quick heads up for help needed later

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 08:26

hi, had a phone call yesturday from a mate, his i7 build has been unstable since he bought it, not sure on the spec so will post it once i have the pc but just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas.
basically he built the rig for flight sim X, he has been getting BSOD since the day he had it.
all i know is its an i7 with 12GB ram (6x2GB) and 4 hard drives. pretty sure his gfx is a 480 but will confirm later. i know last time i looked at it his gfx was dead, which we hoped had been the issue from the beginning.
i have run memtest on it which errors on every stick when all are fitted, but every stick passes after a 12hour run if fitted individually.
the bsod codes he had last time are : 0x0000001A, 0x00000027, 0x0000000A, 0x0000003B. he said he has more now so will report them once i see him. i am hoping that its something simple like upping some voltages or something.
he said that it will work for 10-20mins and then BSOD, after restart it then works fine until he next restarts and then the cycle begins again.
sorry for the longwinded post, hopefully will have more details later.
cheers in advance.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 10:06

ok, full specs are as follows :
i7 950 Bloomfield
GA-X58-USB3
6 x Corsair XMS3 1600MHz 9-9-9-24 1.65v
Zotac GTX480
Corsair CX600

BSOD Codes :
0x0000003B
0x00000024
0x0000001A
0x00000034
0x0000007E
0x00000050
0x0000001E

On startup Windows is giving an error message saying pageing file is disabled.
will do a fresh install now, any ideas would be great.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 10:39

ok, did the first part of installing windows ok, restarted fine, then on the second restart it now hangs on the gigabyte splash screen.

VoG · 19 Feb 2011 at 10:46

ide be looking to the memory as all 6 dimm slots populated on an i7 can be extremely problematic for some, you might need to up the voltage a tad, or slacken the timings, either way, thats where ide start looking first.

ide also check the bios history to see if there's an update thats specifically addresses memory compatability. in the mean time, a quick test would be to remove 3 sticks of ram & see if that improves stability.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 10:48

VoG said:
ide be looking to the memory as all 6 dimm slots populated on an i7 can be extremely problematic for some, you might need to up the voltage a tad, or slacken the timings, either way, thats where ide start looking first.

ide also check the bios history to see if there's an update thats specifically addresses memory compatability. in the mean time, a quick test would be to remove 3 sticks of ram & see if that improves stability.

ram was my first thought, but he is insistant he needs all 12GB to run his game.

VoG · 19 Feb 2011 at 10:55

paradisiac said:
ram was my first thought, but he is insistant he needs all 12GB to run his game.

it's not a question of the ram being faulty, it's the fact that 6 sticks of ram places a greater load on the on chip memory controller than 3 sticks, so it can take a wee bit of manual tweaking to get it to run stable from the off.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 10:57

VoG said:
it's not a question of the ram being faulty, it's the fact that 6 sticks of ram places a greater load on the on chip memory controller than 3 sticks, so it can take a wee bit of manual tweaking to get it to run stable from the off.

ok, so what do you suggest, leaving cpu settings as standard and playing with the ram settings?

Ch3m1c4L · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:00

normally that would involve bumping the northbride voltage, although I imagine this has changed if the memory controller is on the cpu now. but you will need to adjust settings to run with all slots occupied. take 3 out, do a memtest, if it works you know this is the problem.

He doesnt need the 12gb to run his game, it just benefits from it, it would still run with less so you can still test it etc.....

VoG · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:01

paradisiac said:
ok, so what do you suggest, leaving cpu settings as standard and playing with the ram settings?

ide suggest either posting or searching in the memory forum as there's an official Corsair tech guy ( yellowbeard ) who i think has addressed this issue before.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:02

ok thanks

setter · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:06

He may even have to resort to dropping the memory speed down from 1600mhz, a few users on here have reported issues with running 12gb at 1600mhz. Also the qpi voltage may need a boost.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:11

setter said:
He may even have to resort to dropping the memory speed down from 1600mhz, a few users on here have reported issues with running 12gb at 1600mhz. Also the qpi voltage may need a boost.

sooo many possabilities

why do they put 6 ram slots on the mobo if it wont take 6 sticks without a lot of messing about?

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:29

ok, set ram to 9-9-9-24 1.66v in bios, i know the ram is 0.01v over but so far its not hung on startup and no BSOD. will prime95 test ram aswell as cpu or am i better running memtest for a couple of hours?

Ch3m1c4L · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:45

memtest is better than prime for memory testing, even on my 8gb with prime running is only uses about 40% of ram, have to run multiple copies etc.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 11:47

ok, its running at 70+ on OCCT, i believe 67 is its max. no oc at all. will try to repaste HSF and see what happens.

EDIT : ok, on removing the heatsink all the thermal paste seems to of burnt off, so applied some and see how it goes now.

andicole0 · 19 Feb 2011 at 12:01

How was the memory bought? that motherboard is a triple channel one so it would need 2 triple channel kits to be stable at all, 3 twin channel kits won't do it.

If problems persist use one set of memory and see if it stabilises.

Just read that FSX is a 32 bit app, so the only advantage of a 64bit OS would be page and swap files for Windows. FSX itself should not be affected by extra memory over 3 GB (or is it 3.5? :-)

).

Andi.

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 12:07

it was 3x2GB sticks (2 sets)

yeh i am aware that 90% of games if not more wont use more than 2-3GB anyway, but he read it on a forum and is adamant that it will make all the difference.

even after a repaste temps are too high

Ch3m1c4L · 19 Feb 2011 at 12:08

it will use up to 4gb, as the other 8gb will be being used for everythging else, but i imagine it will probably use more like 3 at any time.

Dual channel kits will 99% work as triple channel, its just that they haven't been tested togethor, hell, unmatched sticks of different sizes, speeds and timings will run in dual/triple channel at the speed of the slowest stick (and only multi channel ont he amount of memory the lowest one has).

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 12:15

idle

under load

paradisiac · 19 Feb 2011 at 12:51

i have now dropped vcore down to 1.100v but temps are still around the high 70s

anyone got any suggestions?
does turning things like turbo and cpu virtulization off help with temps (i assume turbo will as cpu wont be running as fast)?