System Crashes/SDRAM

[Bob Day]

Over the past few weeks, and with more and more regularity, my system hangs
accompanied by the sound that was playing at the time, on a very short loop
(ie dadadadadadadada). The only way out is a reset.

I've cleaned dust out of the case, off the motherboard, and removed and
replaced all pci cards but with the same problems. Then I tried the DIMM
SDRAM modules, one a 128 mb and the other a 256 mb. With either one removed
the problem doesn't appear but with both in (either slot), the problem
reoccurs. I have a 400W PSU that should be strong enough to run a AMD XP
1600+ system. All fans are working and the CPU runs at around 51 deg c, and
the board at 33 deg c.

I'm looking on here for inspiration (or just plain old advice) as I have no
idea what could be causing the hanging. It's getting to the point where I'm
considering changing my ECS K7S5A board and Athlon XP 1600+ CPU for
something else.

Weird. A few possibilities I can think of, but the one that
is most easily fixable is that something might be flaky with
one of your memory modules, or that the two modules might
not have quite the same specs, and that due to aging, the
situation is degrading. Things to try: 1) Check the specs of
each of the modules. (One tool you can use to do this is the
free Home Edition of Everest, available from
http://www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en.
Run it, expand "Motherboard", and click on "SPD". )
2) Change the memory settings in your BIOS to something
less aggressive. 3) Try using memory different modules
(BestBuy has a nice return policy (on most things, but if you
go that route, make sure it applies to memory modules).)
Of course, make sure any modules you try are compatible
with your mainboard.

-- Bob Day
http://bobday.vze.com

 

[GSW]

Over the past few weeks, and with more and more regularity, my system hangs
accompanied by the sound that was playing at the time, on a very short loop
(ie dadadadadadadada). The only way out is a reset.

I've cleaned dust out of the case, off the motherboard, and removed and
replaced all pci cards but with the same problems. Then I tried the DIMM
SDRAM modules, one a 128 mb and the other a 256 mb. With either one removed
the problem doesn't appear but with both in (either slot), the problem
reoccurs. I have a 400W PSU that should be strong enough to run a AMD XP
1600+ system. All fans are working and the CPU runs at around 51 deg c, and
the board at 33 deg c.

I'm looking on here for inspiration (or just plain old advice) as I have no
idea what could be causing the hanging. It's getting to the point where I'm
considering changing my ECS K7S5A board and Athlon XP 1600+ CPU for
something else.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Hatter

 

[kony]

Over the past few weeks, and with more and more regularity, my system hangs
accompanied by the sound that was playing at the time, on a very short loop
(ie dadadadadadadada). The only way out is a reset.

I've cleaned dust out of the case, off the motherboard, and removed and
replaced all pci cards but with the same problems. Then I tried the DIMM
SDRAM modules, one a 128 mb and the other a 256 mb. With either one removed
the problem doesn't appear but with both in (either slot), the problem
reoccurs. I have a 400W PSU that should be strong enough to run a AMD XP
1600+ system. All fans are working and the CPU runs at around 51 deg c, and
the board at 33 deg c.

I'm looking on here for inspiration (or just plain old advice) as I have no
idea what could be causing the hanging. It's getting to the point where I'm
considering changing my ECS K7S5A board and Athlon XP 1600+ CPU for
something else.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Hatter

That is a known issue with early to mid revision K7S5A boards,
there is likely nothing you can do to allow use of both DIMMs
stabily. Traditionally methods of improving stability might be
raising dimm voltage a "notch", using slower (higher numbered)
memory timings in the bios, or reducing memory bus speed. You
might try those things but the board ought to be replaced... some
revisions had a fairly high early mortality rate anyway, it might
have this problem AND/or be dying too.

Best advice is to pick up a budget nForce2 motherboard and some
DDR memory. This will allow reusing the XP1600 and at least
upgrade though a Barton XP3200 if you felt like upgrading
eventually. If you instead felt the urge to upgrade CPU
immediately you might consider moving to an Athlon 64 &
supportive motherboard instead.

 

[Andy in NJ]

Weird. A few possibilities I can think of, but the one that
is most easily fixable is that something might be flaky with
one of your memory modules, or that the two modules might
not have quite the same specs, and that due to aging, the
situation is degrading. Things to try: 1) Check the specs of
each of the modules. (One tool you can use to do this is the
free Home Edition of Everest, available from
http://www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en.
Run it, expand "Motherboard", and click on "SPD". )
-- Bob Day
http://bobday.vze.com

Hey there, I was reading this thread and thought I'd give that program a
try. I got an interesting result when I did what you said above. It says one
of my memory modules is 256MB and the other ius 512MB, but they are both
supposed to be 512MB. In Control Panel, it indicates that I have 1GB of
RAM... Any idea why it would say this?

 

[GSW]

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That is a known issue with early to mid revision K7S5A boards,
there is likely nothing you can do to allow use of both DIMMs
stabily. Traditionally methods of improving stability might be
raising dimm voltage a "notch", using slower (higher numbered)
memory timings in the bios, or reducing memory bus speed. You
might try those things but the board ought to be replaced... some
revisions had a fairly high early mortality rate anyway, it might
have this problem AND/or be dying too.

Best advice is to pick up a budget nForce2 motherboard and some
DDR memory. This will allow reusing the XP1600 and at least
upgrade though a Barton XP3200 if you felt like upgrading
eventually. If you instead felt the urge to upgrade CPU
immediately you might consider moving to an Athlon 64 &
supportive motherboard instead.

Thanks for the info. My K7S5A board was version 1.0 so based on what
everyone seems to be saying, I figured that its end was nigh.

I decided to bite the bullet and today spent some hard earned cash on a P4
3.0 Ghz 800 Mhz Bus on an MSI 848P Neo V Mainboard, 512Mb DDR RAM. Put it
all together earlier, reinstalled XP (again) and now what a difference!!
Hopefully this will live a bit longer and should be fast enough for a couple
of years.

Let the fun begin!!!!!!