The Continuing 4PDA2+ nightmare..... Antec SLK3700BQE case P4 2.8 ghz 2 - 256 meg PC3200 crucial, dual channel Zalman CNPS7000Cu cooler/Arctic Silver 5 Antec trupower 430 w psu Radeon 9600 Turtle Beach Santa Cruz 36 gig Raptors Raid 0 Maxtor slaves Win2K SP2 No OC, standard timings As noted in a previous thread, I was having stability problems with my 4PDA2+ machine. BSOD on boot, spontaneous reboots, etc. Turns out there were failing caps all over that board. So I bought and installed a new 4PDA2+. The system is still unstable. No BSOD on boot or spontaneous reboots--now I have spontaneous shutdowns. It is not the psu, ram, video card, or drives--all changed out. A typical crash scenario is to start an AVG scan with Outlook Express, Firefox, and Agent running--shutdown. But I've had shutdowns with the machine simply idling with OE, Firefox and Agent running. I've ghosted back to several installations known to be good with no change in behavior. Crashes are not restricted necessarily to one or two running process scenarios, so I don't think it's a software problem. I'm suspecting CPU damage from the old bad-cap board, but running CPU Burn-in and Prime95 simultaneously--100% cpu usage--will not make it crash. Disabling the ACPI shutdown temperature function in BIOS seems to have improved the situation (Faulty temp sensing, which I had on #1 4PDA2+?). Bumping up Vcore and Vdimm 0.1 volts seems to have improved things a bit more, but hard to tell with a problem such as this. Too intermittent and unpredictable. I can only tentatively conclude that my CPU is marginal or the new mobo is defective. It is tempting to completely scrap the Epox build and go with another brand mobo at this point. Maybe AMD as well. Dave [It's possible that the Zalman/Arctic silver installation is incorrect, but I doubt it. I've done it too many times.]
Yeah, I would suspect shutdown temp in bios triggering this. What kind of temps are you seeing? Is there an updated bios for the motherboard? You might also try another PSU (3rd). DaveL
Dave, 30 C at idle, 45-50 at 100%. 70 F ambient. Think it has latest bios--4/19/04, but think bios is buggy. Maybe a re-flash? I've had ACPI shutdown temp disabled and it's been fine. I should buy a new beefy PSU. I'll use it in my next build if I have to throw this thing out the window. Thanks for your response. Dave
A bios either works or it doesn't. No need to reflash. What you might try is to flash back to a previous bios. But I think this board or it's bios has a problem with APCI implementation. I think disabling APCI is your work around. DaveL
Dave, You're right--it looks like disabling APCI is a work around. Behavior is improved--no shutdowns since, but I've had a lock-up on boot. Not a bsod, just a lock midway through boot-up. Reboot was ok and the machine is definitely useable, but I really dislike situations like this. I'm loathe to throw any more time or money into this "aging" machine. The temptation is a new build. What would you do? New build or continue troubleshooting this thing? If new, Intel or AMD and what mobo? P965's like Asus P5B-xx or Giga GA-965P-S3 plus some C2d variant seem popular, but I thought I read you mentioning AMD socket 939 as the way to currently go in a previous thread. I've read a ton and it's overwhelming, as usual. Tom's and Anand, for example, worry too much about OCing, which I think is nuts. Too bad, since a fully functional 4pda2+ platform offers more than enough of everything for me for quite a while. I've got an 8K7A+ machine which with some upgrades (cpu, ram) would be sufficient, but everythings going sata, PCIe, etc. Dave
If I were you I'd still try another PSU. Preferably a non Antec one. There could be a compatibility issue there. But that would probably be the end of my troubleshooting. You might try simply replacing the motherboard with another 875 based board. That way you would not have to reload the hard drive. Beyond that, you could go hog wild and use this as an opportunity to make the leap to a Dou Core setup. DaveL
