That dreaded 0x101 BSOD

A

aidenn

n00b
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
Messages
22
Hello,

I've been overclocking my 2500k since I bought it over half a year ago (I've run it @ stock for like 5 minutes). At first I OCd it to 4.6 GHz, but I've been getting a lot more 0x101s than I wished for and I didn't want to increase voltage any more (Ideally I'd want to run this rig at 1.35v max). Thus I downclocked it to 4.5 and started at 1.30v I think (it was a long time ago), but the 101s didn't go away. I progressively increased the voltage each time one appeared, and they were fewer and fewer of them (once a month or so, and only while playing Diablo 3), but the voltage went to about 1.36. I figured I'll redo the air cooling (I have a Mugen 2), buy new fans, chassis fans and airways, apply new paste and do the OC properly (with dynamic voltage etc.), since it was kind of a ghetto solution anyway - just one stock fan for the Mugen, no proper air channels, fixated on 4.5 GHz, when I could just downclock it to 4.4 etc.

Then my mobo got fried by static (P8P67 Deluxe) and I waited for its RMA for over a month. Now I have a Z77 Sabertooth and I figured that this is the best time to finally do the cooling properly. I haven't bought the new fans yet, so I've set everything to stock (bios -> load optimized values), put in the stock cooler I got with the 2500k (I really don't want to put in the Mugen twice :D) and didn't overclock a thing. I installed fresh Windows 7 x64 on a fresh disk, installed the drivers, updated the OS, installed Diablo 3, played a bit, installed Spec Ops: The Line, played a bit... and 0x101.

How is this possible when everything's on stock? Any hints on how to diagnose it? I always thought that 0x101 was only related to voltage and OC.

My rig:

i5 2500k @ stock
Z77 Sabertooth (latest BIOS)
Gainward GeForce GTX570 Phantom
Corsair 650HX
G.Skill DDR3 8GB(2x4GB) 1600MHz RipjawsX CL7
Corsair Carbide 400R
WD Caviar Blue 500GB (SATA3)

Any ideas?
 
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Try your ram at 8-8-8-24 at 1.5v and see how that goes. Cas 7 ram is pretty tight timings, even though its spec'd for it. The first thing I look at when Im not stable at stock and I have already checked/changed my PSU is the ram. Especially when a fresh install doesn't solve the problem.
 
Oooh! Thanks! I didn't touch the RAM even once, because I wanted a rock solid CPU first. I didn't know that the manufacturer could put in defaults that were too tight. I'll try that.

-- edit --

I did the switch, but I also noticed the default voltage was 1.6. Won't 1.5 be more crash-prone, even with looser timings?

-- edit --

That 1.5v kept crashing Firefox, games and other things, so I upped it back to 1.6. Seems OK for now.
 
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The BIGGEST and ONLY thing that helped me achieve 5.2ghz stable was changing loadline calibration from "EXTREME" to "VERY HIGH" on my Asus P8P67.

I had to increase the vcore offset by quite a scary amount to compensate for underload conditions in order to maintain 1.51v, but it completely fixed all random BSODS.

Been purring fully 100% stable for roughly half a year now both HT on or off, though I keep it off for game performance ~ 5% measurable improvement in high end games.

Hope that helps...
 
OK, since 8-8-8-24 didn't help I set the RAM to 11-11-11-25. Now it seems stable, two days without a single BSOD. I gotta check these sticks later, but so far it seems it really was them. Thanks! :)
 
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