q9550 on xp 64

[shoutingsteve]

I am pretty good with computers, but this just has me confused beyond recognition. I am on this rig right now, and it is fine... for now. But it will freeze sometime soon. When I first upgraded to the q9550, I did not reinstall the OS. I had a 64 bit processor already, so I already installed the 64 bit XP. The computer entered windows environment and froze less than a min past the login screen.
Update bios, and turned the nvidia stuff off through msconfig. BUT. after I thought i was successful, playing an video game emulator froze the system again. Then it froze next time watching youtube, both time just as the video was beginning (for the emulation and youtube). I noticed that some of the individual pixels on my screen were flickering greens and pinks.

Any ideas?
i will be checking this thread as often as I can. And don't hesitate to ask me any questions, it is easily possible that i just missed something.

I also changed the BIOS (after the default settings failed several times) to the suggested settings of Intel for all dealings with the CPU and I put the ram at 1.8 v as suggested by the ram company. These things helped, I think, but i am not sure.

XP 64 bit SP2
Intel quad core Q9550
P5k3 Deluxe
4 gigs ocz ram PC10666
dual Nvidia 8600 GTS, not sli bridged
raid 1 on two 80 gigs (third party PCI card) and two 500 gigs (on board controller) and a third drive that is just kinda there...
Creative labs X-fi Platinum
Water cooled CPU and both VGAs

P.S. something else i forgot to mention, i have back lit keyboard, and when the system freezes, the keyboard back light goes out.

 

[badge]

PC28500 1066MHz. RAM will require 2.0-2.1v for stable operation. That could be the problem of the system freeze ups.

EDIT: OP wrote, 4 gigs ocz ram PC10666. Looks like PC2 1066. Yeah, DDR3 requires 1.8v, but it wouldn't hurt to increase that voltage slightly.

 

[shoutingsteve]

I will try that now.

 

[badge]

If you are running software, such as a game, or try to load up a CD and your system freezes up, many times this behavior is RAM related. Anyway, try increaing the voltage a notch and you could try running the system with 1 DIMM only and see if it stabalizes.

 

[shoutingsteve]

well, tried it at 2.0. I am not able to force it to freeze anymore. but it was more like leaving it be for a while and coming back to it results in a freeze. It appears to be fine for an indefinite amount of time if I am using it, but as soon as the screen saver goes on (I assume) it stops responding to the keyboard/ mouse.

upon further reflection, I will try removing the KVM switch. It is just so odd that everythign worked so well with my old cpu, and now that i have a new one I have to bump up all these voltages and still things are falling to sh!t.

I have removed the kvm switch and now the mouse and keyboard are directly plugged into the motherboard. I have also completely turned off the screen saver and have set my power profile to presentation. So, everything should stay running?

 

[shoutingsteve]

well, my boyfriend turned my computer off when I went to class this morning, so I do not know if it would have survived. However, I am now sitting in front of it again (after waiting 20 mins for it to boot up (this also happened when I switched to quad core)). I watched three videos at once (wmp,vlc, and creative media source) as well as had the emulator open, a synced my phone and outlook, as well opened about 100 image files. All at the same time... so I can't overload my system to crash it.

I put a post it on my monitor telling him not to turn it off again, so we will see what happens... if it stays on, I will just keep it like this.

 

[badge]

If you have a Virus protection/antispyware program running at start up, that may be the source of the long boot to wndows time. have you tried this:

Click on Start, then RUN.
type in msconfig
hit OK
Click on the start up tab

The checked boxes are all the programs your system is loading when you boot it into windows. For simplicity's sake, unless you know what each program is, uncheck them all. Windows will find what it needs to set up start up for the OS.

Yeah, I have no experience with DDR3, but I know your system RAM can be the cause of system lockups esecially when running complicated software like a game or trying to load up a program from CD for example. Just a little added shot of voltage can cause the RAM to transfer the data around like it meant too.

 

[badge]

Also, you say you installed a quad core processor and were running a dual core. In Device manager under processors, does it show the correct 4 cores of your Quad processor? If not, like it still shows the two dual core cores then adds two cores of the quad making four cores showing for example. I reinstalled my OS when I had that happen. There is a MS fix for this, but it didn't work on my machine. Reinstalling the OS fixed it.

 

[johnyeah]

Usually when I change hardware such as the CPU, I just reinstall the whole system. Saves you from a lot of problems.

 

[badge]

This is what happened to me upgrading from an e8400 DC to a q9450. But I was using Vista 64. I tried this (wish I could find such a fix for XP 64) and got nothing. I had to reinstall my Vista 64 OS and all is fine. probably not much help.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930861/en-us

CAUSE
This problem occurs because the system does not detect that a new processor has been installed.

Device Manager reads a registry string to display the processor information. This registry string is populated by the processor when the processor driver is installed. Because the system does not detect that a new processor had been installed, the system does not install a new processor driver. Therefore, the registry string is not updated. Device Manager reads the registry string information for the previous processor.

This problem occurs because the processor driver class installer may not be invoked in the system if the processor is physically replaced with a different processor that is similar to the previous processor. When this problem occurs, the processor description under Processors in Device Manager may not be updated. This problem is only cosmetic, and it does not affect the performance of the computer. (Bugged the heck out of me though)

 

[shoutingsteve]

reinstalled windows... same problems.

 

[badge]

So, if you take out the q9550 and put the old processor back in, the symptoms go away? Be interesting to see that. You have a lot of software involved, not the least of which is RAID. Most often troubleshooting breaks down to just using the basics. CPU, RAM, Video card, HD. I wish I could could provide a more definate, helpful answer or solution. I had a system that suddently became slow to boot one time. Not long after the hard drive failed completely. So, think of a way to break the system down to the very basics and test it. You know the problem started after you installed the q9550. It's a lot of work, but you may have to put back the processor that didn't show the symptoms and start like that. HTH.

 

[shoutingsteve]

I have isolated the problem to a few programs. The computer made it through two days fine when I removed the following programs:
Trillian
Boinc
Windows Desktop search
MagicDisk
Process Explorer
A ram monitoring program
and a Temperature monitoring program.

I feel like I owe you a great deal of thanks for helping me through this. I have been going a little crazy. So thanks for all your help!

 

[badge]

Interesting, I've had software crash my Vista 64 system before. It happened twice, so I emailed the company to notifiy them their Vista compatible software had 'hosed' my system. The company's support emailed back and revealed they had not yet tested their software with Vista 64. Glad to hear you believe you found the source of the problem. I had an early BETA copy of XP 64 and gave it to a friend who was dying to try it at the time. I never purchased XP 64 after that, skipped it entirely. I have Vista 64 since BETA 1. A few bumps like that, but all is well. Maybe that was the problem with your system, XP 64 not being compatible with some software. Keep an eye on that RAM voltage 8).

 

[shoutingsteve]

I am going to upgrade to vista. Quad core wasn't even heard of when XP 64 was created, the technology was around, but I doubt that XP was meant for it. i just bought an OEM version on newegg, along with new power supply. I figured that is possible the cause...
5 HDDs
Dual PCIx16 cards
Quad core processor.
All but one PCI slot filled.
Did I really think that 450 watts was enough. I picked up a 700 watt with near perfect ratings.

I can't believe that i didn't think of that earlier.

 

[badge]

Sounds like an outstanding idea. I have used Vista 64 for almost a year now. I have three Vista 64 machines now. Like I said, I skipped Windows 64. I think you will like Vista 64. I really enjoy the machine listed in My Config. I have not even remotely tapped the power of that machine. yeah, I didn't see that 450w PSU. Under a load you would be dragging that 450 watter around pretty good. Any questions about Vista 64, just ask. 8)

 

[Guest]

I will try that now.

Green dots on screen...? get a new/replacement graphics card in first place.

 

[shoutingsteve]

Well, I got Vista... all is well so far.

 

[badge]

Excellent. Sounds about like my experience with Vista 64.

 

[shoutingsteve]

Actually, this is fan-fu$#in-tastic. I can't believe how amazing this experience is. Vista is really pretty, and the quad core makes it really smooth!

I just looked at my performance score, I am a 5.3! how exciting! I think the only reason that my hard drive score is low is because one drive might be crapping out in the raid.
I wonder how high the scale goes?

 

[badge]

Yeah, I have three Vista 64 machines. Exceeded my wildest expectation. I would never build another personal PC for daily use with XP.

 

[jeremy9174]

I've heard that there are so many driver problems with graphics cards and gaming on vista, why are you such an advocate of it? How does it handle games? I've heard it from a number of different sources.

 

[jeremy9174]

Oh and the scale maxes at 5.9 for some reason. So your 3 5.9s are maxed, but obviously there are faster proccessors.

 

[shoutingsteve]

I've heard that there are so many driver problems with graphics cards and gaming on vista, why are you such an advocate of it? How does it handle games? I've heard it from a number of different sources.

Well, so far the only problem I have had is my audio is skipping, and that might be fixed wheni restart. I just played a quick round of Turok (2008), which ic one of the most harsh games on a system that i have encountered, adn there are no problems with it. Also, the startup and load times are about half that of XP for Turok. So no complaints.

 

[shoutingsteve]

After 2 months, I finally have it all tuned perfectly:
4 gigs at 1120 (via FSB set to 350)
CAS Timings: 6 6 6 20 4 36 5 5 5
DRAM voltage=1.9
north bridge voltage=1.7
DRAM Command Rate:2T

I think that those last two items are what was really causing all the trouble.

The post previous to this one was with four gigs, however once I tried to start up in safe mode (I had to render a huge photoshop file (159 megapixels)) in order to free as much RAM as possible, the system never booted back up. I had trouble even getting to the BIOS screen. I had to remove all but one stick of RAM. I found out that my P5K3 has issues with 4 sticks of ram. After running it for about a week on only 3 gigs of ram, I was furious. I finally tracked down a fellow who posted on a different forum about how his 4 sticks are working fine on the same mobo. I set my BIOS identical to his, and it booted fine... with a 9 9 9 26 9 60 8 8 8 cas sequence... That was unacceptable to me. So I started tuning and finally ended up with my current settings.