Cold boot issues...

[TX-Thunderbolt]

...are happening much more frequently now. I want to get on and fly with you guys more, but this is starting to become a real pain in the ass. I couldn't even boot last night. It really does sound like it's the VC spooling up, but still not sure. I'm going to pull it apart tonight and give it a good cleaning and re-seat everything, then try to boot with the cover off to see which fan is making all the racket. Not sure what to do if it's the VC. I guess I could just replace it with one of those nice 9800GTX cards. Dunno...

I'm starting to gather components for a core i7 rig I'll be assembling in May, but this one needs to be running well as I need to pass it down to my son.

Anyway, just FYI.

[GOZR]

Cold boot issue ? meaning that you PC have some hard time to boot? in many occasions it's due to a capacitor dead on the main board if you have soft capacitor you can see if they are inflated if they are hard well no much to see... when a capacitor is dead it's hard and harder to start cold.
The fan making noise is not good ether make sure to clean well in the fans props ( for good balance ) and on the bearings .
 What video card do you have now?

[TX-Thunderbolt]

Well, maybe I was a little vague. Yes, it's having trouble booting from a cold start. I press the power button and the L.E.D. on top of my case showing HDD activity stays a solid blue color and a fan in my case (still not sure which yet, but leaning towards my VC) spins like a hurricane.

When it boots properly the HDD activity light flashes and goes into POST mode and the hurricane fan starts, runs for about 6-8 seconds then subsides.

Currently, I'm using an evga 8800GTS 512 (G92) at stock speeds.

[GOZR]

Not worth to go from GTS to 9800 GTX ( same card )

Sure it is not the CD player spinning ? clean all

[TX-EcoDragon]

Hmm. . .have other hardware you could swap in? This is a time when it's handy to have a mobo that has status indicating LEDs, this way you can see what point of the boot process is failing. If it's at the moment that the VGA card goes into ward drive tornado mode that could be a memory error, VGA problem, a PSU that's going dead, or as GOZR says a bad capacitor somewhere.

It would be easiest to rule out the VGA and memory if you can try booting on a single stick, or better yet, a single stick of different RAM. If it still happens then swap the VGA card, if it still happens then it's probably PSU or new MOBO time. These are going to be a pain to troubleshoot though you probably want to know what the issue is so you know what's good to keep vs not.

[TX-Thunderbolt]

Yeah, I've resolved to go ahead and build a new core i7 rig with 6gb of DDR3. Not sure which direction I'll go as far as VGA is concerned (I really wanted to bypass the GTX2xxx series) and will probably go a bit light there and upgrade in late summer. As I order my parts I'll grab more DDR2 and likely a new PSU as that's been my history in the past as far as failures go. Not completely sound reasoning, I know, but at least they will present low-cost fixes if indeed one of them ARE the problem. Then I can get this current rig stabilized for hand-me-down/backup purposes.

So, like Gunny a few months ago, I welcome mobo recommendations (X58 chipsets). Other recommendations are welcome too, but here's what I'm looking at right now:

core i7 920 (they OC like a mofo on aftermarket air coolers) and maybe i7 940
X58 mobo, Asus P6T deluxe or Gigabyte
Corsair dominator 1333 (6gb, 3x2gb and overclockable to 1600)
1TB 7200.11 HDD
Creative Fatality X-Fi PCIE SC (I just really like those front breakout boxes)
VGA -

 

edit: I just realized Window7 isn't available for DL any longer and I'm not gonna buy Vista. I guess I'll just put 2 sticks of RAM in this new rig, install XP Pro again and wait for W7 to be released in a few months to upgrade my OS and install the rest of my RAM.

[TX-EcoDragon]

Oh and TB, did you ever run OCCT?

That *might* show a potential problem with your PSU. . .and another thing to try is restoring default BIOS settings. Perhaps your overclock needs a notch more voltage to keep stable.

[TX-Thunderbolt]

OCCT?

[TX-EcoDragon]

http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/

[TX-Thunderbolt]

Update: I was talking to Eco last night and went through a few things that could have been possible culprits. I cleaned everything fairly well and was able to determine it wasn't a RAM or HDD issue. I grabbed a new PSU today (some modular BFG 550w thing) and will try to replace my PSU tonight or tomorrow. If the problem still persists, then it's almost got to be my mobo or VGA.

I'll post results in a day or so.

[TX-Thunderbolt]

Update 2:

Got home tonight and cleared the cmos. Eco suggested it last night and sabeth did the same thing when I talked to him earlier today). That still didn't fix the problem, but it DID reset my oc back to default settings. I also got a modular 550w BFG PSU and began the process of removing the OCZ PSU that was in it.

Low and behold, she booted right away. I reset my OC back to 3.2 and came here to post. I still need to do some stress testing but right now things look like they're gonna be all better.


Ran OCCT for an hour and Prime95 for an hour. Everything's running rock solid. I'll need to run them longer to be sure, but temps are stable, voltages are stable and things look fine.

[TX-EcoDragon]

That's good news TB, it's always nice when the first thing you replace is the right one!

Do a few more power cycles on it, ideally one in the morning (when the machine is cold) and let's hope it's all taken care of now!

Oh and maybe it's time to go to 3.4Ghz!

[TX-Thunderbolt]

I think I may just do that Eco. 

Let me elaborate on the crux of what my problem was. As embarrassing as it is, the whole issue was catalyzed when I had to install the initial PSU into my tower upside down (the Stacker 830 has a PSU rail and backplate that allows replacement/cleaning without having to take the whole thing to bits) but the case's backplate holes, and the PSU's plug and switch configuration required such. Accordingly, the PSU fan was facing UP instead of down.

While I periodically take the cover off my pc to blow out the screens, fans and heat sinks, I simply neglected the PSU. When I pulled it out last night the upward-facing fan was BLANKETED with so much frikkin dust that I could literally peel it off like felt...except for the stuff that was actually inside the PSU under the cage. As soon as I slid it out half way, I knew immediately it was toast...and it was my fault.

Over the past 2 years, we've been in the process of re-flooring our house getting rid of all the carpet in lieu of tile. We've done about half the house at this point and with 2 big labs, a cat, the kids and my own neglect, dust control is something that just can't be ignored. Toss in a complete remodeling project and all the residual drywall dust (not to mention demolition dust) it just made everything worse.

GOZR said earlier to "make sure all is clean" and while I realize now that was the problem, I just thought my diligence in keeping the rest of the case relatively clean was enough. It wasn't.

So, in summary, I plan on running some more stress tests, but as far as the OC is concerned, I'm a little stumped as to why my modest 20% OC requires me to bump my Vcore up to 1.4  when most others were able to get close to that with little or no voltage bump at all

Not sure what is safe but will probably have to bump it some more to get 3.4. I'll need to do some additional research to see what I'm comfortable with...or, rather, what my proc is comfortable with.

[TX-EcoDragon]

On the 65nm E6*** series chips I felt OK with going up to 1.465volts for a BIOS set vCore which only resulted in 1.42v to the CPU once booted as a result of vdroop, and I never saw temps above 50C which helps keep things happy.

Many OCers out there felt that 1.475 volts TO THE CORE was just fine, which might mean a BIOS set vCore of over 1.5 volts, and they were also happy enough with load tems on up to 60-63C.

I set tighter margins for my own OCs to keep them further within the comfort zone of the hardware.

Keep in mind that a BIOS set 1.45v vCore might have your CPU only seeing 1.39 volts after vDroop depending on mobo, so if you have hardware monitoring software see what it lists for your vCore once booted to the desktop, and note idle as well as load voltage. Keep THOSE under 1.45 and I wouldn't worry any more about that, aim for temps in the mid 50s or less and that side of the equation is taken care of too.

[TX-Thunderbolt]

I was looking at a number of different places to check my actual Vcore and I'm finding enough discrepency to cause me to wonder.

Here are my Vcore readings from 3 different sources at the exact same time:

Asus Probe II: 1.42
BIOS setting: 1.40
OCCT: 1.33

Which one am I to believe?