Need help with Phenom build problems

[b1kshad0w]

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...?ProductID=2739
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820211188
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814125089

I don't have a link for the processor, don't really need one though.

Anyways, my old system is a 4000+ socket 920, 1 gig of ram, and 8600 GT. My new system is a Phenom 9600 Black edition with the B2 stepping, 4 Gigs of A-data ram, GA-MA770-S3 mobo, and Gigabyte GV-NX88T256HV1 GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card. My old system plays World of Warcraft much smoother/higher frame rate. Anyways, I have checked temps, tried intsalling the drivers for the north and south bridge from gigabyte's site and right from ATI thinking maybe it was a driver issue. I've tried Windows XP and Vista on the new Phenom system. In Vista it's really horrible. I get about half the framerate that I do in Xp which made me think more of a driver issue. I've tried using the 32 bit version of xp and it's still slower than my old system. I've even tried turning down all the settings in the game too. I've noticed that the northbridge is really hot. Like burn your fingers if you touch the heatsink hot. Looking at the 82 degrees celcius on one of the temps from HWmonitor is what made me touch the heatsinks. Any hints on troubleshooting this guys? Any free games or something I can download to test it out? I don't really own any other games to do some tests and I'm not paying for the 3dmark program. Hope I provided enough info for someone to help me/point me in the right direction.
I was kind of thinking something is wrong with the northbridge. Anyone have any theorys that can track down the problem? I'm on tight budget and not sure if I should call Gigabyte's tech support.

Mainboard Vendor Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Mainboard Model GA-MA770-S3 (0x294 - 0x5265A2B0)


Processor 1 (ID = 0)
Number of cores 4 (max 4)
Number of threads 4 (max 4)
Name AMD Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition
Codename Agena
Specification AMD Phenom™ 9600 Quad-Core Processor
Package Socket AM2+ (940)
CPUID F.2.2
Extended CPUID 10.2
Brand ID 11
Core Stepping DR-B2
Technology 65 nm
Core Speed 2310.4 MHz (11.5 x 200.9 MHz)
HT Link speed 1808.1 MHz
Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, x86-64
L1 Data cache 4 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 4 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 4 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L3 cache 2 MBytes, 32-way set associative, 64-byte line size


Voltage sensor 0 1.28 Volts [0x50] (CPU VCORE)
Voltage sensor 1 1.94 Volts [0x79] (VIN1)
Voltage sensor 2 3.23 Volts [0xCA] (+3.3V)
Voltage sensor 3 5.00 Volts [0xBA] (+5V)
Voltage sensor 4 12.22 Volts [0xBF] (+12V)
Voltage sensor 5 -12.48 Volts [0xC3] (-12V)
Voltage sensor 8 3.26 Volts [0xCC] (VBAT)
Temperature sensor 0 36°C (96°F) [0x24] (TMPIN0)
Temperature sensor 1 39°C (102°F) [0x27] (TMPIN1)
Temperature sensor 2 82°C (179°F) [0x52] (TMPIN2)
Fan sensor 0 2576 RPM [0x106] (FANIN0)
Fan sensor 1 1099 RPM [0x266] (FANIN1)
Fan sensor 2 1683 RPM [0x191] (FANIN2)

 

[Proximon]

You should have at least BIOS version f3 to run that CPU.

You might try pointing a fan into the case to see if it helps anything. Your hot video card is right on top of the heatsinks for both chipsets, and I could see that causing problems. Possibly your board is throttling back to avoid overheating damage.

I would not consider any of that much of an upgrade really, but it is sucking more power. What PSU do you have? If it's struggling, voltages could be unstable causing all sorts of bad behavior.

 

[b1kshad0w]

I have this power supply Rosewill Stallion Series RD600N-2SB-SL-BK 600W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182150

I tried using amd's overdrive to disable the tbl patch in vista, made a slight improvement, but you can tell something is still wrong. When I'm gaming there's pauses like little freezes. I thought it was the game mods but it does it without them. I did have one time where I got a popup from the nvidia drivers saying that the card was not recieving sufficent power and put it in a low power mode. I put my multimeter to check the voltage but I don't have a meter to test the amperes going to the card. I did try putting it on a different rail I've never seen the voltage drop and I haven't had any problems with the system crashing.
I had updated to the F5 bios awhile back. Didn't help. I'm guessing one of the components is bad, just not sure exactly how to trouble shoot exactly which one.

 

[buzznut]

B2 stepping on the processor would be a good bet.
If you got a message about the power for the video being low, that sounds like a good bet.

 

[Proximon]

The Rosewill unit you linked is not one of their few good ones.

You cannot measure the kind of thing I'm talking about at home. Sagging voltage is only one of many ways a PSU can provide poor service. Most Rosewill PSUs are considered "tier 5" or "Do not buy" by most people in the know.
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

Here's an example of a quality review of a PSU, and you'll learn a bit about them in the process:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=126

Beyond that, I still think you have some heat issues.

 

[b1kshad0w]

Do you think I should try the power supply out of my old computer? It's a 430 watt antec true power. I'm not sure it has enough power to power my phenom system or I remember something about needing more pins on the new motherboards. Even when I had my 8600 gt which doesn't need a seperate power connector it was still doing the same thing. I'm not sure I'm subscribed to the theory of the power supply being the issue as it's not crashing or shutting down or doing anythign else screwy and the voltages are not dropping off. I am pretty convinced something with the drivers, the crappy phenom, or the northbridge overheating. I was just looking for some ideas to test which one. Like I said I tried the different OSes already. Even with the tbl disabled I'm lucky to get half the performance in Vista that I get in XP.

 

[buzznut]

What Proximon is suggesting is that you educate yourself about power supplies and buy one accordingly.

A quality power supply can make a world of difference.

 

[b1kshad0w]

I'm looking for something that will troubleshoot and track down the problem. So far nothing either of you have said has been helpfull in tracking down the problem.

 

[Proximon]

All we can do is suggest what parts to swap out first, based on our instincts. There is no easy fix for this sort of thing.

I feel that it's heat, PSU, or motherboard. If you eliminated the heat issue with a good strong fan blowing into your open case, then you'll have to start swapping out parts.

 

[b1kshad0w]

I'm wondering if it's a problem with the phenom's and World of Warcraft. I remembered back in the day I used to use Sisandra. Seems it's still around so I downloaded it and ran the tests it has. Everything was on par with what it says it should be performance wise. I have ran prime95 for 10 hours straight on this machine and run memtest. The only issue I think heat wise would be that crappy northbridge. I am not having any crashing issues, just low performance.
So if you think it's the PSU, heat, or mobo, how would that cause Vista to give me half the frame rate of XP?
Someone smart should come up with a database of systems and games. Kind of like 3dmark's online database where you can compare your systems with other people's but in specific games. So if you play CoD or Warhammer for instance you can compare your system with other people's systems and if you want to upgrade see what kind of framerate you can expect.
And btw thanks for the feedback and trying to help.

 

[b1kshad0w]

[Dec 29 09:03] Torture Test ran 9 hours, 7 minutes - 0 errors, 0 warnings.
[Dec 29 09:03] Worker stopped.

I ran prime95 after I went to bed last night. The CPU's high temp was 54 degrees celcius. I've had WoW running many hours and never had it crash or shut off.