to something resident on the mother board. Still other things > point to the DVD drive. Occam's razor: Three things connected at one common point suggest the common point. If you have the option of testing RAM/DVDR on another system, do it. If they're cle Otherwise, I'd punt, say mobo, and read my warranty, and check my bank balance / credit limits if necessary. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? The revolution will put you in the driver's seat. signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ vox-tech mailing list vox-tech@lists.lugod.org http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] Persistant hardware problem kicking my butt
I have been overclocking since those famous/infamous celeron 300A to 450. Overclocking can destroy CPU and cause other problems so when you overclock, please keep that in mind. I will give you an example. Back in 2001, I wanted to help my wife's PhD project. I built 3 systems to help her run monte carlo with matlab. One of the primary number cruncher was an Asus KT133 chipset system. I overclocked an OEM thunderbird core Athlon 1Ghz to 1.2Ghz and the system ran 24/7 for several months without one crash. However, after about an year, I can no longer stay at 1.2Ghz without system crash. After I switched back to 1Ghz, system stopped crashing. Based on your description, your overclocking may have damaged some components, but unless I know exactly what you did, it's hard to tell. Overclocking tend to adjust FSB (I was able to unlock my athlon's multiplier lock with a pencil but I don't think that's possible now). When you adjust FSB, depending on chipset (your nforce2 chipset should have some locks), you may inadvertently adjust AGP (need to stay 66mhz or below, depending on FSB & divider value), PCI (need to stay at 33mhz or below, again depending on FSB & divider), IDE speed (you can corrupt your IDE devices, especially hard drives) can all be affected. Of course, CPU and memory speed are affected and you may have boosted voltage to increase stability. All these has the potential of shorten your hardware life. I overclock knowing all those because I retired my celeron 300A not because they failed, but because they were too slow. I also retired my athlon 1GHZ as it developed other hardware problems. I believe my system will become obsolete before hardware failure. In general, when you overclock, you need to pay special attention to motherboard, RAM, heatsink and fans, case, and power supply. You need to use quality components because you are pushing your system to the limit, any of those component fail can cause the whole system to fail. I would check RAM, don't buy Fry's generic RAM please. I used to do that to save money until 1998, I purchased mushkin memory and suddenly, 90% of my system's random crashes and hang went away. Ever since that experience, I stick with only quality RAM. Power supply is another problem, you need to use good power supplies that deliver a clean stable current. Bad power supplies may cause some of those symptoms you are describing as well as random system reboots, etc. Good power supply companies are PC Power & Cooling (expensive though), Antec, Enermax (about two years ago, some of their top end PSU had some issues, they have since fixed it), and Sparkle. There are some new companies who seem to produce decent power supplies but since their track record is short, I hesitate to recommend them. Even companies on my list has had periodic problems with some batches of their power supply. You can find people's complaints against power supply by google. Does your power supply have enough juice for your 12V rail? Your IDE devices consume your PSU's 12V rail. Not enough can cause problems. Power supply are given a total wattage rating but you really need to pay attention to its composition as not enough juice in any of the 3.3V, 5V, 12V rail can cause system problems. A good case will help with your system's cooling but your problem does not seem to be heat related. If you can, borrow some good quality RAM and a good PSU and proceed to test by leaving only one HDD, video card, CPU, 1 stick of RAM inside your system, run memtest for a few hours. If it passes, put another stick of RAM in and memtest for another few hours again. If possible, run memtest for 24 hours everytime to get a larger sample size. When all those pass, then you can add components back one by one, perhaps DVD burner after your RAM to make sure, then other components back in. Since you use good RAM and PSU, that eliminate those two possibility. If you cannot pass memtest even with just CPU, memory, video, and 1 HDD, then it's likely it's your motherboard. Best way to figure out what caused your problem is through process of elimination. ___ vox-tech mailing list vox-tech@lists.lugod.org http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] Persistant hardware problem kicking my butt
I'm not sure how relevant it is... just thought it's something to think about. I never overclock my system just in case something like this happens... -_-' But if you didn't keep it up for very long it's probably not the issue... although I'd try a different process on the mobo if you got a mobo-compatible spare just to make sure the CPU isn't the problem. -Mark On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > Hey Mark, > > It was overclocked about ... a year ago? Probably longer. When I first > built the machine. I was just taking the board out for a test drive. The > board (most of Abit's boards) are designed for overclocking. > > I wanted to know what the limits were, but after a few days, I found that > win2k wasn't completely stable at that speed, so I reset everything back > to the default values. > > It was so long ago, though. How likely do you think that is? > > Thanks! > Pete > > > > On Wed 09 Mar 05, 10:02 AM, Mark K. Kim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > Is the computer overclocked by any chance? Or has it ever been > > overclocked in the past? > > > > -Mark > > -- > Save Star Trek Enterprise from extinction: http://www.saveenterprise.com > > GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D > ___ > vox-tech mailing list > vox-tech@lists.lugod.org > http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech > -- Mark K. Kim AIM: markus kimius Homepage: http://www.cbreak.org/ Xanga: http://www.xanga.com/vindaci Friendster: http://www.friendster.com/user.php?uid=13046 PGP key fingerprint: 7324 BACA 53AD E504 A76E 5167 6822 94F0 F298 5DCE PGP key available on the homepage ___ vox-tech mailing list vox-tech@lists.lugod.org http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] Persistant hardware problem kicking my butt
Hey Mark, It was overclocked about ... a year ago? Probably longer. When I first built the machine. I was just taking the board out for a test drive. The board (most of Abit's boards) are designed for overclocking. I wanted to know what the limits were, but after a few days, I found that win2k wasn't completely stable at that speed, so I reset everything back to the default values. It was so long ago, though. How likely do you think that is? Thanks! Pete On Wed 09 Mar 05, 10:02 AM, Mark K. Kim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > Is the computer overclocked by any chance? Or has it ever been > overclocked in the past? > > -Mark -- Save Star Trek Enterprise from extinction: http://www.saveenterprise.com GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D ___ vox-tech mailing list vox-tech@lists.lugod.org http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] Persistant hardware problem kicking my butt
Is the computer overclocked by any chance? Or has it ever been overclocked in the past? -Mark On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > I'm emotionally drained by a persistant hardware problem, and when I become > emotionally involved with a problem, I tend to not think clearly. So I'd > like to bounce something off the list. Any thoughts greatly appreciated. > > > Relevent Hardware: >Abit NF7 (NForce 2 chipset) >Athlon XP 2200 >2 DDR-400 DIMMs. 512MB each. >Mad Dog something-or-other DVD/CD writer. Writes DVD9. USB 2.0. > > > 1. I was burning a bunch of DVDs under Win2k. Nero's verification >consistantly failed. > > 2. I switched to Linux and used k3b. Verification of burned image >failed as well. > > 3. Certain programs under Linux were segfaulting out of the blue. They >never segfaulted before (Quake III and Unreal Tournament). I didn't >detect any GPF under Windows, but who knows what really goes on? > > 4. Ran memtest86 three times. All three times, memtest86 segfaulted. >It indicated that DIMM 0 was the problem. > > 5. Removed DIMM 1. Reran memtest86. It segfaulted. > > 6. Removed DIMM 0. Placed what used to be DIMM 1 into slot 0. Reran >memtest86 for about 8 hours. No errors. > > 7. Ran Quake III / Unreal Tourn. in Linux for a while. No segfaults. > > > > At this point, I thought the problem was fixed. I was wrong. > > > > 8. Burned a CD with k3b. It was a collection of text and binary files. >Here were a collection of md5sums of what I burned: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum /dvd/* > ec17179683b1ec7c584371d52d482dc7 2004_suprnova_april_fools.jpg > 2a35dd12706e6a109aa5d51a5b7414d6 ballmerwindows.wmv > 1969446ec71b76c01a852ffabcba7b83 Call Of The Wild.txt > 76319f20a91df19621a2c6ed0144803f common_passwords.txt > 7fe852ab7b3609657aa3c7e633ba7c02 Imagine (John Lennon).mp3 > 611759e7fa9455f2cdc574da4eb875bf Leonardo.txt > 83681d4c6c34e5c9f924c3b0ea732038 Makefile > bda631d8fac719f1efb741a61f2f4902 Metamorphosis.txt > 0f3a64e11edc97f32e089d07e8bee7bc polygons.c > cacbcb3cf986d1cf658c8b8fff6f6ce6 rip.pl > 8a72cd8e4e59263f4813892c3ab3b91f roth.zip > e8bc0afb5ab15a10ab233ceab86936bf sid.bmp > 3136b05433e0c0e6877699bcd4e603dc The Complete Ninjas Handbook.pdf > 1a715e61acf7a1bae7f87af03687f11b tomsrtbt-2.0.103.tar.bz2 > b879804716164d24f92519f33774e9f4 try.c > bb4416e6db326f9f30e4c73953cbcadf vmlinuz-2.6.9 > dc692157d1b305cc9b583352ef2c War And Peace.txt > f9436029f9e7bfd3800860e768a1febd write_errors.txt > a553f7a13fb2a0f02c8ff53ae7c378f9 Zarathustra.txt > 5f363e0e58a95f06cbe9bbc662c5dfb6 zero > >Roth.zip is an old DOS game in a zip archive. The md5sum is different >from the md5sum of the hard disk copy: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum /dvd/roth.zip > 8a72cd8e4e59263f4813892c3ab3b91f /dvd/roth.zip > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum ~/Desktop/files/roth.zip > db144e6264cfd84d6276b9488e57a279 /home/p/Desktop/files/roth.zip > >I umount, remount the DVD. The md5sum changes but is still wrong. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip > a1fc154848aa932a7cf44e723ebc6082 /dvd/roth.zip > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum /dvd/roth.zip > a1fc154848aa932a7cf44e723ebc6082 /dvd/roth.zip > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip > 169e7a2327a054f7859066f91b485f45 /dvd/roth.zip > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip > 51d5d96a4108285080f16261916f6e74 /dvd/roth.zip > >I finally get the correct md5sum. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip > db144e6264cfd84d6276b9488e57a279 /dvd/roth.zip > >When I mount the burned DVD on a drive connected to a different system, >the md5sum appears to be consistantly correct. > > > 9. Sometimes, when the machine boots up, POST freezes right after it says >"checking RAM" but just before it starts to check the RAM. This is a >new development. I can make this problem go away only by shutting off >the power supply (not powering down. actually shutting the PS off). > > > 10. I still detect no segfaults that were present before I removed DIMM 0. > > > 11. I've been running memtest86 for a couple of hours now without errors. > > > > I think that's all the data I have. It's imperative that I have a reliable > fast machine right now to run physics simulations. That's crucial. To me, > the available clues seem contradictory. Somethings points to RAM. Other > things point to something resident on the mother board. Still other things > point to the DVD drive. > > Help? > > Pete > > -- > Save Star Trek Enterprise from extinction: http://www.saveenterprise.com > > GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D > _
[vox-tech] Persistant hardware problem kicking my butt
I'm emotionally drained by a persistant hardware problem, and when I become emotionally involved with a problem, I tend to not think clearly. So I'd like to bounce something off the list. Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Relevent Hardware: Abit NF7 (NForce 2 chipset) Athlon XP 2200 2 DDR-400 DIMMs. 512MB each. Mad Dog something-or-other DVD/CD writer. Writes DVD9. USB 2.0. 1. I was burning a bunch of DVDs under Win2k. Nero's verification consistantly failed. 2. I switched to Linux and used k3b. Verification of burned image failed as well. 3. Certain programs under Linux were segfaulting out of the blue. They never segfaulted before (Quake III and Unreal Tournament). I didn't detect any GPF under Windows, but who knows what really goes on? 4. Ran memtest86 three times. All three times, memtest86 segfaulted. It indicated that DIMM 0 was the problem. 5. Removed DIMM 1. Reran memtest86. It segfaulted. 6. Removed DIMM 0. Placed what used to be DIMM 1 into slot 0. Reran memtest86 for about 8 hours. No errors. 7. Ran Quake III / Unreal Tourn. in Linux for a while. No segfaults. At this point, I thought the problem was fixed. I was wrong. 8. Burned a CD with k3b. It was a collection of text and binary files. Here were a collection of md5sums of what I burned: [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum /dvd/* ec17179683b1ec7c584371d52d482dc7 2004_suprnova_april_fools.jpg 2a35dd12706e6a109aa5d51a5b7414d6 ballmerwindows.wmv 1969446ec71b76c01a852ffabcba7b83 Call Of The Wild.txt 76319f20a91df19621a2c6ed0144803f common_passwords.txt 7fe852ab7b3609657aa3c7e633ba7c02 Imagine (John Lennon).mp3 611759e7fa9455f2cdc574da4eb875bf Leonardo.txt 83681d4c6c34e5c9f924c3b0ea732038 Makefile bda631d8fac719f1efb741a61f2f4902 Metamorphosis.txt 0f3a64e11edc97f32e089d07e8bee7bc polygons.c cacbcb3cf986d1cf658c8b8fff6f6ce6 rip.pl 8a72cd8e4e59263f4813892c3ab3b91f roth.zip e8bc0afb5ab15a10ab233ceab86936bf sid.bmp 3136b05433e0c0e6877699bcd4e603dc The Complete Ninjas Handbook.pdf 1a715e61acf7a1bae7f87af03687f11b tomsrtbt-2.0.103.tar.bz2 b879804716164d24f92519f33774e9f4 try.c bb4416e6db326f9f30e4c73953cbcadf vmlinuz-2.6.9 dc692157d1b305cc9b583352ef2c War And Peace.txt f9436029f9e7bfd3800860e768a1febd write_errors.txt a553f7a13fb2a0f02c8ff53ae7c378f9 Zarathustra.txt 5f363e0e58a95f06cbe9bbc662c5dfb6 zero Roth.zip is an old DOS game in a zip archive. The md5sum is different from the md5sum of the hard disk copy: [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum /dvd/roth.zip 8a72cd8e4e59263f4813892c3ab3b91f /dvd/roth.zip [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum ~/Desktop/files/roth.zip db144e6264cfd84d6276b9488e57a279 /home/p/Desktop/files/roth.zip I umount, remount the DVD. The md5sum changes but is still wrong. [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip a1fc154848aa932a7cf44e723ebc6082 /dvd/roth.zip [EMAIL PROTECTED] md5sum /dvd/roth.zip a1fc154848aa932a7cf44e723ebc6082 /dvd/roth.zip [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip 169e7a2327a054f7859066f91b485f45 /dvd/roth.zip [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip 51d5d96a4108285080f16261916f6e74 /dvd/roth.zip I finally get the correct md5sum. [EMAIL PROTECTED] umount /dvd/; mount /dvd/; md5sum /dvd/roth.zip db144e6264cfd84d6276b9488e57a279 /dvd/roth.zip When I mount the burned DVD on a drive connected to a different system, the md5sum appears to be consistantly correct. 9. Sometimes, when the machine boots up, POST freezes right after it says "checking RAM" but just before it starts to check the RAM. This is a new development. I can make this problem go away only by shutting off the power supply (not powering down. actually shutting the PS off). 10. I still detect no segfaults that were present before I removed DIMM 0. 11. I've been running memtest86 for a couple of hours now without errors. I think that's all the data I have. It's imperative that I have a reliable fast machine right now to run physics simulations. That's crucial. To me, the available clues seem contradictory. Somethings points to RAM. Other things point to something resident on the mother board. Still other things point to the DVD drive. Help? Pete -- Save Star Trek Enterprise from extinction: http://www.saveenterprise.com GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D ___ vox-tech mailing list vox-tech@lists.lugod.org http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
