Opteron Stability Issue

[kingoftherings]

Yesterday, I just received my new Opteron 170 for Socket 939. And, for some reason every couple of hours, my system shuts itself down. The first time, I was just browsing the Internet, nothing that would warrant a crash. I was overclocked to 2.4ghz because my old Athlon 64 3200+ was overclocked to that with no problem.

I downclocked to 2.1ghz, and I was just trying out Folding@Home, and it crashed again. Now I have it set back to default speed, it hasn't crashed yet but it hasn't been that long since I rebooted, I wouldn't be suprised if it crashed again in about an hour. According to everything I have that gives me CPU temp, it idles around 26 degrees Celsius, and even running F@H it only got to 33 degrees. So I don't think heat is an issue.

Maybe it was that RAM I installed as well? I bought another 1gb stick of memory and its running in dual channel.

But, I've heard that Opterons overclock very well, and it should run just fine at 2.4ghz, or even 2.1ghz, I don't know what the problem is, maybe I got a faulty CPU? Or maybe I need to reformat Windows since I'm using the same install that my Athlon used?

 

[kingoftherings]

I thought a CPU-Z screenshot might help.

 

[ragemonkey]

Its very possible that your current BIOS settings favor an Athlon OC but not an Operton OC. The first things I would do is to (1) uninstall any AMD Processor drivers, (2) check for a newer BIOS version, and (3) completely reset your BIOS...

Once you do that try running the system at stock speeds for awhile. While at stock, torture test it with Sandra or something and see if you have problems. If you do, it is possible that you just got a faulty chip hence I'd RMA it. However, if it runs 100% stable at that point then slowly start to OC the chip. How OC-able your chip is tends to be a very "luck of the draw" type of thing, but I hope yours has some room for a good OC. You are correct assuming that it should hit 2.4 fairly easily, as it should. But that doesn't mean it will.

My last OC was a X2 4800+ (2.4 stock) that I got up to 2.92 without any issues. From what I read, some people got them as high as 3.1/3.2, while others got no farther than 2.5.

Also... personaly I haven't run into a problem where I had to clean install windows just from a processor upgrade but that doesn't mean it can't happen.

 

[kingoftherings]

I do have the latest BIOS, I had to install it just to be able to use Dual Core on my motherboard.

I'm not sure how to uninstall any AMD drivers, or how to reset my BIOS. Isn't there a jumper on the motherboard that does that, or is that really old boards? Or there may be an option for that in the BIOS. I've had it at stock speed now for a while, maybe two or three hours, but only browsing the Internet, so I'll try Prime 95 and see if that makes it crash.

 

[kingoftherings]

It just crashed again at stock speed. I was running Prime 95 for about a half hour on only one core. I'd rather not have to RMA this CPU.

 

[ethel]

There's an AMD dual core patch for Windows XP - personally I found it made my rig run unstable so I uninstalled it, but it's worth a try.

 

[kingoftherings]

Oh, I think I've heard of that, but I forgot about it.

I should try it out. If that doesn't work, I'll try pulling out my new stick of RAM, maybe its causing problems?

 

[f61]

Whats the Power Supply Unit? thats missing from your Hardware config. I'm hoping its a hi-quality 400W or better (500 to be sure).

f61

 

[ethel]

Oh, I think I've heard of that, but I forgot about it.

I should try it out. If that doesn't work, I'll try pulling out my new stick of RAM, maybe its causing problems?

You can use memtest86 to test your RAM - if there's any problems with it, memtest will tell you.