Loyd's New Year - A Trio of Problem Systems
by Loyd Case on January 13, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
The Constantly Crashing P7P55D
Now let’s consider a different problem, also with an Asus motherboard at its core.
I’d built a system running a Core i7 860 and the Asus P7P55D. The GPU installed was an AMD Radeon HD 4890. The system booted normally, and Windows 7 installed with no hiccups.
Periodically, the system would go into sleep mode – this was normal – but would then lock up. This was decidedly not normal. Occasionally, the system would lock up during multiplayer gaming sessions, too. Updating the BIOS didn’t fix the problem.
Then I came across several posts on several forums suggesting an incompatibility that was specific to the Radeon HD 4890. So I swapped in an eVGA 260 GTX Core 216 SSC.
Lockups still occurred, with the same frequency and symptoms. So the problem had nothing to do with graphics cards. Finally, I removed the memory – some early Corsair DDR3-1600 (though it was only running at 1333MHz) and swapped in some OCZ DDR3-1600 (also running at 1333MHz.)
The system has now been running smooth as silk over multiple gaming sessions.
These particular Corsair memory modules had actually given me fits in a number of different Intel-based motherboards, including P45, X48 and now a P55 motherboard. The Corsair memory is a 4GB kit, labeled CMS3X2048-1600C7DHX. What’s interesting about these modules is that when you drop them in an AMD AM3 based motherboard, the system seems to run perfectly fine. It’s quite a mystery, but illustrates how complex the issue of compatibility between components can be.
Lesson learned: nothing in particular, except to maybe to not trust forum posts, even multiple posts that may agree with each other. The graphics card wasn’t the problem here – once again, it was DRAM.
One other thought: despite rapidly falling DDR3 memory prices (or maybe because of rapidly falling prices), the state of the art in DDR3 modules seems to be evolving rapidly. This seems to create incompatibilities between specific motherboards and specific modules. I’ve had Kingston modules run great in Gigabyte motherboards and behave in a crashtastic manner in Asus boards. I’ve had OCZ memory behave badly in Intel boards, while running like a champ in eVGA X58 boards. Whether I adjusted timings, or ran in default modes, didn’t seem to matter.
How anyone can keep track of which modules run well on which motherboards at this point in time is a mystery. So the lesson here, I suppose is: if you don’t have a large supply of different modules and motherboards on hand – and most people don’t – make sure you buy your components from a reseller with a robust return and exchange policy.
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pkoi - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
too strange , did you repeat that? backward ?nicknomo - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
I looked at computer #1, and I don't quite understand why you did any of that. That computer you had is far superior than anything I'm using.. The problems your daughter was having was in no way related to any of the solutions. Why not just try a repair installation of XP if you really wanted to fix the issue? Vista sure wasn't going to help at all. The hardware upgrades seem excessive, especially considering you were using pretty recent hardware to begin with.I'm not really in disagreement with the "what I learned" part of it. Yes, check your BIOS... don't do an in place upgrade if you can avoid it.. but, the lessons don't go with the problem..
loydcase - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
Well, you have an interesting point. I should have probably kept her on XP until it was time to move to Win7. Maybe I should add that to my "lessons learned." ;-)ssj4Gogeta - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
Or you could just have done a fresh Vista install.mackintire - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
Because that machine eats a ton of electricity at idle and acts like a portable space heater.I ran away from that processor for almost the same reasons. Windows 7 would have been a much smarter choice, but I know better than to trust a upgrade install when the OS has been used for that long. Going over the machine with something like Revo uninstaller and removing everything un-necessary would have been a good idea too.
Spivonious - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
I agree. My best system at home is an E6600 with an HD3850. It runs everything I throw at it and Win7 is smooth as butter.Some more thorough spyware scans would have been the proper solution.
jigglywiggly - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
That system was great, infact almost better than my pc and it's blazing fast. Go put a cup of Debian or even Ubuntu if you want it to never get slow as hell. Hell even windows 7 runs fine on it.BTW I have a qx6700 oc'd at 3.6 ghz, I have no idea why you guys can't oc that qx6850 more. Mine is intel's first quadcore. Though it's a thermalright ultra 120x with 2 110cfm on it.
Calin - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
Debian or Ubuntu is not compatible with all the software his daughter was using ("anything she might think she will like")Overclocking everything will make the system at most twice as fast. This is great when moving from 20 fps in a game to 40 fps, but it's no good when moving from an application start time of 40 seconds to an application start time of 20 seconds.
Even more, most of the performance problems I imagine it was having were related to frequent disk accesses, and overclocking will do nothing for this.
leexgx - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
its the disk subsystem that takes the bashing under Vista some HDDs handle it well most do not (find Hitachi HDDs work well under High random access loads), disabling Superfetch can fix the issue at boot as superfetch does not care about I/O priorty under vista (that was fixed under win7), system restore not that i recommend to turn that off but that can help some timesleexgx - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
the permanent fix is an SSD for Vista due to its heavy disk loads ultimately