Winchester 90nm and Prime95

[IvanAndreevich]

There's a guy stable on a VIA board on page 11.

[Badge56]

OK, here's even some more data into the equation:

Abit AV8 + 3200+ Winne Week 37 (0437RPDW)
250X10, vCore 1.65v = P95 stable depending on mem settings and timings (RAM can not run 1:1) Verry stable
255X10, vCore 1.65v = Benchs good, P95 blows immediately.

[dnottis]

OK, here's even some more data into the equation:

Abit AV8 + 3200+ Winne Week 37 (0437RPDW)
250X10, vCore 1.65v = P95 stable depending on mem settings and timings (RAM can not run 1:1) Verry stable
255X10, vCore 1.65v = Benchs good, P95 blows immediately.

Sorry to hear that - I owned the ABIT A8V it wouldn't run 1:1 over 210 FSB. Personally I was disgusted with it and sold it.

[IvanAndreevich]

Badge56
Can you test the highest your combo will run 1:1? It seems that people having this glitch are all 1:1!

[nutcase]

well, I ran my Winchester on the MSI Neo2 for almost 23 hours straight with no errors..

My cpu is:

ada3500dik4bi
cbbfd 0441tpaw

ram was gskill Tccd..

[Wavey]

My Winnie 3000+ fails prime every time at 1hr and 59 mins. Does anyone know what test this is running as its strange it fails at the same point every time (soory havnt a screenie of the test)

[DevilsRejection]

well, I ran my Winchester on the MSI Neo2 for almost 23 hours straight with no errors..

My cpu is:

ada3500dik4bi
cbbfd 0441tpaw

ram was gskill Tccd..

now try and OC it if you know it will pass prime stock

[halcyon]

To those of you who think it is a hardware MODEL specific problem. Think of the following:

In order for a failure problem to be easily attributable to a piece of software, the failure:

1) It needs to fail in exactly the same test and exactly the same spot: it does not

2) It needs to fail on ALL units of a particular model, not just one or two or three units: it does not

3) It needs to fail consistently, and not on every fifth run or randomly: it does not.

However, as we have seen, Prime95 does pass several hours of various different prime95 runs (yes, even on some people's 90nm Winchester). Also, not all failures are consistent or in the same spot.

Thus, I still believe that the most likely case for this particular bunch of failures is pushing your system too far (regardless of whether 90nm Winchester or otherwise).

Only when Prime95 fails CONSISTENTLY, every time, in the exact same spot, on every piece of hardware that is of type X, is there a strong reason to believe that the problem is with Prime95.

Do you have reason to think otherwise from my above reasoning?

If so, what is the chain of reasoning?

[nutcase]

I also suspect it is a specific production lot that has the problems.

what we do need to see is the third line on the chip since this is the production number.

Now has anybody seen a chip with a production date of 0438 through 0440? seems odd that they would not produce any chips for 3 weeks in a row.

I am going to see if I can borrow my friends 0437 chip..

[[ r2 ]]

they probly came out to ficked up to market them.the ones out now are just barly good enough to even call an AMD cpu...they are realy giving them self a bad name these day's..i can see many switching to p4 dothan if this keep's up..

and i wish some one in the AMD headquater's would read this..

Very true, but i guess AMD is working hard to release revision E 90nm cpus and i sure hope it shows great improvement over the current 90nm cpus

[IvanAndreevich]

hag6br
I think those other weeks just go to different parts of the world. For example, there is a guy here with a 0442 But our local store around here has 0441's in stock.

[dnottis]

Thus, I still believe that the most likely case for this particular bunch of failures is pushing your system too far (regardless of whether 90nm Winchester or otherwise).

We are not discussing overclocked failures - we are talking about STOCK CLOCKED Prime failures.

So unless you can "push" a stock system too far.....

[IvanAndreevich]

>>So unless you can "push" a stock system too far.....
I suppose you CAN with timings. However, this is not the case here.

[dnottis]

hag6br
I think those other weeks just go to different parts of the world. For example, there is a guy here with a 0442 But our local store around here has 0441's in stock.

My 3200+ 441 will do 2.5Ghz (1.45 +5%) - any higher and prime isn't stable a few others here have the same exp with week 41. Also, it will do 2.4 Ghz on stock volts - making a $200 CPU a 3800 at stock volts is pretty cool too if thats all you are shooting for. Overall 441 is a decent overclocker.

[halcyon]

Stock speed or not, the fault is in the HARDWARE (mem incompatibility, bad mobo, bad cpu, bad mem, bad timings, etc).

http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthr...6440#post46440

Only if you can make it fail consistently every single time in excactly the same manner in the same very spot of calculation with every single Winchester 90nm cpu, then it could be a prime95 bug. Do note that those (in/with) are logical ANDs and not ORs in that sentence.

But that does NOT happen.

Some 90nm Winchester perform ok.

And the failures are NOT consistent nor happen in the same spot of calculation.

regards,
halcyon

[IvanAndreevich]

I agree, halcyon. I'm waiting for George, the maker of Prime, to reconfirm this.

[Crunchy]

Andy emailed about Prime95 and was told the same thing, don't know if it was George though.

BTW I've a 3500 winchester that fails Prime95 but it also fails SuperPi .

[prime95]

Hi all,

George Woltman, prime95 author, here. After reading through most of this thread, I agree with those that state this is not a software problem.

There has been some discussion of two previous software problems. The first occurred when running the blend test with a specific amount of memory (930MB IIRC). The result was a failure in the same spot with the same error message every time (roundoff = 0.5 in the first test of the 20K FFT). The bug was in my memory allocation code which caused the same memory corruption every single time. The second bug was in prime95's guess as to how much memory to use in the blend test. It was guessing too high and thrashing rather than torture testing. The code still "worked", just very slowly.

To those that say, "but I'm running at STOCK SPEED!", that does not change the argument that it is a hardware problem. Either the CPU is bad, memory is bad, the timings on the memory are too aggresive, the motherboard is bad, or the power supply is too weak or bad.

This forum is great for users to compare notes and figure out the most likely culprit. I think you've reached the conclusion that the CPU is the cause. If so, AMD has shipped some chips that they should have thrown out or downgraded. It happens. I recommend RMAing any parts that cannot pass stress tests at stock speed.

Intel had to pull production of its last P3 for similar reasons - programs failing at stock speed. See http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/200008281/index.html

[cheese]

begins to ramble

Posted by saaya post# 70
so memtest works but prime fails? then it sounds like a program related error, i never heard that memory passes metest but fails in prime before... weird...


---- Memtest doesnt test a cpu the way prime95 tests it actually memtest doesnt even do anything really with the cpu. prime95 checks your answer agnist the real known correct answer


Posted by WICKeD post# 77
I think even a stock system is going to give small errors after continuous usage. Prime is probably the best test for stability, but I think there should be a limit on it. Most people are not going to run their system @ 100% for over 8 hours, without letting it cool. Unless you fold or do media encoding, I'd say it's fair to claim stability if it can run overnight. That's just my opinion.


----to answer your comment on limit if you can go over 8 hours on prime 95 theres something not right prime95 is running longterm on a lot of computers.
http://www.mersenne.org/primenet/status.shtml go to bottom of the page you will see a hourly updated info section of the project also susgest you visit 15 minutes after hour because server takes a few minutes to rewrite new data.


Posted by Byron post# 119
WiCKeD,
my mem is fine and my board, can run dual channel at same speeds no problems.
Must be prime problem, because system is rock solid, can run all benchmark programs etc, or bad mem controller... but if the mem controller is bad, then why it my system is stable?!

---- prime 95 tests the whole cpu some programs dont totally test it prime 95 looks for the smallest problem if there is a problem it will proibily be found. just because a system is stable doesnt mean it is truely stable. if you dont run proc 100% all the time then so be it but if prime 95 finds a bug then you know there must be something wrong prime 95 does advanced calculations and checks the answer your computer outputs agnist a true well tested and known answer.


Posted by [ R2 ] pst# 136
I dont know why so many ppl are so concerned with p95, just dont use it, its that simple.
There are other programs to test stability of your cpu and etc...

---- yes but they dont do a complete stress test.


Posted by Paa' post number 177
I would think there was'nt anything wrong at all with prime95 just the fact that a64's have built in memory controllers on the cpu means prime can fail for either and it's hard to tell..

i need to up my vcore to reach 250 fsb.. even with a below default speed.

that beta prime95 im running seem's to do one thing different ive NEVER noticed in using prime95 for 3+ years..

blend uses 99% cpu and all your ram.. where as before it would use only a little bit of the cpu and lots of ram..

now it's near 100% both because and i guess? they saw that with the mem controller being on the cpu they need to tax that aswell even when testing memory.. which would make memtest86 useless ?

---- when you say it used to use a lot of ram and low cpu your settings are off. your spilling over into virtual memory and that causes bottleneck problems prime 95 accesses the data in ram 100 times a second or more and uses a great ammount of bandwidth if you lower the ammount of ram you let it use youll notice it wont bottleneck thats because the ide/sata wont be interfearing.


Trying to answer a few misstated ideas after fully reading thread also check out
www.mersenneforum.org there are proibily answers you are looking for in the hardware or software thread.

[IvanAndreevich]

Crunchy
Superpi @ stock?

prime95
Have _any_ AMD representatives contacted you about this? Intel made good on fixing the problem with the PIII's, so I hope AMD makes good on fixing their problem. However, I think they would need to care about the problem first and try to understand what's going on.

Thanks for clearing up the situation.

[v142]

Just exactly how many ppl here have problems with prime stability on -stock- setting?

and stock meaning: auto settings on -all- the memory setting, not running 2-2-2-5-1T on ur PC4x00 just coz other TCCD chips can do it, for instance.

and if u have more than one set of memory try that too on rated timings too?

how many bad CPUs are we talkin about here, that cant run prime on real stock settings? 1 or 2? I read one was RMA

My best idea to sort this out is too let everyone who has problems with prime start a new tread, and list all components and settings used, too see if there is any combination of hardware that could be the cause.

Regarding OCin
My guess is that the memory controller is the limiting factor her, but the fact that the CPU "seems" stable on much higher speed, leeds too high hopes,
Just face it there IS a reason AMD didnt include the 3800+ in the first 90nm series launch.

On the other hand it does indeed seems strange why there hasnt been 90nm CPUs in stock the last 2 weeks, with still a week or two too go b4 new stock is said too arrive...

[IvanAndreevich]

One question for everybody with Prime failing. What if you run 2T @ stock - does it become stable, or does it still error?

[stealthbomber]

No problems here at stock with my winnie 3200+, it can run Prime95 for over 24 hours @2.4GHz with 10x 240HT @1.4v (with 166 divider), any higher at any vcore voltage and it would fail Prime95, tried lowering the overall CPU speed and increasing the HT but it won't go past 240MHz even with very relaxed memory timings @3-4-4-10 @2.85v!

I initially didn't expect great overclocking potential from my winchester chip compared with the mature Newcastle cores and I was right, I'll probably sell my chip for a later revision of these winchester chips probably sometime after Jan/Feb.

[Crunchy]

IvanAndreevich: My system fails Prime95 with everything in the BIOS at stock speeds. I've tried it on everything auto and I've tried it by setting to manufacturers recommended settings (ie 2-2-2-5 timing, 2.75v etc). Details about my system are in my sig.

The thing I'm really worried about though is that it's failing SuperPi as well . Everthing else is fine, 3DMark 2001, playing games such as ET, PiFast, no crashes at all.

I'll try 2T command rate, see if that helps.

[prime95]

Have _any_ AMD representatives contacted you about this? Intel made good on fixing the problem with the PIII's, so I hope AMD makes good on fixing their problem.

No one from AMD has contacted me, nor would I expect them to.

This may or may not be a serious problem. The Intel problem occured because they tried to push the P3 process too far. Isn't this the first of the Winchester line? If so, it is more likely a startup problem with improper binning.

The best chance to get AMD to notice that they have a problem is to get the press involved. If one or more of the online news outlets report that the chip doesn't run properly at stock speed, then AMD will take notice.