Stress Test Failure - But What Failed?

IanB001 · 9 May 2006 at 18:21

Please bear in mind that I'm a computer novice.

I am a keen World of Warcraft player but recently by computer has been crashing whilst playing.

I ran Simmtester to ensure my RAM wasn't the problem, but it turned out that my RAM was faulty so I replaced it.

When I played World of Warcraft again the game continued to crash so I ran another memory test program, not Simmtester this time because I couldn't get it to run, so I used Memtest instead. My new RAM passed the tests after running for 3+ hours.

What else could be causing the problem?

I downloaded and ran Prime95 and it appears my system failed at the first hurdle, but I don't know what it's trying to tell me. This is the message I get:

Tue May 09 17:52:17 2006]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.49609375, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

I read the stress.txt file as suggested but it doesn't tell me what the message means.

OK. I have a hardware failure, but what part is failing?

Can anybody help me?

Here are my system specs:

Akasa Eclipse-62 case Part No.: AK-BKCSE-01
Tagan 480W PSU Model No.: TG480-U01, Serial No.: T442 01064
ABit AV8-3rd eye motherboard, Serial No.: AV83EC4J001197
AMD Athlon 64FX Processor FX-55, ADAFX55DEI5AS, CAA2C 0448RPMW Serial No.: 1153172K40056
1 x Arctic Freezer 64 Cooler Pro (AMD64)
1 x G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit(F1-4000USU2-2GBHZ) (MY-008-GS)
Pioneer DVD/CD Re-writer Model No.: DVR-108BK, Serial No.: DKDL174416WL
Sony floppy disc drive black, Model No.: MPF920 Serial No.: 92636080
2 x Vantec Thermal Technologies inc Thermoflow temperature controlled 120 x 120 x 25mm case fans, Model No.: TF12025
2 x Akasa IDE ATA-133 Round cable 45cm black, Part No.: ATA-45-B
1 x Akasa floppy cable black
1 x Vantex slot protector kit, Part No.: ***-08UV-BK
XFX GeForce 6800GT 256MB DDR3 Dual DVI/TV Part No.: PV-T40A-UDF7 Serial No.: FIH066125
1 x Samsung SpinPoint P SP2014N 200GB ATA-133 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-019-SA)
1 x Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 Hard Disk Drive 200GB IDE133 <9.0 7200rpm – OEM Manufacturers Part No.: 6Y200P0
Microsoft Internet Keyboard Serial No.: 5167710096358
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158 (Service Pack 2)
Netgear Cable/DSL ProSafe Firewall/Print Server FR114P
WebStar DPX100 Series Cable Modem
Blueyonder 1.5Megabit Broadband Internet Connection
Viewsonic E790 19” CRT Monitor
Logitech MX510 Optical Mouse

noxidjkram@hotm · 9 May 2006 at 18:23

Try running in Single channel with only 1 stick of RAM in there. If it fails, try same with other stick of RAM - should help define whether memory at fault.

M

IanB001 · 9 May 2006 at 20:48

Hmm. Not sure what this is telling me.

If I put one stick of RAM in Prime95 proceeds without a problem. I removed the first stick and put the other stick in, and again Prime95 tested without problems. Put in both sticks of RAM and tests fail.

I tried the memory in different slots to see if this made any difference but it didn't.

So, 1 stick good, 2 sticks bad. Weird.

Could this mean a motherboard problem?

Cheers.

noxidjkram@hotm · 9 May 2006 at 20:54

could mean ram doesnt work as a pair, not compatible with mobo.

also mobo bad,

also cpu memory controller issue.

M

IanB001 · 9 May 2006 at 21:00

Damn.

Guess it's a case of replacing each component in turn until I get the right one?

earlyflash · 9 May 2006 at 21:02

You could try memtest86 with the different ram configs and see, sounds similar to the other guy around here though, with similar problem.

IanB001 · 9 May 2006 at 21:28

I've already run Memtest and it didn't find any problems with the RAM at all.

It's only when I run Prime95 the problems occur.

I suppose we could say "Don't run Prime95 then", but this won't help find the problem that's causing World of Warcraft to constantly crash

Cheers

earlyflash · 9 May 2006 at 22:22

IanB001 said:
I've already run Memtest and it didn't find any problems with the RAM at all.

Sorry, missed that.. Maybe a CPU issue then? Seems unlikely though. Prime95 is a CPU loadser, not a memory stresser?

No ideas beyond that, sorry.

IanB001 · 9 May 2006 at 22:42

Just weird how Prime95 failed when I had 2 sticks of RAM in but was fine with 1 stick of RAM.

At least I know it's not the RAM.

The problem I have now is pinpointing the hardware that's causing the fault. The only way I could do this is by replacing each piece in turn until I hit the offending component.

Perhaps I should start with the motherboard, but this means I'll have to replace my graphics card aswell cause my current motherboard is AGP. Dammit!!

Perhaps start with a BIOS update? There is an updated BIOS for my board.

Any suggestions??

I'm getting desperate now.

Cheers.

acharris · 9 May 2006 at 23:39

Hi, What temps you getting. If prime is failing then I would try a different CPU or make sure that the chip is not overheating as it could be playing havoc with the on chip memory controller as it is failing then when it is trying to access the 2 sticks or one of the sticks is faulty. What are the temps like though.

The ram can still be faulty though, as I had a P4 to look at back last week twice in 2 days to find a fault of crashing and resetting. I got it to BSOD and was the IRQ_not_less thing. So I ran Memtest and prime, all OK, tried one stick on its own with memtest and prime, past OK.

Swapped sticks over and tried again still passed with flying colours. So check the usually, OK. Reformatted and OK. Give it back and he said that the machine was OK for the week he had back, then phoned me again to say the machine won't boot into windows after a crash, removed the one stick of ram and booted straight up no problems, put back in the same dead PC.

So RAM could still be the culprit, either faulty or incompatible.

Also check the temps of the of the graphic card as that can cause games to crash. If not then it is the motherboard.

Anthony

IanB001 · 10 May 2006 at 00:43

Seems strange that you mention overheating as this did cross my mind, but I dismissed it because I installed the Arctic Freezer 64 Cooler Pro (AMD64). I had a few problems with the installation and even now I'm not sure its fitting correctly. The heatsink doesn't fully cover the cpu and it's not located centrally on the cpu (i.e. its off centre).

According to the Uguru clock cpu temperature ranges from 34 degrees centigrade, idle, to 64 degrees whilst trying to run Prime95.

I was going to try Motherboard Monitor but it's not compatable with my ABit motherboard.

I may refit the stock heatsink and fan to see if this has any affect on the cpu.

As for my graphics card. I'm not sure how I can view the temperature whilst playing. I know I can view the temp in the settings menu but I would have to exit the game to see it by which time the temp would have dropped. Is there a utility available that I can use to monitor this??

Not sure how else I can test the RAM any further myself. It's passed the Memtest utility tests and the Microsoft RAM test utility tests, but I can't use the simmtester utility for some reason. Simmtester just closes when I start it and goes back to the command prompt. It worked with my faulty Ballistix RAM, but doesn't work at all with my new G.Skill RAM.

On my to do list tomorrow:

1. Refit cpu stock heatsink and fan.
2. Download the BIOS update from ABit.
3. Curse and swear a bit more

Cheers

noxidjkram@hotm · 10 May 2006 at 07:10

IanB001 said:
I've already run Memtest and it didn't find any problems with the RAM at all.

I know it sounds silly, but i have experience of memtest not finding all errors (e.g. those related to dual channel).

M

IanB001 · 10 May 2006 at 12:55

I haven't carried out the tasks I listed above yet, but I've had some really weird things happening this morning.

1. Computer stopped reading from the DVD drive for a while. I had to reboot.
2. My graphics started to flash. It was fine in windows but in World of Warcraft it was like a strobe affect.

My problems appear to be increasing.

marcus_667 · 10 May 2006 at 13:02

i thought that mobo was nforce 3 and could have had the dreadded 6800 nf3 bug but tis a via chipsetted mobo maybe swap the mobo out for someting else

IanB001 · 10 May 2006 at 13:38

I've been considering replacing the motherboard but I'd have to replace the graphics card aswell as the ABit AV8 3rd Eye is AGP not PCI-E.

Gonna cost me a bit to replace both.

noxidjkram@hotm · 10 May 2006 at 13:41

Hmmm - Sounds more PSU related with all these issues appearing.

M

melchy · 10 May 2006 at 14:07

Anything overclocked ? If so set back to defaults and try WoW and a few other things and see what happens.

It would be worth looking in the WoW forums as there has been a lot of history relating to WoW and crashes due to certain hardware, network cards etc. I had a very similar problem a while ago when i was still playing WoW and it did turn out in the end to be the dreaded NF3/6800 bug as mentioned above.

IanB001 · 10 May 2006 at 14:49

Didn't really think of the PSU at all. I suppose I could start by replacing that first.

Nothing is overclocked at all. It's all running at stock speeds.

Problems only really started a couple of months ago but have been getting progresively worse.

noxidjkram@hotm · 10 May 2006 at 14:57

IanB001 said:
Didn't really think of the PSU at all. I suppose I could start by replacing that first.

Nothing is overclocked at all. It's all running at stock speeds.

Problems only really started a couple of months ago but have been getting progresively worse.

For me that says PSU almost definitely.

M

IanB001 · 10 May 2006 at 16:29

OK. What do you think about ripping the guts out of this build and replacing them with the following:

1 x Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi X16 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-118-AS) £114.95
1 x Antec NeoHE 550W Modular ATX2.0 PSU (CA-046-AN) £68.95
2 x XFX GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT71F-YDL9/YDFR) (GX-072-XF) £314.95
£813.80 +VAT

Perhaps the 2 x XFX GeForce 7900 are overkill, but what do you think? Good upgrade? Not sure about the power supply. I want something reliable but not sure there.

Remember my system is primarily used as a gaming rig. I don't intend to overclock as I haven't got the necessary knowledge but it needs to throw graphics around quite well

Cheers again.