most likely yes.
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most likely yes.
i came along this thread and issue yesterday...
Ok guys....is ANYONE being "scientific" here ?
What i want to say...please lets exclude making *assumptions* but instead bring some system in this debate - otherwise its worthless.
I have to admit i did NOT get any valuable information off this debate - because one *assumed* fact usually gets disproved in a following message.
One person seems to have a faulty A64 core, week 37...swaps a later core in which works. Which proves ?
"All early A64 winchesters up to week 44 are faulty " ? <-- of course NOT !!!
I see people claiming Week 37 chips are defective - just to read two messages later another person has a week 37 chip which overclocks to 2700Mhz and runs prime.
I see people saying cores from week 44 and up are ok...then i see some people having problems with these chips too !
ALSO:
I see TOO MANY people in this thread having the MSI K8 Neo2 board, i see too many people all having the OCZ PSU.
If you/we want "scientific" data whats really going on we need to look at this from a broader base with (god forbid !) various hardware, boards and PSUs and put this all together, sorted after core (week) and used hardware. Make a list, poll etc...
Also...it is not clear whether only 3000, 3200 or 3500 are affected...*if at all*.
HOWEVER - not being able to exclude it *is* a fault with prime95 (which i just dont KNOW) - i also strongly think that a CPU which fails Prime95 at stock is FAULTY.
I use(d) P95 for years to determine my overclocks - and the thought of a brandnew CPU wouldnt be able to run this (at stock) is , well, not cool.
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>>"All early A64 winchesters up to week 44 are faulty " ? <-- of course NOT !!!
No. A BUNCH of people have prime failing @ stock with older weeks of Winchesters. "A bunch of older Winchesters may be faulty" <-- YES
>>I see TOO MANY people in this thread having the MSI K8 Neo2 board
Not all. Not only nForce3 either.
>>i see too many people all having the OCZ PSU.
Definitely not all!
the much MORE logical assumption would be that memtest86 is fine, so is your memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by n0w4i4
ALSO..you shouldnt use memtest to test your CPU....because then it would not be called, well, guess it, "MEMTEST".
On ther same level are the people who use Prime, Prime fails, and THEN wanting to RMA theyr memory because Prime had errors :) The same story but backwards.
Not without a reason i always say overclocking (and systems testing for that matter) is much more complex than what MANY people believe.
Some people dont even get the basics right, use the wrong tools etc...but then going online and making statements about faulty hardware, faulty tools etc.
Sorry, i dont want to sound harsh..but this happens a lot...this thread probably is the best example. (People calling OCZ because P95 fails etc..)
greetings !
just to add something to this (very interesting) thread:
You would also have to eliminate all people who (as it seems) use(d) wrong Bios settings, wrong memory timings. Another person even had a faulty stick of memory.
There are MANY reasons why Prime could fail.
Also, AndyOCZ cannot make an assumption that "a bunch" of A64 fails because of a "hardware flaw" - based on the fact that people called in for RMA and complained about problems with their system and Prime.
Because, also, "a bunch" of people probably also had their systems set up wrongly (wrong memory timings etc.)..we dont know for sure WHY they couldnt run Prime !
How many of these people do we KNOW that it was actually really their CPU which causes the problem - and not bios settings or EVRYTHING else ?
And then the number of people who swapped out a "faulty" core for another one (in a self test at home :) ) - is this number significant enough..or is it only a handful people doing some testing and then making a general statement ?
Dont get me wrong...i have no business to defend AMD...i have a week 37 core 3500+ myself - cant test since i still wait for my motherboard :)
I just think we need to be more organized here to get to the "core" (literally) of the problem...
ugh.. this is annoying. Sure some people it's their fault it's failing. This is not some random forum tho. Most people here know what they are talking about to say the least. We know how to overclock and we can determine to a logical degree what is causing problems. It's just annoying how so many people (amd being 'one' of them lol) act like we don't know what we are doing and just up the fsb to 350 and get mad when it dosn't work.
I mean, ok, so some people it is a user related fault. But that dosn't change the fact that there is a known and well confirmed hardware related issue here.
Oh well, ill probably buy one if i get the chance anyway. :) Do i really want to wait for the 'Venice' cores sheduled for late january? hell no
Hi, I understand your concern. Be assured that an OCZ PSU and MSI Neo2 motherboards are NOT causing P95 issues. I did VERY scientific testing, starting at 200fsb with several known good kits of high quality memory on the Gigabyte K8NS 939 Ultra and the MSI board. By verifying that my personal week 37 90nm A64 failed P95 blend at 200fsb I dupicated what my what my customers had experienced. I requested that they run P95 blend test at 200fsb to verify that they had a good CPU/Mobo before they asked for an RMA. I didn't try and convince anyone that they had a bad CPU.Quote:
Originally Posted by flexy
Prime95 was verified as good and NOT causing the issue. I went out with my own money to Fry's and purchased a 3200+ Winchester week 41 that runs P95 for as long as I like at 200fsb and at 250fsb. The week 37 CPU I have that failed P95 blend was a 3500+ model.
If one understands the way CPU's are manufactured and binned for sale, one would realize that the rated speed has little to do with this issue. The CPU's are assembled and then tested for voltage and speed before the are determined to be a 3500+. 3200+, 3000+, etc., making the final speed meaningless. The finished cores that are used in assembly for a given week are made prior and can span several weeks of production, making it impossible to know what "batch" the cores came from or exactly what week is causing an issue (at least for the end user).
As far as the PSU goes I doubt that using even a cheap overated model would cause errors at 200fsb. Once again I scientifically proved that the PSU was not an issue due to the fact that it was used with the failing and passing CPU's along with the same 2 boards.
This thread does require careful reading as not all of the posters did this kind of testing. There are those that did and they know they have a CPU that will not run P95. If we were to say that it was only 3 CPU's with this issue out of our sampling here (although many more are convinced their CPU's are faulty), and then factor that percentage over how many Winchesters AMD sold with these cores, we would I am sure be able to deduce that a large number are floating around on shelves and in computers.
Make of this thread what you wish, but rest assured that there are 90nm Winchester core CPU's that will not run P95 at 200fsb with loose memory timings and the agressive timings setting off. Once agian this was "scientifically" proven and not guesswork.
Read my last post. I do not assume, thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by flexy
Can anyone answer this? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by ZeroSanity
I didn't test much more than Prime95 on my 3500+ before sending it back to Newegg for an RMA.
At this point the earlier weeks are showing up less often and we have pretty much decided that not all week 37 (or earlier) CPU's were bad. Some have posted that they were otherwise stable, even though P95 failed. Of course we all have different requirements and interpertations of stability. Given that I purchased a very good week 41 Winchester recently I would say that you should be safe. It's up to you
>>>
Some have posted that they were otherwise stable, even though P95 failed.
>>>
how did they determine this stability ? Which other program does validation-checks for FFP calculations etc....comparing calculations to a list like prime does ?
I
mine has been 100% stable in everything, stock or overclocked (obvioulsy to a point) in all things includeing p95. Its a 0444 chip
SuperPi I think, and umm... there's on other that calculates pi I forget what it's called cause I never use it.Quote:
Originally Posted by flexy123
After lots of SuperPI and Prime95 testing I've found I can get a stable system at 2-3-3-5 1T using stock speeds and stock volts. I can't however get a stable system at my rams rated 2-2-2-5 :(, I even tried uping the Vdimm to 2.85 and down to 2.6 but nothing helps.
I've got my Newcastle 3500 coming tomorrow so I'll be able to verify it's the chip and not something else.
BTW when SuperPI or Prime95 has failed I've been getting occasional blue screens and other crashes so I can't just ignore Prime95.
Verification of Prime95 comes through changing only the CPU with another "newer" Winchester and having it run for hours. I verified it.Quote:
Originally Posted by flexy123
hi,Quote:
Originally Posted by andyOCZ
yes..i meant what program they use to verify the stability. (Knowing that P95 compares to internal values). I dont know whether other programs do that, eg. SuperPI.....if these other programs only use the CPU and calculate, but do NOT compare the calculations to a list - how would these people know that their system is stable ?.
There are countless programs around which put extreme load on the CPU, but thats about it. You cannot make a statement about stability (also meaning: CPU calculates right) just by running a program without an obvious crash. (Like MANY do btw and then claim that their systems are stable :)
We (as overclockers) KNOW that of course :)
Thats why i asked: "Which otehr program does such validation checks like P95 does ?"
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but regarding your comment...yes...its clear. You had a week 37 core and replaced it w/ a week 44 and it worked.
This itself only proves that YOUR week 37 core *possibly* was faulty - you cant take this to make a general assumption.
EXCEPT if we had TONS of people who did the same and can verify this. And not based on ONE (or a handful) persons's experience.
If we want a "scientific" approach we'd need a LOT of week XYZ core owners who did the same testing and can confirm that the errors were, indeed, solely based on the CPU revision they used.
Just to eliminate windows driver or stability issues and programs in the background, you might try the mprime 23.9 in a bootable disk. http://www.mersenneforum.org/zip/ download the latest version and either use rawrite to write that image to a disk, or burn a bootable cd (easily done under nero or cdrwin) with that boot image, if don't touch anything, a blend 3 test will run. Good luck all.
marek_steele: Gonna try that, thought it was on three floppys, but it's actually three diff versions.
Got it working, at stock settings it failed after 1 min ;). Gonna try 2-3-3-5 1T again which I consider stable.
Sorry,Quote:
Originally Posted by flexy
Some use Super PI as this calculates also. Most just game and run normal apps to check stability. 3dMark 2001 is good. You can run that in a loop for hours to check stabilty.
You are right about having needing many more CPU's to test. I wish I had a few trays. :) The reallity is that we have some that have this issue and some that don't. Anyway XS is not real scientific in general. We are all too passionate about our rigs. ;)
@flexy
You mean memtest just only tests my memory ? Ok then tell me how memtest "communicates" with system and how it tests RAM? YES it has to go thru the Memory Controller to test my Memory ? right ? And the Memory Controller sits in my CPU, so some parts of the CPU SHOULD be tested by Memtest, but it doesn´t !
n0w, it doents stress the cpu like other programs do. Yes it test the memory controller, but not very much at all... its just passing the data through it.. Remember that memtest just moves the data around on the memory, it doesnt do any real calculations like prime or super pi
Ok that sounds right, but I thought it tests the MC aswell. Would be a nice Option for a next version of memtest (enhanced) :) !?
There is no way to isolate just the memory in any test. If you have your CPU overclocked too high you will fail tests 1 and 2 in memtest86. You may also fail test 5. If your memory controller is on the ragged edge you will fail all RAM tests. The memory controller handles everything that the memory reads, writes or moves.Quote:
Originally Posted by n0w4i4
So what should i believe now ? At first i believed the version of andyOCZ, then MaxxxRacer's version and now again andyOCZ's ! :stick:
I also thought that everything must go thru the MC. :rolleyes: