New Build Q6600 Stability Problems… Help!

[BigBadBry]

G’day all,

Long time lurker, First Time poster
I’ve been buying my systems pre-built through Dell for years and I finally gathered the “testicular fortitude” to build my own rig for Gaming, CAD & Product Rendering. I did a fair share of homework to assemble what I hope is a dependable selection of parts. Everything went together without a hitch and the system is mostly stable……. Mostly…

Here are the specs:
--CPU: Q6600 Intel Quad Core [G0 Stepping]
--Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
--MB: Abit IP35-Pro
--Mem: G.Skill (2 x 1GB = 2 Gig total) DDR2 800 ( PC2 6400)
--PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700W
--Video: EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS - 640 MB
--Case: Antec P180
--Drive: Western Digital SATA 500GB
--DVD: Samsung SATA DVD-RW
--Sound: SoundBlaster X-Fi XTremeGamer 7.1

Here is what works,
--Under “Prime95” (4 instances of small FFT Torture) System is currently running (1 hour and stable) at:
----“Normal” [Abit Guru Mode]
------Ext Clock: 2.82Ghz
------CPU Core: 1.29V
------DDR2: 1.90V
------CPU Temp: 54.0C (Holding Stable)
------System Temp: 36.0C
------PWM Temp: 65.0C
------Voltages: all slightly above target levels
--Under “3DMark06”, I get a score of about 9254 while in Abits “Turbo” more (see specifics below)
--Under “BurnInTest” I am able to run 15 minutes using 100% CPU, RAM and VIDEO (15 is the max for the free version)
--During “Battlefield 2142”, everything seems pretty smooth, with the exception of the infamous X-FI Crackle during artillery rounds (though I haven’t played steadily for more then an hour or two)

Here is what fails (heartbreaking like breaking my first big-wheel)
--In “Maxwell Render” I am able to run about 4-5 hours [at breakneck rendering speeds] but when I do anything with a mouse or keyboard (after rendering for a while), I get a system freeze, (no mouse keyboard or screen activity). The last thing on the screen is this:
----“Turbo” [Abit Guru Mode]
------Ext Clock: 2.93 Ghz
------CPU Core: 1.36V
------DDR2: 1.96V
------CPU Temp: 49.0 C (Holding Stable)
------System Temp: 36V
------PWM Temp: 60.0
------Voltages: all slightly above target levels
-In “Prime95” using the “Blend” mode (single instance) I get a Blue Screen Error with the following”
----“IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
----“Crash occurs within about 1 – 2 minutes of starting the test

I’m no pro with clock and voltage settings. Is it possible the Abit Guru is setting something up incorrectly? Does this seem like a hardware problem? I’m really not sure where to begin and I would sincerely appreciate your insight on how you think I could best troubleshoot this system. I am not looking for extreme overclocking – only stability for the apps I use for work in play. Thanks to all in advance, Il respond to any further questions as quickly as possible…
Bryan

 

[BigBadBry]

I wanted to send everyone an update just in case someone else ran into a similar situation. I set the clock to 333 x 9 = 3GHz, and then re-adjusted the memory back down to 1:1.20 which gave me a 799 on my DDR2-800 memory. I upped the DDR Voltage to 2.0V (default is 1.8) and I left the voltage to the CPU as-is at "1.27" and ran several tests. Core temperatures hover around 57 (core 1 & 3) to 51 (cores 2 & 4) while running 4 instances of Prime 95 (thats 3 instances of "small", and one instance of "blend" (just to keep my system from paging)). Memtest (from the boot disk) also ran without a problem whatsoever.

From everything I can see - its rock solid! In the end, I think the low "default" memory voltage was the culprit.

http://www.arizona-ideaworks.com/
The renderings(in the portfolio area) on my old P4 system took around 22 hours to render, On this new rig they take around 5. Im a pretty happy camper with that sort of upgrade Now of the boys at Crytek would just get their Beta testing wrapped up....