My CPU is junk, but I want a second opinion.

[_Z_Ryuken]

C2D e6750, used

natively supported by my
Asus P5B-E

Due to problems, recently upgraded heatsink to
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, supposedly new, but appears mishandled

and PSU to
Corsair VX550W, slightly used, possibly tampered with.

--

Stats as of right now, reported by BIOS

CPU temp 32.5*C
VCore voltage, 1.312

CPU frequency is underclocked, for the sake of because I felt like it. 2.33Ghz. FSB is 2188Mhz lol.

--
Symptoms:

First post (CPU upgrade by itself) was unsuccesful.
Subsequent posts were successful, but CPU was underclocked I'm assuming by the BIOS, to a frequency of 2.13, which is strange.
I replaced the e6300 and decided to update the BIOS, PSU and cooler before trying this CPU again. That day has come and here are the current symptoms:
POSTing is 100% unsuccessful. Sometimes the BIOS will freeze even before anything happens. Garbled characters are common. The furthest I have gotten is to the POST menu. Windows fails to load, and I get a black screen, and the following restart if it makes it far enough will inform me of a bad shutdown. SATA drives often fail to be found. Also getting at random when I switch between CPUs, "Overclocking failed blah blah", even when no overclocking has been done.

--
I contacted the guy today informing him of this, but I bought it back on 2nd of January, so he might not give a damn.


Thoughts?

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Well sonuvabitch, I removed the CMOS battery to just let the shit reset, lo and behold I get another OCing error
BUT!
bam this OS booted.

I like where this is going...


Reason I removed the battery is because I edited some settings that caused BIOS booting to fail completely, otherwise I would not have tried it. :/
---

SONOFABITCH IS ONLY USING 1 CORE> AARRGGHHH. Core is 22* Celsius???? WTF??Sfjg seu Full load? WTF is going on?

--
Restart results in boot failure.
--
Frequent error: "Unknown CPU detected. BIOS update is required to unleash its full power. Press F1 to resume."
Black screen followed by "Windows Boot Manger" A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, bah blah, repair, blah blah Info: Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file. Enter to continue, but system restarts, then crashes.
---
Change some settings, successful restart followed immediately by a blue screen of death then restart before I can read it. Another successful restart, then... a windows error and a black scree with a mouse cursor, a minute later, successful log on. DHCP failed...
---
Device manager reports e6300 still being used. Attempted "uninstall". Reboot is succesful, however slow.
Windows requests restart. Comply. Reboot successful. Attempting re-clock.
--
This thing: image
---
Re-clock failure. POST failure. Unknown CPU detected.
De-clock, boot unsuccessful. Black screen, HD is putting in OT.
--
Boot from DVD, special menu, disabled driver signing enforcement, more blue screen of death.
Attempting DVD repair.
--
This: Oh hells naw.
--
CPU fix failure, but Vista Processor score is 5.4 instead of 5.1 now. Benchmarking..
--
FPS is better, CPU is VERY cool, but I got a blue screen in CS:S and after one crash in CS:S and HL2.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Through extensive troubleshooting I have determined the CPU is unstable. Even though it's fricking running at room temperature, unless somehow the temp reading is wrong and it's really not 63-80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Temp log recorded a MAX of 30*Celsius during PEAK output. WhyTF does it not work?

Max BIOS reading was 34*C, which is still 10* lower than the e6300.
--
Core 1 59*F
Core 2 63*F, then blue screen. :/
coooold

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Ok, I've studied a little more, and have now concluded my RAM speed is insufficient. The e6750 has a bus of 1333Mhz, I have 2 DDR2-800Mhz, but they are running in single channel, not dual, and I am guess the bottleneck is causing a problem. Evidence of this would be the numerous memory-related errors I keep getting.
Solution: increasing DRAM timing and voltage. We'll see how that guys.

--
Thoughts? Comments? Like watching me talk to myself?

 

[Vegeta897]

/munches popcorn

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Dual channel mode activated! Guys, I feel like a noob for not knowing this, but if you have 4 RAM slots and they are color coded, you need to put both your RAMs in the same color to use Dual channel.
Lolol.

Wow. PC booted fast. Gonna screw with stuff see if this was the source of my problem.
This thing is hauling ass right now, and still underclocked.
Temp has increased as well, because it's working harder.
---

Now running at full clock speed, idling at ~22-24 Celsius.
Appears to be pretty stable. Vista score is now 5.5 for CPU and 5.9 for memory instead of 5.7 or whatever it was. Yay!
CS:S gfx test crashed, probably just the video card.
---
CS:S stress test crashed 3 times in a row now.

 

[Shakermaker]

/munches popcorn

/joins Vegeta

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Radeon x1900gt
--

RAM is clocked at only 400Mhz instead of 800 :/

whhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

I just ran CS:S and Folding@Home using 100% CPU output for about an hour straight with a MAX recorded core temp of 39*C, and an average of 37 on core 2.
Core 1 was on average 2-3 degrees cooler.
The Radeon had issues at first but I set fps_max 60 and all was well.

Who's interested in my cooling set up?

 

[Barney Fife]

:/
Launching for the nearest blunt object to bash head with. I can use some popcorn right about now. Oh! The Humanity ... DP is never cool.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

What is DP?

 

[Barney Fife]

What is DP?

It means "Double-post" Instead of double posting, you can keep editing original post and write any new findings, until you get replies (Someone else replies) then you can post new.
It saves precious time for readers.

Take care.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

But if you edit the same post over a 5 hour period how would anyone know? I edited like 30 times, there were 45 views before the first actual reply.
"DP is never cool" seems like a pointless personal opinion to me. Like it's somehow causes you frusteration and wastes time? I don't think so.

 

[Pesmerga]

What are you talking about, Double Penetration is awesome. Try it some time.

 

[Barney Fife]

"DP is never cool" seems like a pointless personal opinion to me. Like it's somehow causes you frusteration and wastes time? I don't think so.

MKey.

 

[Rico]

Radeon x1900gt
--

RAM is clocked at only 400Mhz instead of 800 :/

whhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy

Just a heads up. I don't know if you're aware of this, but DDR stands for "Double Data Rate". This means that your RAM clock speed is usually double what it says. IE: Your 400 mhz could be in fact running at 800 mhz in reality. It depends on how your bios reads it.

I'm fairly sure your RAM is running at the right speeds. You can download SiSoft Sandra and look at your RAM speeds if you want to be sure though.

 

[Asus]

Just a heads up. I don't know if you're aware of this, but DDR stands for "Double Data Rate". This means that your RAM clock speed is usually double what it says. IE: Your 400 mhz could be in fact running at 800 mhz in reality. It depends on how your bios reads it.

I'm fairly sure your RAM is running at the right speeds. You can download SiSoft Sandra and look at your RAM speeds if you want to be sure though.

Yep.
*Although to nit pick, it is actually reverse. The lower number would be what it is clocked at in reality. The higher number is a rating. A "if it was single data rate it would perform like it was clocked at" number.

 

[giant384]

i recommend you put your memory speed at 666mhz or 333mhz depending on how its read so it will run in a 1:1 ratio of memory and cpu speed.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

The computer has been set and fairly stable for about 9 days now. I still get occasional blue screens but I also still think this CPU is faulty.
Then again, my Radeon has been taking a shit lately.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

/joins Vegeta

/tags along with Man-Sized drink of Cola and El Presidente' Sized Weiners

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

I dip my banana
into peanut butter.