Phenom 9500 w/ MSI K9A2 Platinum

[KTE]

Hehe, yeah, so.

I was gaming and then started running P95 yesterday... nothing errored. I've never found instability not caught by bench>game>memtest>12hr P95 in anything so far. Folding loads are no good for testing 100% stability IME because it never picks up the errors there and then to give you a visual output and stop the load with critical/small core errors (i.e. prime number calc catches the tiniest of computational error in a rounding up), instead they just carry on like many benchmarks. I tested this with the Phenom 9500 intentionally unstable at 2.560G earlier, no errors appeared, although it is a constant static load, good for testing ideal load temperatures, power and 75% stability when at 100% each core, first priority. I want to try Linpack preferably if I could get it too run on this machine (?). Anyway, I then had to leave P95 at full load, with front priority, finishing off HL2: LC.

It ran 28C ambient, stock boxed fan and the load temps were ~54C 2.7G @ 1.25VID, 1.305V BIOS/1.336V OS Idle/1.328V OS load @ 230W AC.
BIOS is bad, after 1.21V I only get a 1.305V option which is selectable. But I've noticed with Phenoms, VCore offering is chip dependent. At times 1.30V gives me 1.33V or 1.32V and at other times it'll give me 1.344V.

The minute I was set to go away, a USB port shorted (this is a daily problem with this board, anyone else experience it?) and I had monitoring tools set up so found the +5V and +12V rails sagged to +11.75V and +4.76V from +11.98V and +4.98V for a slight second. At that time, you guessed it, CPU VCore dropped to 1.264V and Core 0 failed prime instantly in that second at 5hr25min.
Since then, I let the rest of the cores which never failed all run on without any more voltage drops. All the rest of the 3 cores which withstood the 1.264V sag were fully stable at the +11hr mark.



YES I tried to give my 2x 102CFM delta's a 1500RPM whirl there at 21C ambient

BUT, then I was busy and away. The explanation of that failure is pretty clear : large +12V rail fluctuation. Will it fail without this bad fluctuation?
Now was night time, aka my time, and I've since then stopped and restarted P95 straight away. If there is no lengthy spike now (meaning not transient fluctuations which are common with electrical systems, but one holding for more than 1s, which is lengthy -- I've left that USB hub free), it shouldn't fail even up to 1.28V load across the cores, like I said. I'm waited for it to.

Even if it did fail because the CPU was unstable, let us say for instance, I have CPU VID, CPU volts, NB Multi, HT multi, NB VID, NB/HT volts still to touch apart from the first and there is ample room ahead.

+8hr Testing Results

So I tested:
1) Power cycling, hot and cold.
2) Cool 'n' Quiet.
3) Start-stop full load fluctuations.
4) Gaming.
5) Idling.
a) 25C ambient with stock box fan at full speed.
b) Adding a 120mm 1000RPM fan (v.low noise) at 25C ambient to the system (exhaust).
c) Then test by moving it up to 3000RPM 152CFM at 25C ambient.
d) Then keep fans at max and drop the ambient to 18C.

One thing you'll notice: Power draw falls with lower core temps. VCore will increase with lower core temps.

1) Passed without any issues each time.
2) Don't enable it even if BIOS oc'ing, no point and messes up the stability in my case.
3) No problems experienced.
4) No problems at all.
5) Nothing odd experienced.

a)

225 x 12 = 2.7G @ 1.25VID 1.305V BIOS/1.336V idle/1.320V load
2.025G NB @ 1.25VID
2.025G HT @ 1.2V
DDR2-1200 5-5-5-15-28-75 2T @ 2.2V
Max temps: 51C, 51C, 51C, 51C
Power: 111W AC idle, 239W AC load

b)

225 x 12 = 2.7G @ 1.25VID 1.305V BIOS/1.336V idle/1.328V load
2.025G NB @ 1.25VID
2.025G HT @ 1.2V
DDR2-1200 5-5-5-15-28-75 2T @ 2.2V
Max temps: 45C, 45C, 45C, 45C
Power: 111W AC idle, 236W AC load

c)

225 x 12 = 2.7G @ 1.25VID 1.305V BIOS/1.336V idle/1.328V load
2.025G NB @ 1.25VID
2.025G HT @ 1.2V
DDR2-1200 5-5-5-15-28-75 2T @ 2.2V
Max temps: 38C, 38C, 38C, 38C
Power: 111W AC idle, 230W AC load

d)

225 x 12 = 2.7G @ 1.25VID 1.305V BIOS/1.336V idle/1.328V load
2.025G NB @ 1.25VID
2.025G HT @ 1.2V
DDR2-1200 5-5-5-15-28-75 2T @ 2.2V
Max temps: 31C, 31C, 31C, 31C
Power: 111W AC idle, 225W AC load

Stopped @ 8hr 38mins stable:



Didn't I say it was easily stable?
One thing I will mention though -> whatever you get, don't run above 2G NB with stock volts, it won't last long (as my 9500 witnessed) and it'll mess your core oc'ing up. I won't be running more than 2G NB until I flash the older BIOS which'll let me put 1.265VID on it to run that speed.

Another note: Jack mentioned something to me earlier and he was right. The stock AMD 9600 BE boxed fan cannot handle overclocking and the heatload produced by it when you raise volts slightly. It will overheat itself and the cores very quickly, touch around it at 50C and the heat is very easily felt, pipes will be all hot, because the measly fan cannot remove the heat quick enough... core temps will thus FLY high.

New TDP to be dissipated: ~130W

BUT, here's how too see the bottleneck:
Add a 500RPM-3000RPM 120mm fan near by and watch the core temps drop 8-20C across the cores.
3rd party coolers will show much better load handling and temperatures, but at least we know that the temperature probes are working. I managed to get a 74C load if I set the stock fanspeed to low at 1.4V load (which makes the system shut down for safety).

AND if you're going plus 64C, stability testing may error at any time just because of the heat. Cores don't like it, simply put, like Wolfdales hating plus 55C.

And in case you didn't already know, AMD Power Monitor only detects bootup Multiplier and VID changes for its shown frequencies.

SScchittenn my USSB porrt (keybooardd) hass fflocked up agaain. Ccoreess hhaveen't faailed though but VCCoree ddid ddrrop to 1.296V. Noww this iss hoow my keeyboard is typinn eveery leetterr
Taakiing mee 2200minss too type oneee linee heree

What is the best BIOS for the K9A2 and the Phenom?

Depends what you're looking for with it. For OC I would say 1.13 BETA (113) is best so far without any patch and excellent system performance (compared to the rest).

KTE may I ask you how I can locate that superio chip. I have an osciloscope here for a week.

You can find it listed in the manual; I've checked and informal in your M3A thread has given you the details by now. You'll have to search for the Super I/O IC electrical datasheet and how the chip works to find out the relevant pin mappings and their corresponding readings (many add calibrated values mentioned).

BTW: You remeber the intel rig I have to build for an employee. His neighbor works at intel and he came up with an qx6850 for free. I wonder what it's tdp at 2,2GHz will be.

Yep.. hmm. 2.2G TDP depends entirely on the volts and VID required to get it 100% stable really. Should be fairly low but that depends on the starting VCore and obviously, the chips capability itself.

All VId/DID options are gone in the new beta. I have tried that divider but my system don't boot. Running Mushkin as you know. The only time it boots with that divider is at default speed @ 1066mhz. Will try to play with the slider. got my machine to boot at 2760 and was running Prime the past 24 hours and all was ok but then tried 3mark06 and pc froze, then no boot

Are you sure?
Let me tell you why I'm asking: 2k6 is absolutely no where near as extreme loading as P95 is. P95 load you won't find anywhere else but with the EVEREST FPU Julia bench and Linpack on the desktop that I've tested so far. There are science apps which load the system a few watts more but not many. This is why you have uber fast 2k6 records, because 4G stable and 4.5G suicide validated can still usually bench 4.35G 2k6 and 4.25G 2k5.

What that mean is, something oddly wrong is occurring with your stability/chip at those frequencies/voltages. Make sure you're not topping 1.48V, Phenom doesn't seem to like it at all.

Yea one thing I noticed the other day while testing is even if it is prime, 3dmark stable doesn't mean you want have a cold boot issue as I think thats what it would be.

That occurs only with my systems if it isn't 100% stable but stable only at lucky times. Like I mentioned, my 9500 was like this at 2.8G boot, once +8hr stable but many times it won't even boot at those speeds and runs badly in even little taxing games.

Justapost if you want a good OCing chip like KTE you will have to try as many as he has which I think is around 4-6 now

Or, you can buy a 9500, much better chance of getting a decent chip. This one is still not better than my 9500, not even close. That did 2.8G benched at stock volts.

I could... if the main page wouldn't time out when trying to open it. So will try it later.

Yep, for me too. Here ya go: super_pi_mod.zip

Try to stop/pause other applications in the background or set their affinity to other cores for best results.

How are the Bios turning out from M.S.I guys? Also on the more recent beta releases has anyone using Dual Core noticed that the new Bios is not quite close to as good for Dual core as the first releases were?

Don't know if this is a DFI thing or if its common for all boards with recent Bios coding?

Not too sure with K8, but this board has had about 15 BIOSes now that I'm aware of. Lately things have moved on and I hope, if what I hear is true, that they'll bring back the AM2+ options but just in a friendlier format.