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Issue with AMD FX 635

citizenx13

citizenx13

citizenx13

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Joined
23 Jun 2010
Posts
719
Hello

I was wondering if I could ask for some advice. Sorry for the long post

I have a AMD FX 635 chip running stock in a MSI 970 gamin MB 8 gig RAM and a 650 PSU

I built it last year and it seemed to run without stable yet I had not stress tested as I was waiting to get a better cooler and case. so I took the MB out and replaced the cooler now the heat sink and paste stuck to the CPU and I was unable to loosen it and as I gradually increased force to pull the heat sink off it pulled out the chip without the leaver being up, I inspected it and no bent pins or damage. I started it up and first it hung at the log on screen, I restarted and logged in fine. I started prime 95 to check everything was good and it ran for 4 minutes and temperatures got to a maximum of 38 degrees then the whole PC hangs. No event logs no dump file it just locks up and needs a restart so I remove cooler inspect wipe off any excess thermal paste clean reapply paste re-seat the heat sink same issue. I put the original heat sink after cleaning the chip again still fails. Repeat and now have it running with the new heat sink. So I run prime 95 and it runs for 10 minutes just fine I restart and then locks up after a minute.

What I have noticed today is that when prime 95 stays stable 2 of the 6 cores stop the test in task manager and Prime states there is an error and to read the error file which suggest clocking down the CPU but it runs at stock.

Now when I perform an action they jump into life but then die down again while the rest are at 100%. To add the PC locked up after 2 hours.

Is there any advice or tools I can use to find out if the issue is with the MB or CPU, any software that could help trouble shoot.

Apologies for the long post and if there are any questions I will be happy to answer so this post does not turn into a novel :)

Thank you in advance
CitizenX
 
I doubt it's good news and I don't think there's a way of checking whether the it's the CPU or motherboard (or both) which is damaged without trying a different CPU.

I've heard such a tale a few times and it always kinda baffles me. I've never had to use any force to remove a heatsink from a CPU - when I unscrew them, they just detach naturally. Were you perhaps trying to remove it soon after it was running hot?
 
Hi Thank you very much for the reply and reading the wall of text :)

I remember it would have been about 10 minutes after the PC was turned off otherwise would have been off for the night.

The second time when refitting the original heat sink it had been off for a couple of minutes and came off fine yet i was using a different paste.

Yet now I will need to get another CPU and try to test, thank you.

Best regards
CitizenX
 
The good news is that your motherboard is compatible with any old Athlon 2 x4 or x3 out there, so it shouldn't be hard finding a backup.

I personally don't think it's the CPU - your rig should BSOD if that is the case. Also, when pulling out the CPU, as long as you didn't apply any lateral force, it should still be fine, since the pins are on the CPU itself and they bend when you apply lateral force.

I would stay away from Prime 95 - find a gaming benchmark or another stress test tool, since it is unlikely that you will ever stress the CPU that much in real life.
 
Using hwmonitor and a tester such as ibt, can you provide us with a screenshot of
The voltages and temperatures that are shown in hwmonitor please.
 
This has happened to me once. Thankfully I got away with it, but the trick is to run the CPU for a while to soften the paste, then gently twist the cooler before trying to pull it off. This loosens everything up nicely :)
 
Hi

Thank you everyone for the feed back

@ALXAndy I have learnt from this and I will be a lot more careful, I believe it was the paste and I will not be using that brand again. I have removed the cooler again and it just came off after using the cooler provided paste.

@Davedree the processor is running on the boards default and has never been overclocked, if it still could help I will get a screenshot a bit later. The issue occurred after the removing chip/replacing heat sink incident.

@Ghost I will look into getting a CPU off of eBay and do some testing when worst comes to worst

Thanks again for all your advice.
Best regards
CitizenX
 
Pulling the CPU out along with the heatsink won't damage anything as long as the pins are intact, it's happened to me numerous times over the years.

Did you ever run Prime95 prior to fitting the new heatsink? does your CPU behave differently now under normal use or is it just the fact that you're doing proper stability testing now?

Prime95 puts a high amount of load on the CPU which in turn pushes the motherboard VRM's, what specific board do you have and what is its VRM cooling like? (you could try sticking a fan over that area to see if it helps). Also try setting your memory to around 1600-1866 if you have high speed memory (2000mhz+) which is rated beyond AMD's official spec. It might also be worth tinkering with loadline calibration in case your board has an insanely high amount of v-droop.
 
Last edited:
mmj_uk said:
Pulling the CPU out along with the heatsink won't damage anything as long as the pins are intact, it's happened to me numerous times over the years.

Did you ever run Prime95 prior to fitting the new heatsink? does your CPU behave differently now under normal use or is it just the fact that you're doing proper stability testing now?

Prime95 puts a high amount of load on the CPU which in turn pushes the motherboard VRM's, what specific board do you have and what is its VRM cooling like? (you could try sticking a fan over that area to see if it helps). Also try setting your memory to around 1600-1866 if you have high speed memory (2000mhz+) which is rated beyond AMD's official spec. It might also be worth tinkering with loadline calibration in case your board has an insanely high amount of v-droop.
Click to expand...

Thats why i asked to see volts and temps,
 
Hi

Due to popular demand i have uploaded two screenshots, apologies if not clear i can sort that out if it is a issue, please remember that the MB and chip are running stock "Optimized" settings.

Idle



Stressed


Thank you for all the advise
CitizenX
 
Thankyou and yeah it all does look fine, vdroop is 1.368v which is more than enough.
Usually a handler failing in p95 is lack of voltage or heat.
Ram voltage and timings, command rate i take it are stock too?
 
Hi Dave

Thank you for looking at this, and yes I have not changes a single bios setting nor have I and "OC" software running. it may be due to the pulling out of the CPU or some excess thermal paste some where, i will look when the new MB arrives. It is definitely something i did as it was working 100% with previous cooler but now that I replaced it the PC started playing up.

So yeh I messed something up, life hey, lesson learnt and I guess one less night out boozing to replace the MB is not all that bad, my liver will thank me.

Thank you again for all your advice
CitizenX
 
Thank you Dave I will and hopefully have good news :)

I was wondering if i could ask a cheeky favor, I have my main rig that I have OC'd many moons ago, it has been up and running for almost 5 years and just winged it by reading some posts online but i was wondering if I could run it past you to see if i could improve it.

its a i7 930 that used to be able to be clocked to 4ghz but of late is unable to stay stable, at some point in its life it crashed and lost the OCUK profile and as mentioned I winged it

Below is the HWmonitor screenshot, could you kindly have a look and advise if anything is out of place?



its running at 3.96 (180X22) stable maxing out at 57 degrees but perhaps with a few tweaks i could get it back to its 4ghz glory :)

Thank you again for all the help
CitizenX
 
For the 930, the hwmon shows great temps and voltage is good, but maybe needs a bump to 1.31v-1.35v
What gigabyte board is it?
Could you provide the firsr screen print of cpu-z, also including the memory and speed sections from cpu-z.
What is the qpi-vtt voltage set to in the bios,and how many sticks of ram do you have installed,?

It either needs a couple of bumps up on the v-core, or/aswell a bump up on the vtt voltage to 1.3(1.35) max
Or a play with a 21 multi , lower ram multi and add more bclk
What bsod codes are you getting?
 
I've had the same issues with my MSI 970 gaming, is your bios up to date? I believe its the latest update.

Also I can't even run prime 95, I'm currently using Intel burn in .
 
Hi Guys

I will double check the bios, I doubt it is but thanks for the heads up.
I think i will update the bios tonight and play with the suggestions from Dave and keep you posted whether I burnt the chip or was able to squeeze any more power :)

With great thanks
CitizenX
 
Hi Dug around and the board I have is a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard, I have 3 DIMMs 6 gig total

I am still at work but excited for the weekend to mess about with this stuff, I will update BIOS first then move on and mess with settings

Thanks again
CitizenX
 
Gentlemen, thank you again for all the help please find below a boring bunch of pics, now i know it may not be ideal but it may help tweak my settings and I am happy to change the in the BIOS.
I have updated the bios which gave me a heart attack and killed my raid but got it back up :)

So I bravely bumped my CPU to 4GHZ and put it under some strain please find some screenshots below and advise or ask for some more info

Temps and volts


Hopefully some relative info:













Please let me know if there is any advice you may provide :)

Again many thanks
CitizenX
 
Last edited:
A quick update, so I have replaced the MB and Prime 95 ran stable for an hour and now stress testing it with streaming at 720p.

I will see if I can salvage the other MB in some way.

Thank you all again for the help and advice, I will create a new thread for my i7 query.

Best regards
CitizenX
 
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