P5B Vanilla issues

T

ToastMaster

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 2, 2005
Messages
483
Most of the programs I am running appear to be stable.

However, Source-based games seem to crash fairly frequently.

When I built my system and did a fresh installation, I installed all of the latest drivers, including the 91.47 Forceware drivers. When running DoD:S, etc., it would fairly frequently crash to desktop, giving the "datacache.dll" error, would give the looping sound crash, or would simply lock up and I'd have to reset my system.

So I did some reason, came across all the old datacache errors with Source-based games, etc. In the AMD forum, I was reading about some people's issues with the latest nVidia drivers, under the Dual Core Optimization thread for X2 systems. Even though I'm running a C2D, I figured I'd give it a shot, and downloaded the older 91.31 drivers, uninstalled the .47's and put the .31 on. It's increased the stability a fair bit, but I'm still getting the occasional crash to desktop with a datacache.dll error, or sometimes it'll begin to freeze and have sound looping, only to then let me continue the game. I had Automatic Restart enabled before this, and there were times when it'd crash and the system would just restart automatically, without letting me see what the error was.

It's getting rather annoying, to say the least, and any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
 
Doesn't your RAM require 2.2v for stability? The P5B only allows up to 2.1v. Try setting the RAM at 2.1v if you haven't done so already.
 
dark_reign said:
Doesn't your RAM require 2.2v for stability? The P5B only allows up to 2.1v. Try setting the RAM at 2.1v if you haven't done so already.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Right now I had it manually set to DDR2 800, but the voltage does only support up to 2.1v.


For a further update - I let memtest86+ run overnight, and after 7 hours of running, this morning I saw that it had 70 errors, while it had passed 17 times. I'm not sure if this many errors could be due to just issues with the stability of the RAM, or if it's likely the RAM itself might be bad.


Edit - and incase anyone is wondering, I posted this here simply because I'm not sure if the problem itself is due to my motherboard, or if it's due to the memory.
 
ToastMaster said:
Yeah. Right now I had it manually set to DDR2 800, but the voltage does only support up to 2.1v.


For a further update - I let memtest86+ run overnight, and after 7 hours of running, this morning I saw that it had 70 errors, while it had passed 17 times. I'm not sure if this many errors could be due to just issues with the stability of the RAM, or if it's likely the RAM itself might be bad.


Edit - and incase anyone is wondering, I posted this here simply because I'm not sure if the problem itself is due to my motherboard, or if it's due to the memory.
Click to expand...

That is really hard to narrow down since the memory controller is part of the motherboards chipset. I'd advise testing one stick of ram at a time with the system running at stock speeds, the SPD values set to auto, and the memory speed set at DDR 2 800. (Do that part manually if need be.)

Set the voltage to Auto as well. The chips should be able to handle running like that. If not, find the actual voltage needed from the manufacturer and set it as close as possible. Re-test and go from there. The next step would be to test that same ram in another compatible system at stock speeds and see what happens. I understand that option may not be available to you. Also, if you have any other compatible ram, test that in your P5B and see what happens. If you get two different brands of modules and three or four different sticks giving you memtest errors, than most likely it is the motherboard and not the ram.

There are issues of some ram brands and models just not liking certain motherboards. For example, the Corsair CM2X 512 PC8000UL memory doesn't work worth a crap on the Biostar TForce P965 Deluxe motherboard. The OCZ ram in my sig worked AWESOME in that board. I was able to reach beyond my rams specifications and maintain system stability.

Yet I've seen that same Corsair memory reach DDR 2 1000 speeds easily on other boards.
 
Dan_D said:
That is really hard to narrow down since the memory controller is part of the motherboards chipset. I'd advise testing one stick of ram at a time with the system running at stock speeds, the SPD values set to auto, and the memory speed set at DDR 2 800. (Do that part manually if need be.)

Set the voltage to Auto as well. The chips should be able to handle running like that. If not, find the actual voltage needed from the manufacturer and set it as close as possible. Re-test and go from there. The next step would be to test that same ram in another compatible system at stock speeds and see what happens. I understand that option may not be available to you. Also, if you have any other compatible ram, test that in your P5B and see what happens. If you get two different brands of modules and three or four different sticks giving you memtest errors, than most likely it is the motherboard and not the ram.

There are issues of some ram brands and models just not liking certain motherboards. For example, the Corsair CM2X 512 PC8000UL memory doesn't work worth a crap on the Biostar TForce P965 Deluxe motherboard. The OCZ ram in my sig worked AWESOME in that board. I was able to reach beyond my rams specifications and maintain system stability.

Yet I've seen that same Corsair memory reach DDR 2 1000 speeds easily on other boards.
Click to expand...


Thanks Dan. The memory I have requires 2.2v to work at DDR2 800, at 4-4-4-12. The P5B can only go up to 2.1v however, so once I'm off-work, I'm going to increase the voltage to 2.1v, and then begin testing it. If need-be, I'll lower the speed to DDR2 667.
 
ToastMaster said:
Thanks Dan. The memory I have requires 2.2v to work at DDR2 800, at 4-4-4-12. The P5B can only go up to 2.1v however, so once I'm off-work, I'm going to increase the voltage to 2.1v, and then begin testing it. If need-be, I'll lower the speed to DDR2 667.
Click to expand...

That's a good plan. I'm interested to see how this turns out.
 
ToastMaster said:
Yeah. Right now I had it manually set to DDR2 800, but the voltage does only support up to 2.1v.


For a further update - I let memtest86+ run overnight, and after 7 hours of running, this morning I saw that it had 70 errors, while it had passed 17 times. I'm not sure if this many errors could be due to just issues with the stability of the RAM, or if it's likely the RAM itself might be bad.


Edit - and incase anyone is wondering, I posted this here simply because I'm not sure if the problem itself is due to my motherboard, or if it's due to the memory.
Click to expand...

If you update your bios I think you can change it to higher than 2.1 volts...
 
Marvelous said:
If you update your bios I think you can change it to higher than 2.1 volts...
Click to expand...

The lastest BIOS doesn't go any higher than 2.1v. There is a new revision of the P5B-E board (coming in October) that will allow up to 2.4v.
 
Update - I'm still at work, so I haven't yet done any of the changes I planned to.

However, I had my roommate go in and check to see what the screen says, and just recently he told me that after running for ~ 10 hours, it had gotten up to around 125 errors. It's still running as far as I know, since I was going to let it run all night and day until I get back a bit later.
 
ToastMaster said:
Update - I'm still at work, so I haven't yet done any of the changes I planned to.

However, I had my roommate go in and check to see what the screen says, and just recently he told me that after running for ~ 10 hours, it had gotten up to around 125 errors. It's still running as far as I know, since I was going to let it run all night and day until I get back a bit later.
Click to expand...

As soon as it starts giving you errors it is time to move on to another test. The erros shouldn't be there at all.
 
Ok, so I went into the BIOS, upped the voltage to 2.1v, changed timings to 5-5-5-15. Before testing further with memtest86+, I decided to just go into Windows (I needed to do some stuff first anyway), and decided to test it out with the game that was giving me the most problems DoD:S. After 1 1/2 hours, it didn't crash or have any other issues. I'm going to go ahead though and run memtest86+ again later tonight.

However, I'm not sure how many people here use SiSoft Sandra, but under their Memory Bandwidth benchmarking too, I went ahead and ran it, and came out with ~ 5300 MB/s on my system. I compared it to the 975x Chipset at DDR2 800 CL5 with a Pentium 4 XE 865, and the 975's bandwidth result is 6734 MB/s. The FX-62 with DDR2 667 on the nForce 570 supposedly gets 7500 MB/s, and even a P4C 512 on the Intel 875P with DDR 4000 gets a higher MB/s bandwidth.

Sisoft reports that my system bandwidth maximum is estimated at 8512MB/s. Any idea why my actual result is so low?
 
If you're running it at stock then 5300 MB/s is probably about right. I get about 6500 MB/s with my o/c E6400. RAM is cheap value select (got it before prices went sky high) running at 1:1. If you run the RAM async with the FSB then you should get a higher score. Try it both ways.
 
Update:

I played a combined 4-5 hours worth of Source-based games through the night, without any problems.

When I went to bed, I set it to run memtest86+, and then I let it run for a little while longer after I got up as well. After roughly 10 1/2 hours, there was only 1 error:

on test 6, it was good at fffefff, bad at ffffffff, Err Bits 00010000, with memmap being 93.5 MB.

Given that after that long, there was only 1 error, I'm assuming that the errors before were due to the voltage/timing settings of the RAM in the bios. Since I'm still not running the ram at it's true voltage, and since the settings are at 5-5-5-15 (maybe 5-5-5-18 would be a little bit better), I'm guessing that's why I had this lone error pop up.

I though I'd post it though to get everyone's thoughts.
 
Note to everyone... Do not buy memory that is more than 1.8 and or 1.9 at the most... 1.8 volts is the standard voltage for DDR2... If you buy memory that is rated at high voltage... you are going to run into problems..
 
OR: Buy a mobo that you know you can bump the DDR2 voltage up to what you need it at.
 
ScYcS said:
OR: Buy a mobo that you know you can bump the DDR2 voltage up to what you need it at.
Click to expand...

2.2 volts for ddr2 ram is really high... This in not normal voltage ratings for ddr2... And you can overclock rams with lower voltage to higher settings by raising voltage... It seems to me that's what these memory manufacturers are doing... Selling cheap memory and adding more voltage to sell them at higher speed...
 
2.2V is not really that high. Look over at newegg and see how many sticks you'll find with 1.8V and then how many you find with 2.1 or 2.2V. There are tons more 2.2V than 1.8V.

It always has been like this: Want higher speed at stable operation? Add Voltage.
 
ScYcS said:
2.2V is not really that high. Look over at newegg and see how many sticks you'll find with 1.8V and then how many you find with 2.1 or 2.2V. There are tons more 2.2V than 1.8V.

It always has been like this: Want higher speed at stable operation? Add Voltage.
Click to expand...

And they are known for problems with all kinds of motherboards.. Especially OCZ and G Skill... They are cheap branded ram that have many compatibility problems because they can't follow ddr2 ram voltage specs...

Buy any prebuilt systems all have ddr2 voltage of 1.8... 1.8 volts is the industry standard... Not 2.0 not 2.1... It seems to me these memory manufacturers are ripping the consumers off by selling overclocked memory...
 
If you want to buy good memory at a cheap price... You guys should really look into AMPO...

They are rated at specs and are based on infineon ram and are not overclocked... They are cheaper than G skill or OCZ and compatibility is top notch...
 
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