So many A64 deaths

[BMORIN]

Has anyone figured out what is killing all these A64's? Seems like I hear alot of people getting inexplicable failures on them - running them a day or two then losing them. Has anyone isolated some areas that seem suspicious.

Thought I'd get a little feeback here before I put one together this week.

[Chr0n1c]

Great and I just ordered mine yesterday

[Maxvla]

Originally posted by BMORIN
Has anyone figured out what is killing all these A64's? Seems like I hear alot of people getting inexplicable failures on them - running them a day or two then losing them. Has anyone isolated some areas that seem suspicious.

Thought I'd get a little feeback here before I put one together this week.

have you noticed most of these deaths are at extreme temps and high voltages?

[Firelord-OCHW]

Quite possibly to do with high RAM voltages as well as it kills the MMU on the A64...

[WxChaser]

Talk to bowman about this - he's had some die at stock voltages too and fast. A weird phenomena for sure...and one that gets expensive.

[Jeff]

.

[bowman1964]

I have lost 6 as of right now....some were high voltage,some stock,some extreeme cold,some not....but all were on my chaintech motherboard(except one that died from a known problem..power suppy blowing up)...and all die from the onchip mem controller dieing...

the chaintech i was trying to figure out why it is killing them.the cpu and mem mod was off and stock voltage the last 2 that died.

powersuppy on the last couple was running 3.33v 5.25v 12.24v so i know it wasnt that.and if the chips are going out because of a high 3.3 line then someone needs to fix something..because if i am not wrong...the spec motherboard and powersupply makers go by is 3.3v 5.0v 12.0v and thay all are allowed a 10% margin of differance...and that would =3.63v on the high side.

then i relized the chaintech ..i had modded the chipset...the nf3 chipset was modded and set to 2.2v...this has to have a direct relation to the chips dieing...
but i am not going to try my idea and remove the mod and then try another chip...not right now at least.
i am whating on another 3400 to play on and thats it for a while...

[xgman]

6 = gotta be that board or more likely the chipset mod.

[Shade00]

Must be the board. That's just too many chips for them all to be defective.

[Total Immortal]

so am i right to assume that it is the vDimm that is killing the A64s as a result of the onboard mem controler?
thanks.

[mata2974]

Thats expensive man, like 6 X $400 at least $1200-$2400

[Jeff]

.

[xgman]

Originally posted by Total Immortal
so am i right to assume that it is the vDimm that is killing the A64s as a result of the onboard mem controler?
thanks.

I think Bowman was saying it may have been the "Chipset Mod" that was to blame. Not a vdim mod.

[bowman1964]

well i have posted in a few threads about mine....

but i dont have time alot to check the threads at work.....i do have to work...not play all day...so i hope that wasnt directed to me...

i ran accoss this one by accident....and i am still not sure on the death issue.....i have 3 boards so i am not going back to the chaintech until i get chaintech to take a look at it...i have emailed the company direct.
all i know for sure it is the mem control going out..not the basic cpu.

it starts with lots of windows errors and then it wont reload a fresh copy of windows.i pulled 2 chips from the chaintech after the first errors accured.and one just contunied to reboot....all the time..one the gigabyte it would almost make it to the desktop and then it rebooted...in the shuttle it just rebooted constantly...

the other chip started just getting errors in my wndows until i rebooted it one more time..and then i got the black screen of a64death...

so they are fun to play with...and yep i have depleted my funds...i got caught up in getting one to bench with,,and the mader i got the more determaned i got to get one going...and the more i purchaced....
after my chips come in next week i want to weed out the weeker ones and keep one setup...sell off the rest at reduced price to get something back..

and yes...the chipset voltage is the only thing the chaintech has that the shuttle and gigabyte dont/
so i am leaning towards high chipset voltage doing it...since that is directly connected to the hypertransport..

[MrIcee]

I'm on A64 # 5.

As Bowman, mine have all died on an Nforce3 board, The Shuttle AN50R.

I did run crazy high voltages to the memory on mine, for obvious reasons. I also run a high 3.3v line, many times in the 3.5v range.
My assumption is I took out the memory controller. 1 of the 4 dead CPU's stopped my debug card at "detecting the memory". The last one lasted a day....not even pushed except with 3.5v+ to the memory, low multi high FSB under 2.2ghz. It ran fine that night, shut it off, next day no post. FF on the debug card...swapped the chip to an Abit KV8-Max 3...same thing...FF.

I haven't pushed high Vcore thru mine..1.79v max at 2400Mhz.

I have my latest residing on the KV8-Max3 for now, as I'm trying to see what kind of performance I can wring out of it, not many have messed with this board, and I've had it for months now. The Shuttle was too easy to push the FSB and fun...but at the expense of me killing CPU's. No doubt I'll prolly be working with that board soon again but with a little less volts

Randi

[Holst]

Certainly a cause of some concern..

Anybody else willing to admit to joining the 1337 band who have killed an A64?

[BMORIN]

I was thinking that it might have something to do with the psu rails or chipset voltage. But obviously Mr. Icee hasn't done anything with the chipset.

I've noticed that CCC is going strong with his 3400+ running 3.6vdimm and high FSB on An50r, but I think he's keeping his rails conservative. No need for increased 3.3v on that board. Maybe the 3400+ is just a little better chip, I don't know.

One thing I haven't heard anyone talk about is the possibility of extreme cold killing these things. Don't know if that could have anything to do with it since most people on the forum are using phase change, period.

How many people have lost this chip on stock cooling? And yes I'm surprised this issue hasn't surfaced as a thread already.

[MrIcee]

Here's an addendum: the 1 A64 that I had great luck with and lasted the longest(1 month+) was an older CAAKC. The others died much faster and endured only a few hours of playtime before they would not post, those 3 were CAAMC, same as the one I recieved yesterday.

Randi

[Holst]

Try and keep it till the weekend at least m8 :P

[bowman1964]

i have a running list of all my chips that i own and which ones died so far..i can post tonight if anyone wants to see...

[xgman]

Has anyone had this happen on a Via board?

[ojdr2001]

Originally posted by bowman1964

it starts with lots of windows errors and then it wont reload a fresh copy of windows. one the gigabyte it would almost make it to the desktop and then it rebooted...

I´m starting to have exactly the same problem. Have vcore and vdim mods done.

Problem started when I tried to increase vdim from 3V up

MOBO: K8N Pro
CPU: A64 3000+

I can only confirm tomorrow night if CPU is KO or not

[freeloader]

I hate to say it, but it's pretty obvious that these chips don't like high voltage like the Athlon XP did. So if you want to keep your chip and not hose your system, keep the voltages down.

[|RickY|]

i'v benched with mine 3200+ with +3.3v @ 3.8v and with v-dimm @ 3.5+- several times and it's all ok

i'v tested with asus k8v and gigabyte k8n np

i'm waiting for a 3.4+ let's see if it lives :S

regards

[Bandittheone]

Well, when I get my K8N Pro or AN50R I'm not going to volt mod it because I can't afford to buy even one extra cpu.

Will the maximum voltages that are allowed in the K8N/AN50R bios not kill the cpu?