Important info for SN25P users with X2 processors...

[needles]

We've been tracking this problem down in another forum (forums.sudhian.com) and I thought I'd come and share our findings with the Hard crowd.

A number of people with X2's have noticed that the SN25P tends to freeze a lot, in a totally random way. It's been really frustrating but now we have a temporary work-around and I've been communicating with Shuttle and they are working to produce a genuine fix.

My system specs:

SN25P
BIOS revision "O"
Athlon64 X2 4400+
OCZ Platinum PC3200 @ 2-3-2-5 1T (2.6V)
XFX GeForce 7800GTX (490/1350)

Before someone jumps on me regarding the 2.6V on the RAM -- hey, it works and memtest86 is perfectly peachy. I previously had Patriot memory that needed 2.8V to run stable. I RMA'd thinking the freezes were caused by the Patriot RAM, but it was not.

Anyway, the freezing was totally random and really irritating. We could never get our systems to stay stable longer than 3-4 hours at a time and typically a crash would happen after just 30-45 minutes of *any* kind of us (idle or load, it did not matter). It was also virtually impossible to reproduce the freezes. It was truly random and, at times, it felt downright vindictive.

We've tried drivers, voltages, and all manner of software configurations and tests. Finally, it all boiled down to something very simple and addressable: the USB system.

There are two fixes for this, both with trade-offs (but they are not that bad):

Fix number 1:

Go into the BIOS and disable USB 2.0 support by bumping it back down to USB 1.1 only. This will let you use both cores and remain perfectly stable.

Fix number 2:

If you simply must use USB 2.0, you will have to sacrifice the second core by adding "/onecpu" to your main boot.ini file entry. You will be stable, but only with one processor recognized by the Windows kernel.

Like I've said, I've been communicating our progress to Shuttle and they are actively working on fixing the problem, so we should see working USB 2.0 in dual-core operation soon!

(Myself, the only USB device I have is my Logitech MX700 so I am not really affected... my external devices are all firewire, which works perfectly in dual-core mode.)

 

[IdiotInCharge]

That's exciting, I mean depressing, to hear- the amazing stuff manufacturers manage to break benignly never ceases to amaze. Stuff like this is what scares me from ever doing an aria + ECS anything ever.

 

[Aldoria]

I've experienced something very similar (at least regarding a USB issue). I have a 4400+ X2 with a SN25P just for reference. Once, I got a BSOD and it was pointing to my USBOHCI.sys. After getting it once, I went into device manager and went through all my devices. I noticed that both my USB Hubs as well as some other USB devices had the check mark of "Allow windows to shut down device to conserve power". I unchecked it and I haven't gotten the BSOD ever since (4 day uptime since BSOD). Oh, I should also note that this problem came up right after I manually set my OCZ ram timing to 2-3-2-5 which it is rated for and command rate of 1T. It could be just luck that it happened after setting my ram timings but maybe not.

I've never had problems with random lock ups regarding this problem (I don't think, though I did have some random lock up problems when I initially built the computer and was trying to get the system stable). Maybe give this a try and see if it's another solution to the problem.

Also to add to the solution list.

If you get BSOD of Machine_Exception, uninstall the IDE Driver that comes with the nForce4 chipsets.

If you get BSOD upon connection of LAN, uninstall nForce Network Manager. You can also find this indiction of failure from Event Viewer -> Systems.

If you get random lockup issues and freezes and still use Shuttle bundled SATA cables then you need to switch them out, replace with better quality ones.

If you encounter "slowdowns" (what I mean by slowdowns is that game is stuttering, or that your system overall does not feel responsive when you are doing something cpu intensive) and you have Cool N' Quiet set, the AMD X2 does not properly downclock itself, solution is to put it on Home/Desktop power management (always run at 2.21GHz).

I have more.. maybe I'll add to the list of solution as I encounter more problems to solve or when I get more time!

*Edit: More to the list.

If you have connection issues or lag (especially if you play World of Warcraft), disable Checksum Offload for the nForce ethernet card via device manager.

If you have fan issues (pulsing), go into BIOS, switch from Smartfan to Noise Fan Control - Mid. Also, you can use speedfan and you can tweak / set / speedup all fans in system.

If you have share issues via network (and have nForce active shield off), uninstall nForce Network Manager, re-enable Windows Firewall.

If you encounter high temperature of a hard drive, drive bay under optical slot runs the coolest.

Hope that helps,
Ald