P5W DH - Game instabilty over 420 FSB

Ive been benching my E66600 conroe for the last few weeks and had settled on running at 3.8Ghz 24/7 for now. I have run duel prime for 13 hours at this speed as well as run 3D marks etc without a problem.

I wanted to play a few games this weekend but have found oblivion and guildwars will crash to the desktop with the "windows has encountered a problem" box, this will happen at random times from the 1st minute or upto 30 mins. It usually does a looping sound for a few seconds before exiting.

On my Asus between 410 and 419 I can't past the overclocking error in post and this has always been the case. It seems to be some kind of black spot on the FSB range, maybe on the border of the 1066/1333 bootstrap ? From 420 - 455 I can boot up fine. The games seems fine upto 410FSB, and seem to have the crashing problem from 420 and above. :confused:

Ive took my ram out of the equation by running it on a divider and also with loose timings. Im thinking it may be the Asus.

Im wondering whether anyone else with the Asus has this problem, i guess not many people who have conroes are actually playing games but just benching the arse off them :D

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Originally Posted by Devious

i guess not many people who have conroes are actually playing games but just benching the arse off them :D

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You are probably right, but thanks for contributing because i'm sure a lot of people are interested in this type of info. **tracks thread**

ever think the CPU is just at its limit?

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Originally Posted by Kunaak

ever think the CPU is just at its limit?

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I dont think so I can i run duel prime for 13 hours at this speed & I reckon I could with 3.9Ghz with a bit more juice.

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9...oursje5.th.jpg


It seems quite stable at 4Ghz also, i was playing oblivion at this speed for 15 mins before getting one of the random crashes.

http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/3...2797eq5.th.jpg

thnks for info , actualy ppl are more concerned in whats MAX FSB , etc , and forgot to test the boards in GAMES .

lets see if its something to do with another component or if its ASUS P5WDH mobos that have issues using more than 420 FSB in games .


Once again thnks and let us know when you find if the problem in games its realy the FSB when using 420 + ;)

regards

I can run my P5WDH in games happily at 410fsb; hl2 & oblivion. 420 isn't even pi stable for me though.

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Originally Posted by Devious

I dont think so I can i run duel prime for 13 hours at this speed & I reckon I could with 3.9Ghz with a bit more juice.

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9...oursje5.th.jpg


It seems quite stable at 4Ghz also, i was playing oblivion at this speed for 15 mins before getting one of the random crashes.

http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/3...2797eq5.th.jpg

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Maybe its pci bus or video bus getting to high if you dont have them locked or are not lockable.

oblivion stresses every component , so ...

I KneW thiS would HAPPEN:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=105493

@Devious
Have you tried using 4:3 ratio? Obviously you will lose memory speed, but you might gain stability at 420FSB.

I don't think the NB strap is the issue here. The 1333 strap would theoretically come into play at a much lower frequency. There's a theory that the Asus boards are using one strap the whole time. I think Tony was going to look into that.

I build a lot of PC's (for tweaking/testing/fun)... They are considered stable by me when running dual prime for hours/3DMarknn (looping)..
Many of these systems must be "downclocked" after selling them to guys(boys) that uses the PC's for gaming.
Games.. ecpecially those games that stresses the whole system are probably the best test for stablity..
It must also be said that not all uses their systems in a relatively cold cellar (like me).. :)

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Originally Posted by Plaicd

Maybe its pci bus or video bus getting to high if you dont have them locked or are not lockable.

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I have my pci bus locked at 33Mhz but I was running my PCI-E at 110Mhz, ill knock that back down to 100Mhz and give it a try.

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Originally Posted by theteamaqua

oblivion stresses every component , so ...

I KneW thiS would HAPPEN:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=105493

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Thanks for the link, seems other people may have the problem.

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Originally Posted by sierra_bound

@Devious
Have you tried using 4:3 ratio? Obviously you will lose memory speed, but you might gain stability at 420FSB.

I don't think the NB strap is the issue here. The 1333 strap would theoretically come into play at a much lower frequency. There's a theory that the Asus boards are using one strap the whole time. I think Tony was going to look into that.

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Yeah, like I said Ive run at a divider which was actually 4:3 and loosened off the timmings to 5-6-6-15.

game crashing invloves: cpu, ram, gpu ... try lowering ur clock a bit both cpu, and gpu

cuz i heard many people in some game website have this problem that oblivion crashes to desktop, but the problem was solved after changing everything to stock setting....

obvious we dont need to do that here in xs, so i say do some experiment, for example: changing GPU to stock and cpu to 4GHz, then see if it still crashes, and move ur way up by Ocing only one component. With only one variable, its much easier to spot the problem

well this is no good hope u get it figured out
whats the word on lowering pci-e
also try stock speeds on the gpu

also, it might not be ur problem at all ! sometimes when i enter / leave an area, it jsut crashes right after loading >!! for no reason, oblivion is very buggy as one person mentioned, so my advice is that get the 1.01 patch (not sure if u already have it or not) and hope for another patch ..

this game is soo big that there can be a lot of places go wrong

LOL, o/c isn't guaranteed, man.....

same issue with mine, you'd think it'd be a PCI-E issue.

What other bios settings are you using ?

Have you tried running a higher PCIE speed? I read several times that people who had stability issues solved them by changing the pcie speed from 100-125mhz

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Originally Posted by theteamaqua

game crashing invloves: cpu, ram, gpu ... try lowering ur clock a bit both cpu, and gpu

cuz i heard many people in some game website have this problem that oblivion crashes to desktop, but the problem was solved after changing everything to stock setting....

obvious we dont need to do that here in xs, so i say do some experiment, for example: changing GPU to stock and cpu to 4GHz, then see if it still crashes, and move ur way up by Ocing only one component. With only one variable, its much easier to spot the problem

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I was actually running my gfx card at stock yesterday, i forgot to say. Ignore my sig. Ive reduced the clocks of my ram and loosened the timings so I guess its either the conroe or the motherboard as its only when increasing FSb where it happens.

I wish I had an X6800 to try and clock with multiplier whilst leaving a lowish FSB.

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Originally Posted by Gun_Strife

well this is no good hope u get it figured out
whats the word on lowering pci-e
also try stock speeds on the gpu

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Im at work atm, ill let you know how i get on with that in 5 hours, not that im clock watching or anytihng ;)

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Originally Posted by theteamaqua

also, it might not be ur problem at all ! sometimes when i enter / leave an area, it jsut crashes right after loading >!! for no reason, oblivion is very buggy as one person mentioned, so my advice is that get the 1.01 patch (not sure if u already have it or not) and hope for another patch ..

this game is soo big that there can be a lot of places go wrong

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Well im upto level 21 and must have put 100+ hours in and I never had a crash before in game. Only when exiting I would get an error sometimes. This was with an opteron 165 @ 3.0 ghz though, so maybe it doesnt like the conroes but then again it seems fine at lower clocks.

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Originally Posted by kenofstephen

LOL, o/c isn't guaranteed, man.....

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I never said it was...
I though this information might have been of interest to some people. :rolleyes:

troll elsewhere plz

Right, ive done nothing but test this all week with oblivion.

As ive said before, my system is duel prime stable for over 13 hours at 3.8Ghz with 1.465v - 423 FSB

Ive left oblivion running overnight whilst stood next to one of the oblivion gates in game which is supposed to be one of the most demanding areas. After a few minutes idle the game camera rotates around your character so renders various different areas rather than looking at the same thing.

I started at 423 FSB and when the game crashed I have reduced the FSB by 5Mhz and run again the next night. Ive found oblivion always to crash without fail at 1.465 vcore at anything above 405 FSB. Its been stable at 2 nights at 405 FSB and again failed when tried at 410 FSB.

Last night I increased my vcore to 1.56v and ran the game overnight at 417 FSB and it was still running in the morning. hmmm :confused:

So, im thinking its the Asus rather than the conroe ? If someone has the same rig it would be great if they could try the same.

Maybe the strain on the system with some games causes major vdoop ?

Any other ideas on what it could be ?

Not sure if this helps but its worth bearing in mind that Oblivion will stress a lot more of your system than Prime will. Whilst Prime might max the CPU out, everything else in your system is basically just sat there idle - there's no mad IRQ interrupts going on constantly between the graphics card, sound card, hard drives and CPU as there would be in Oblivion (or any taxing game).

Ordinarily I would say that the fact it falls over in Oblivion is due to lack of power - but I'm sure your Enermax Liberty 620W is up to the job.

My current (in the process of being decommissioned) P4 system was rock solid stable at Prime at 4Ghz, but if I started playing BF2 for long periods of time I'd occasionally get strange errors and lockups.

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Originally Posted by Devious

Maybe the strain on the system with some games causes major vdoop ?

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That's certainly a possibility.

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Originally Posted by Durzel

Ordinarily I would say that the fact it falls over in Oblivion is due to lack of power - but I'm sure your Enermax Liberty 620W is up to the job.

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If that was the case then my increase in vcore would make it worse not better wouldnt it ?

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Originally Posted by Durzel

My current (in the process of being decommissioned) P4 system was rock solid stable at Prime at 4Ghz, but if I started playing BF2 for long periods of time I'd occasionally get strange errors and lockups.
.

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My opteron 165 was the opposite, I could just about get prime stable at 3.0Ghz yet i could play oblivion no problem at 3050 Ghz

So setting PCI bus to 100 does not help? It's most likely the whose system screwing up. Why dont you try this, if you using Nvidia GPU , take off Fastwrites using Rivatuner on the GPU. It's best to do that whne you overclock and want to play games
Hope it helps,Let us know

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Originally Posted by railer

So setting PCI bus to 100 does not help? It's most likely the whose system screwing up. Why dont you try this, if you using Nvidia GPU , take off Fastwrites using Rivatuner on the GPU. It's best to do that whne you overclock and want to play games
Hope it helps,Let us know

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Im using an ATi X1900Xt, maybe theres a similar setting for ati.

Changing the PCI bus doesnt make any difference. :(

PCI-E is handled by the Northbridge. It's normal that you need to back down the FSB a little if you want it to be game stable. You can't test FSB stabillity with a program that doesn't stress the GPU.

Just use what's stable. There are no tricks other than loosening RAM-timings and upping the VFSB and VMCH. Good luck ;)

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Originally Posted by alexio

PCI-E is handled by the Northbridge. It's normal that you need to back down the FSB a little if you want it to be game stable. You can't test FSB stabillity with a program that doesn't stress the GPU.

Just use what's stable. There are no tricks other than loosening RAM-timings and upping the VFSB and VMCH. Good luck ;)

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So some of these E6300's with the 500 FSB's are going to have a major game problems then.

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Originally Posted by Devious

So some of these E6300's with the 500 FSB's are going to have a major game problems then.

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Yeah, anything under an E6700 can get into FSB problems even with "normal" cooling for 24/7 use.

If Intel would release an Allendale at 10*200 for $200 I'd buy it asap. The extra 2mb cache isn't really worth the extra money in my eyes, only the higher MP is.

I don't understand Intel puts 4MB on the Conroes anyway, the architecture obviously doesn't take much advantage from it in 99% of the cases. For the Xtreme Edition I can understand it, but for the other versions I don't. If I was Intel I'd have just clocked them a little higher and use 2Mb to make some more money.

Yep I am going after the E6700 myself for the 10x multi. I hope to land somewhere between 3.6GHz and 4.4GHz and I know nothing is guaranteed.

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Originally Posted by malficar

Yep I am going after the E6700 myself for the 10x multi. I hope to land somewhere between 3.6GHz and 4.4GHz and I know nothing is guaranteed.

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The 10x multi would deffo take away the FSB system strain for sure :)

How much do you feed vfsb with?

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Originally Posted by NiCKE^

How much do you feed vfsb with?

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ive tried all vfsb, doesnt make any difference.

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Originally Posted by NiCKE^

How much do you feed vfsb with?

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ive tried all vfsb, doesnt make any difference.