Xaeos' Cursed SFF - Help Appreciated

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RanceJustice

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 9, 2003
Messages
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It seems I have the worst bloody luck in the world trying to get my SFF up and running. Instead of making additional threads for all my issues in their respected forums, I'm just going to list them here. If anyone would be so kind as to offer solutions, I'd be appreciative.

Currently I've actually managed to install windows, which took much longer in the install process then I thought reasonable. However,once I actually boot into windows,the problems arise. First of all, everything is choppy. Everything. I attempted to install my nforce drivers from CD to see if that would fix the problem, but to no avail. I'm no even sure they installed correctly, because of the length of time and the reboot. There are also seemingly random reboots, which make it very difficult to run windows update. Also, I can' seem to access my SATA DVD drive anymore - is this the fault of the Nforce IDE drivers. So pretty much the box is unusable as it is.

In summation I have a Dual Core Opteron 165, Biostar Tforce6100-939 - could either the dual core proc or the Nforce 410 chipset be the problem here? According to the Bios, the CPU temp is idling round 30 or so. Help is much appreciated!
 
OK memory type and what timings are being set in the BIOS? How many sticks? Pull one and see if the reboots go away. Power supply 12v and 5v rails are stable? Latest BIOS? And, is this the Raptor drive you have in your sig? Which vid card?

Edit: K, I see you had issues with BIOS not setting the timings rigth for the GSkill memory. Question I have for you then is this. With the generic memory you used to test the board, are you still having the same issues? If theres something flakey with the ram then that might have an impact of the errors you are running in to.

-E
 
If you mean your display is choppy, you need to install the vid card (ForceWare) drivers. The reboots are either going to be a power issue or a setting in the bios that is being set wrong. Try alternately pulling the sticks as suggested above.

Problem with the SATA DVD drive could be alot of things - first being that it's a SATA DVD drive. There is a reason Plextor is the only one who makes one, because there are still problems with the technology. Try going into Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager and deleting the DVD drive. WinXP should auto find it again on startup.
 
Firelord - I have updated my sig to reflect the box as it currently stands.

Fanatik - I ran Memtest X86+ 1.65 on the current Gskill 2gb kit for 4 passes (about 3 hours) without an error.

MrE - Memory is Gskill 3-4-4-8 - this model http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231021 2x1gb In the BIOS, it is set as following

Mem voltage - 2.6
memclock frequency -200mhz
1T/2T memory timing - 1T
DRAM configuration - TCL = 3, TRAS = 8 , TRCD = 4, TRP = 4 (3-4-4-8 if my understanding is correct). There arealso a whole bunch of other timing like TRRD, but if I remember correctly Eclipse said these don't matter nearly as much. I set all these timings manually.

I have never used to generic 1gb kit to install/test windows, because it shoots up lots and lots of errors on memtest, as opposed to the current Gskill, which doesn't seem to have any.

I'll try pulling one stick, then the other and will get back to ya.

Could you enlighten me as to how to test my powersupply's stability? Its a brand new enermax liberty, so I have no reason to think its weak or unstable by that merit alone.

There is a newer bios out - however, at the moment I don't have a floppy drive. The motherboard has an integrated bios flashing ability, but seems to require a floppy drive. Can this work from a USB drive instead?

No, I'm not using the Raptors yet. This is a seagate 7200.7. Vid card is the same as new sig - MSI GeForce 6600GT.

Sleepeeg3- Any idea what bios settings could be causing this? Also, the Plextor SATA drive has worked wonderfully for me in my old Intel P4c rig since last november or so. Is there some specific incompatability with AMD, or the motherboard? It even shows up in bios.

Thanks for all your help so far!
 
New report - I tried taking out one stick of ram. At this point, it booted into windows just fine, but it was still slow and choppy. I then replaced that stick and removed the other, to see if it was the culprit. Black screen. Nothing. I tried both sticks, individually in every slot - still nothing. Trying both sticks togeather - it worked - the "cascading" lag problem isn't fixed but at least I get video again. Now what the heck is up with this?

Edit - Video ONLY works if both sticks of RAM are in the "green" dimm slots, not the yellow ones!

Edit2 - False alarm. Now they don't work in the green slots either.

Seems like its totally random now. W-T-F. I'll try the "damaged" non-Gskill RAM again

Edit3 - Now it seems nothing works. Generic, memtest-failing RAM won't give me a fucking picture either.
 
RTFM! :D I kid you not. I had the same problem. If you're using 2 sticks, you need to put the ram in the 2 slots the farthest away from the cpu. The yellow and green slots. And if you're using 1 stick, it needs to be in the slot farthest from the cpu. That probably won't solve all your problems, but its a start!
 
Gave it a try, and still to no avail with the Gskill. I thought that was only for early model K8 CPUs, not dual cores? Thanks for the tip though
 
"Cascading" lag - like your screen updating - install the durned video card drivers...
 
sleepeeg3 said:
"Cascading" lag - like your screen updating - install the durned video card drivers...
Click to expand...

Will do so as soon as I can 1) get my picture back and 2) hope the random reboots stop long enough.
 
Danly said:
RTFM! :D I kid you not. I had the same problem. If you're using 2 sticks, you need to put the ram in the 2 slots the farthest away from the cpu. The yellow and green slots. And if you're using 1 stick, it needs to be in the slot farthest from the cpu. That probably won't solve all your problems, but its a start!
Click to expand...

if you want dual channel, they need to be in slots of the same color.

I had some problems initially with this board that turned out to be memory related. the first thing was that the manual gave me the impression that slots 1a and 2 a are are the two of the same color that are farthest away. but that's not true, as cpuz reports those as slot 1b and 2 b. so make sure your ram is in the two same color slots closest to the cpu. things improved a lot after I did this, but it still occasionally did a randomn reboot.

next, find out what the manufacturer's recommened default settings are for this ram, and make sure each one of those setting is set exactly in the bios. I had one usually minor setting that was different, but it was what was still causing the reboot problems.

also check to make sure that the jumper for the ram voltage isn't set at 3.2v
 
chameleoneel said:
if you want dual channel, they need to be in slots of the same color.

I had some problems initially with this board that turned out to be memory related. the first thing was that the manual gave me the impression that slots 1a and 2 a are are the two of the same color that are farthest away. but that's not true, as cpuz reports those as slot 1b and 2 b. so make sure your ram is in the two same color slots closest to the cpu. things improved a lot after I did this, but it still occasionally did a randomn reboot.

next, find out what the manufacturer's recommened default settings are for this ram, and make sure each one of those setting is set exactly in the bios. I had one usually minor setting that was different, but it was what was still causing the reboot problems.

also check to make sure that the jumper for the ram voltage isn't set at 3.2v
Click to expand...


Thanks. I'll move the ram to the two yellow slots then. I was running exactly at 3-4-4-8 as per instructions, but now I can't even boot so I can't make any changes. I did replace that jumper back, shorting the pins closest to the edge of the board, at its default settings as soon as I learned it took it to 3.2!
 
also, don't try to set the south bridge bit depth to 16 bits.

I don't even know why they give you the option, because it just screws everything up very quickly.
 
Something about the memory controller is suspect on this board, but I digress. Make sure you turn off Spread Spectrum in the BIOS, and verify which memory modules have been qualified on this board from the manufactuer. All your problems sound as if it stems from the pickyness of the memory controller.

I had an Abit board that was the same way. Turned out at that time the Mushkin memory I was using wasn't compatible with the Abit and I had to shell out another $180 for new memory or replace the motherboard. The SPD chip and the BIOS never agreed on the timings even when set manually in the BIOS and both modules were in. In single channel mode I could force it to work. Good luck.

-E
 
I don't see an option on the board expressively called that. I see somerthing in the advanced chipset features that reads by default (havn't touched it)

PMU
NB>SB HT Speed - 4X
NB<SB HT Speed - 4X
K8<>NB HT Width [downarrow 16 uparrow 16]
NB<>SB HT Width [downarrow 8 uparrow 8]

Is it one of these?
 
Xaeos said:
I don't see an option on the board expressively called that. I see somerthing in the advanced chipset features that reads by default (havn't touched it)

PMU
NB>SB HT Speed - 4X
NB<SB HT Speed - 4X
K8<>NB HT Width [downarrow 16 uparrow 16]
NB<>SB HT Width [downarrow 8 uparrow 8]

Is it one of these?
Click to expand...

that's what I was talking about. downarrow and uparrow is like upstream communication and downstream communication. and the number is the bit depth. they give you the option to set the NB<>SB HT bit depth or width to 16, but DON'T. it doesn't do good things.
 
chameleoneel - so as it currently stands, leave it be? Or is the 8+8 cumulative so I need to change it?

MrE - Spread Spectrum is off for everything. Checking the Biostar website, it seems they rate the board for generic DDR333/400 - of course, this is DDR500, but I didn't think most motherboards were rated for that standard. I don't see anywhere it specifies Gskill or any other brand. Am I looking in the wrong place? Or maybe I should increase memory up to 250mhz to get it up to the spec the memory itself is rated for?

Also, do you know anything about the integrated bios flasher? Do I really need to get a floppy drive, or can I do it from a USB key. Its a long shot, but according to the very limited description of the bios update it fixes an issue with "Dual Core FX60", which if I understand the Opteron 165 correctly, is a pretty close relative in that both the FX series consumer proc and the Opterons are cut from the same wafers, as opposed to the standard AMD64 and X2 chips.
 
http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/23839.html

download that. and use it to format and make a bootable usb flash drive. it works with basically every flash driver. then you can put everything on there that you need to flash your bios, and boot to the stick.

leave that NB - SB how it is, with the 8's.

now regarding your ram, that's pretty common popular ram, and I'm pretty darn sure lots of people are using it just fine in this motherboard. so flash your bios, maybe missing that update is affecting you, like maybe its causing the board to address the processors built in memory controller incorrectly or something.

after you flash, then start tweaking, try setting a high ram divider for ddr500, or, by using cpuz, find out what the timings should be at ddr400 and try running it like that.
 
Chameleoneel, those are all good recommendations, but I still think even after the flash of the BIOS Xaeos will discover that the memory controller is the problem. I'm guessing that this point that its a bad board and not so much an issue with his GSkill memory. If he's unable to get a stable clock even with generic memory, then there is something more going on with this motherboard.

-E
 
MrE said:
Chameleoneel, those are all good recommendations, but I still think even after the flash of the BIOS Xaeos will discover that the memory controller is the problem. I'm guessing that this point that its a bad board and not so much an issue with his GSkill memory. If he's unable to get a stable clock even with generic memory, then there is something more going on with this motherboard.

-E
Click to expand...

I will try and flash the BIOS to the latest version, but if that doesn't work am I to assume that the individual board is bad and RMA it, or that the issue lies with the model? Or perhaps the combination of the mobo and ram togeather?

I also have been reading about issues with the Enermax Liberty power supply, but that seems to be mostly in conjuction with the DFI board - I think a fair amount of people with the Biostars have Liberty PS's and they work just fine right?

Edit: I'm about to buy a USB external floppy drive. I really should have one anyway. If any of you could confirm that the bios update function works with a USB floppy, let me know. I don't want to waste my money.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
The memory controller is on the CPU.
Click to expand...
That is correct. The memory controller is built onto the CPU itself. At the same time, if I am not mistaken though, there is still an MTH built into the motherboard chipset. This is what I was referring to.

As far as the memory compatibility I'd say that this issue sounds specific to your board since there are others on the forums that run the Biostar with GSkill memory.

-E
 
the memory controller is built into the processor.

also, what mode is your hardrive running in? you said that everything is really slow, and you get errors and stuff right?

well you mide have a bad IDE or SATA controller (whichever kind of Hd you have).

I had a DFI NF4 infinity that had two bad memory controllers, it forced my hardrive into PIO mode (very slow) to avoid errors (still had a few) and none of my cd burns would pass the nero data check.

if after the flash you can't get thing working, I suggest an rma. these are good boards, so don't be discouraged, its just that unfortunately its seems that the computer hardware industry ships more than the 3% maximum allowed faulty hardware.
 
Tenative good news! I updated the BIOS and now it seems to be stable and the "slow refresh lag" Has gone away! I'm still skeptical, but I'm running windows update. The only oddity is that there was no "welcome" screen during boot up but before getting into windows. Hope it keeps up. Once windows update is done I'm going to go get drivers for everything.

Should I use the Nforce drivers on Biostar's site, or the latest ones given on Nvidia's?
 
Xaeos said:
Tenative good news! I updated the BIOS and now it seems to be stable and the "slow refresh lag" Has gone away! I'm still skeptical, but I'm running windows update. The only oddity is that there was no "welcome" screen during boot up but before getting into windows. Hope it keeps up. Once windows update is done I'm going to go get drivers for everything.

Should I use the Nforce drivers on Biostar's site, or the latest ones given on Nvidia's?
Click to expand...

ALWAYS use nVidia's drivers, they're much more up to date.
 
Okay. So far, so good. Windows has updated, new Nforce 410 and Nvidia GFX drivers installed.

Except now accessing my Plextor 716SA SATA drive seems to force the system to reboot. Now I installed windows using the drive, so it sounds like there's a new driver issue, huh? Maybe the Nvidia IDE drivers that came with the NForce package? Anything else?
I never had an issue with this drive in my old P4c 875P rig, so I'm not sure what the problem is now.

Edit: when I installed the Nforce drivers, I did not install the Nvidia Firewall and management app. I hear it causes its own problems, so I left it well enough alone.
 
After two A8N32 installs, I've learned not to install the nVidia IDE drivers. :\ I avoided them too with an A8N-VM CSM and MSI 6150 mobo install this past week. See if uninstalling them fixes things.
 
Okay. Nvidia IDE uninstalled - left the other items intact. Lo and behold, it works! Thanks for your help so far, everyone!

Prime95 is running a blended torture test and has done so for the past 12 hours or so. Currently I don't have it overclocked, but I just wanted to ensure the proc was stable. How much time is sufficient on this board to ensure stability? 12? 24 hours? More? Provided nothing messes up, it looks like its almost time to start OCing.

I won't say the curse is over yet, and jinx it :)
 
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