Is my system stable?

dagwoood · 19 Jan 2006 at 22:38

I've an unusual problem, hence the unusual question.

I was running my Opteron 144 at 2.5GHz and my Crucial value RAM at 228MHz on stock voltage. I memtested for 3 hours without any errors. I then ran Prime for 12 hours without any errors. I ran Super Pi, Aquamark and 3dmark05 for good measure; all ran without any problems.

I then decided to download and run 3dmark01 as I'd read this is a good indicator of CPU speed. It started to run and got up to the 4th test when my screen went blank and was greeted with the standard message "this program has encountered a problem and needs to close, do you want to send an error message etc..". But my system had froze and I had to hard boot. I looked for an error message in event viewer and this is what I read;

I re-ran the test and it finished no problem. I ran again with a lower memory divider and it ran as normal.

I Googled the faulting address but came up with nothing, so as I was pushing my RAM, I decided to run my CPU at 2.4GHz and effectively run my RAM at a less aggressive overclock and slacken my memory timings slightly. I also restored an image of my drive(using Acronis True Image)in case my RAM was generating errors and my operating system was corrupt. I then ran memtest over night.

Memtest ran for 7 hours without any errors, so I downloaded 3dmark01 again and ran it. 1st time I ran it, it locked up again

I hard booted and ran it again, and this time it ran no problem and hasn't locked up since :confused:

I've since downloaded 3dmark06 and ran that without any problems.

So, is my system stable in that I haven't got any hardware issues, or, is it just a problem I'm occasionally having with 3dmark01?

Sorry for the essay, dagwoood.

weescott · 19 Jan 2006 at 22:56

3D mark 2001 is more system intensive than the newer 3D mark progs. While your PC might be fine individualy. It might be struggling overall. Have a look at your 12v rail(s). Do they/ Does it dip below 11.7 or more?

dagwoood · 19 Jan 2006 at 23:33

weescott said:
3D mark 2001 is more system intensive than the newer 3D mark progs. While your PC might be fine individualy. It might be struggling overall. Have a look at your 12v rail(s). Do they/ Does it dip below 11.7 or more?

Hello weescott. I've never noticed my 12v reading go below 12.0v. As an experiment, I just ran 3dmark01 with Speedfan running. After it had finished, I've looked on the graph within Speedfan; the 12v rail fluctuated between just over 12.2 to just under 12.2.

As an aside, I have a JeanTech 500w PSU that's rated at 18amps on the 12v rail and it's 11 months old.

weescott · 19 Jan 2006 at 23:45

Ah well, that's one possibility thrown out the window. Could be your ram, have you upped it's voltage?

dagwoood · 20 Jan 2006 at 00:04

weescott said:
Ah well, that's one possibility thrown out the window. Could be your ram, have you upped it's voltage?

No, it's at stock. I've been reluctant to put any extra voltage through them to be honest, even though my motherboard will only raise the Vcore to 2.7v.

As you posted, I knew that 3dmark01 was more of an all round performance indicator, but I can't get my head round running Prime for 12 hours wouldn't be more stressful to my system than running 3dmark01 for a couple of minutes :confused:

And it doesn't crash every time :confused:

mp260767 · 20 Jan 2006 at 09:43

hi,

maybe have a look for occt and snm and see if they test ok.

dagwoood · 20 Jan 2006 at 13:12

In an effort to get to the bottom of this, I've raised the CPU speed to 2.47GHz which in turn has raised my memory speed to 228MHz. I then tightened my memory timings slightly(3-3-3-8).I then raised my Vcore to 1.45v and set the Vdimm to high in my BIOS(2.7v). I then ran Prime overnight.

Prime ran without any errors and I've repeatedly ran 3dmark01 and it hasn't crashed(as of yet).

As per mp260767's suggestion, I've ran the OCCT stability test. That ran fine without any errors.

I've never come across snm, so does any one have a download link please(did a Google but didn't it)? How long should I run it for, or is it like OCCT and just runs for a set period of time?

Cheers, dagwoood.

mp260767 · 20 Jan 2006 at 14:00

hi,

apologies about that its s&M check here its under cpu testing :

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html

from memory (which is pretty faulty

) its like prime so runs for as long as u let it.

a1ex2001 · 20 Jan 2006 at 16:18

did you download the patch for 3dmark 2001?

dagwoood · 20 Jan 2006 at 17:09

a1ex2001 said:
did you download the patch for 3dmark 2001?

I haven't downloaded a patch(didn't know there was one

). I'm running the SE edition, build 330.

mp260767 said:
hi,

apologies about that its s&M check here its under cpu testing :

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html

from memory (which is pretty faulty ) its like prime so runs for as long as u let it.

mp260767, thanks for the link

dagwoood · 21 Jan 2006 at 10:36

Well, I've run S&M overnight(10 cycles, 8.5 hours)and it didn't generate any errors. I've been running 3dmark01 every so often and it's not crashing now :confused:

As it seems like I've run every stress test known to man, and my systems checked out clean with every one, I think it's safe to say my system is stable but just has an occasional problem with 3dmark01.

Thanks everyone for the advice, dagwoood.