System still not stable, please give setting advice

chockomonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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Will try to make this brief:

4 months ago I built two computers--one for myself, one for my room mate. They were identical, except for the RAM. See the specs below:

Mine:
MOBO: ASUS M4A87TD/USB3
CPU: AMD Athlon X4 620
GPU: GIGABYT GTX 460
PSU: Corsair 650TX 650W
RAM: G.Skill DDR3 1600 F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ

Room mate's:
RAM: OCZ3F1600LV4GK

His works, and mine has intermittent problems with freezing and BSOD's. The first thing we did was stress test---everything passed. Mine worked for 3 days on Auto settings, then started freezing (it didn't matter what i was doing). At this point i naturally started trying to set up my BIOS as a way to gain stability.. this only kinda worked. I'd set some things, think they worked, and then would still have it freeze maybe a day or two later. At one point i got a week of stability by setting the RAM to run on 2T. Most recently i got a week of stability by leaving everything on Auto, but setting RAM freq to 1067mhz.

When settings didn't seem to work, i turned to RMA's. I've replaced every part in this computer, and yet my issues persist. My hardware is now:
MOBO: ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 (was RMA'd)
CPU: AMD Athlon X4 640 (tried to RMA, but they were out of 620's--got the 640 instead)
GPU: GIGABYT GTX 460 (have not RMA'd, but tested my room mate's for a bit--had the same problems)
PSU: Corsair 650TX 650W (also tested with my room mate's--had the same problems)
RAM: G.Skill DDR3 1600 F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL (RMA'd multiple times, then had them switch to Ripjaw series to test compatibility)

So i've come full-circle. I have a new mobo/cpu/ram and have tested the other parts, yet still get these issues with freezes and BSOD's. So now i'm thinking there still must be something wonky in my BIOS settings, hence the thread----Can i get some advice on which settings y'all think i should try to get this stable?

Anything is appreciated, thanks.

-Chocko

edit: i know i'm leaving a lot of information out, but i don't want a wall of text that's too big. to briefly touch on the bios settings... i feel like i've tried the usual stuff... ie, bumping up voltages a little, setting timings manually, etc. I heard things mentioned somewhere a few times about having to OC the processor to get AMD stable... possibly thinking this is related?
 

chockomonkey

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Oct 4, 2010
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18,510
TLDR:
- my 4 month old build still isn't stable
- I've RMA'd and tested so much, I don't think it's the hardware anymore--i'm starting to think it all just needs VERY picky settings to work right
- I want your advice on what settings, given my hardware, should i attempt to change to make things more stable.

Also, some pictures!

cpu.JPG

mainboard.JPG

memory.JPG

spd.JPG

vid.JPG

hwmonitor.JPG


(are those voltages normal? They're all a bit under what it's supposed to be...)

These were taken during some Prime95 Blended mode tests, and they seemed to pass for now with the below bios settings:

Ai Overlock Tuner..................Manual
CPU Ratio..............................15
CPU Freq................................200
PCIe bus................................100
DRAM Frequency....................1333
CPU/NB Frequency.................2000
HT Link Speed.......................2000

Timing Configuration
CAS# Latency.......................8
RAS# to CAS# Delay.............8
RAS# PRE Time....................8
RAS# ACT Time....................24

CPU and NB Voltage Mode........Manual
CPU Voltage............................1.44
CPU/NB Voltage......................1.22
DRAM Voltage.........................1.53
HT Voltage..............................Auto
NB Voltage..............................Auto

CPU Load-Line Calibration........Enabled
CPU/NB Load-Line Calibration...Enabled
CPU Spread Spectrum.............Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum............Disabled

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As you can see I'm trying my ram at a lower frequency as it seems to like it more than 1600. Because i'm guessing, i raised the voltages of the CPU, the CPU NB, and the DRAM voltage just a little bit to see if that will bring stability... So far it's been decent, though i have had crashes.

Do i need to be raising all of these? What else can i try? (I'm asking because i've seen talk about having to OC the CPU freq a little, or lower the multiplier, or all this other crazy stuff that i simply don't understand.)

Thanks,

Chocko