fried CPU, need help on sunday, willing to pay...

timmer3

i think i might have fried my E6600 CPU but am not sure. i had stable overclock settings but sometimes on a cold start it would fail to boot and then the board (gigabyte ga-p35-dq6) would revert back to basic settings. this got a little annoying so this morning i tried to inch up the gMch from +.05 to +.075, thinking it might have needed more juice, and this is when it stopped booting at all now. the case fans whirr up for 2 seconds and then it powers straight off, the cpu fan doesn't even start (it is plugged in and works). i cleared the CMOS and the same thing happens. the cmos clear definitely worked because previously i had the 'ac back' bios setting to 'full on', so whenever you restore power it auto boots. but now that doesn't happen. i stripped everything out one by one and as soon as the cpu was removed the auto-shut off behaviour stopped and it stayed on, hard disks whirred up etc, but no screen output which i presume is because it needs a processor to work.

the thing is i'm in a pickle to get my computer back up and running for monday. could anyone in dublin spare a half hour on sunday, anytime, to test my CPU in their board, and also to test a working CPU in my board to make sure it's not the board that is defective? will pay €50. and if someone had a spare processor to sell, even better. E6600 or better, not much currently on sale on adverts.ie.

thanks to anyone who can help

timmer3

decided to just buy a new processor on komplett. i can wait! thanks.

PogMoThoin

timmer3 wrote: »

decided to just buy a new processor on komplett. i can wait! thanks.

What if its the board or something else thats gone?

extra-ordinary_

You can cancel or RMA the processor if it turns out to be the board. I've a CPU and board you can test on if you want.

timmer3

thanks for the replies.
i'm suspecting it's the processor because the boot doesn't crash out when the processor is removed. as soon as i put it back in it powers off straight away. but i guess it could be a fault on the board alright that would only affect the cpu. i ordered a q9550 so i'd say i'll keep it even if it turns out to be a faulty board, i reckon it should be a decent step up from the e6600

the_syco

timmer3 wrote: »

i ordered a q9550 so i'd say i'll keep it even if it turns out to be a faulty board, i reckon it should be a decent step up from the e6600

A word of warning: the q9550 is meant to be a bit more tricky overclocking than the e6600. Had looked into it when I was looking into getting my current rig. If I remember, I'll post a link to a thread which I think you find useful if you intend to oc the q9550.

timmer3

thanks for the warning. i was thinking of not overclocking the q9550 at all, or else just to a very safe level. i had the e6600 well overclocked and ran into trouble with it a few times, kept tweaking it etc and now it's ended up costing me a day's work. it's for business use, and although i definitely noticed the difference between 2.4 and 3Ghz on the e6600 i'm hoping the q9550 will be plenty powerful enough at stock.

the_syco

timmer3 wrote: »

i'm hoping the q9550 will be plenty powerful enough at stock.

What's the rest of your system like, and what do you intend on running? I'm running mine on stock, not oc'ed.

timmer3

it's fairly basic, most of it is 2 years old. Zalman GT1000 case, 4x512Mb ballistix ddr2, WD 1TB, WD 500Gb, MTRON Mobi 3000 32Gb. i don't do gaming so my main concern is fast build times for Visual studio, hence the SSD. i'm going to wait till i7 is out a bit longer and then use that for my next upgrade some time next year. since i got the SSD, Vista has been zinging along nicely so i'm not in any great need to upgrade at the moment. although when the CPU failed i couldn't resist a 'minor' upgrade, all tax deducatable as 'repairs and maintenance'
how do you find the 9550 at stock? what kind of temps? that's my main concern as i ran the e6600 fairly hot before and i'm sure that reduce the lifetime of the cpu a lot.

the_syco

IIRC, high. 40-50 degrees. Only a 4 degree increase after playing something like GTA4 for a while. I'm blaming bad air-flow within the case (there's an air "cushion" between the CPU heatsink fan and the external fan), which should improve when I get around to sorting it out.

timmer3

at least you won't be doing damage at 50c. mine was running at 70/80 by accident for a few weeks because my cpu fan unclipped itself, one of the pushpins popped out and i didn't notice that it was loose for ages. can't blame it for failing now.

Solitaire

timmer3 wrote:

mine was running at 70/80 by accident for a few weeks because my cpu fan unclipped itself, one of the pushpins popped out and i didn't notice that it was loose for ages. can't blame it for failing now.

Not sure at all about that statement, all Core2 CPUs are designed to throttle speed when they hit overtemp so they're pretty hard to actually cook.

And is that gMCH referring to MCH/NB Voltage or MCH/GTL+ Clock Skew?? I've seen gMCH refer to both on different board BIOS

In any case try checing RAM and mobo as well, it could be either.

timmer3

i'd definitely defer to your better understanding there. i'm fairly novice when it comes to overclocking. i assumed since i had run it at such high temps for so long that it could have damaged something, like the sensors!
it's the MCH/north bridge voltage that i adjusted just before the permanent boot failure. what is strange is that clearing the CMOS would have reverted to factory bios settings and it still won't boot. i'll post back whatever i find when i get a new CPU to test. i also got an old P4 on ebay to test the board and RAM as you say before i put my 9550 in a potentially dodgy board. i strongly suspect the processor though since removing the ram altogether had no effect on the boot failure, whereas removing the CPU let it get further.

timmer3

just changing the subject to point out that i don't need help on sunday anymore

the_syco

timmer3 wrote: »

i also got an old P4 on ebay to test the board

Ehhh... is the P4 of the same socket as the board?

timmer3

socket 775 and it's on the supported list for the board, so i hope so! only cost 20 quid anyway.

Solitaire

Which P4? Some have very high TDP and if the mobo's CPU voltage regulators ARE shot then a 125W+ TDP CPU ain't gonna help things :O

And why were you tweaking VgMCH? It can help quaddies a bit, but is more usually used to push the NB to help stabilize signaling to high-speed RAM modules

i assumed since i had run it at such high temps for so long that it could have damaged something

Running a Q6600 at 80C+ could still have damaged it, but if it just peaked at 80 then dropped down to (and held around) 70 then that'd be the overtemp protection cutting in and throttling the speed and power. ATM I'm guessing the problem is either CPU, the mobo's VReg or both. :eek:

timmer3

i got the 775/P4 today and the same thing happens with the board. phoned komplett and they are arranging an RMA.
i thought a slight increase to gMCH might give better boot stability, i had tried small increases with the other voltages to no effect, but i didn't realy know what i was doing. i'm going to leave well alone now

Solitaire

i had tried small increases with the other voltages to no effect

Uh-ohes Did you try to raise VTT voltage (no idea what its called on your board, sometimes GTL Base Voltage, sometimes something else...) One of the few ways for a novice to accidentally slow-bake a CPU is to set a VTT higher than current CPU Vcore :eek: It wouldn't excuse the mobo for popping on you but it may have taken out the E6600 beforehand

Better try that CPU in someone else's mobo and see if it remains in the land of the living...

timmer3

hi solitaire. thanks for the reply. here's the settings i had that worked fairly well:

# FSB 395 Mhz x9
# Memory Multiplier 2.0
# vCore 1.375
# vFSB +.05
# vMCH +.05
# vDimm +.4 (stock is 1.8v and 4/4/4/12 memory timings use 2.2v)

i increased the vMCH to +.1 leaving the other voltages as is. this was the only change i made before i ran into permanent trouble. compared to vCore this is still very low so do you reckon this was really the cause of the failure?
i have an i7 board/ram/cpu on order from komplett now to replace all this, from reading around i gather overclocking is much easier and safer with i7 (no FSB anymore). but i'll only be using very safe levels that others have posted for this config. you live and learn. when gigabyte finally return a replacement motherboard i'll test out the cpu then.
thanks again for the tips.

Solitaire

I seriously doubt you could have fried the CPU this way as I doubt you even had the VTT anywhere near Vcore anyway. And even if vMCH meant southbridge rathe than VTT +0.1V shouldn't have fried that anyway! Check the CPU if you can but it sounds like the motherboard died (they seem to quite a bit in my experience )

timmer3

thanks for the update, i'm pretty sure it is the motherboard. i tested a second processor and the same boot failure happened. i RMA'd the motherboard to komplett today, hopefully i can re-coup a few quid for my i7 setup by selling off the replacement board.

the_syco

Not directed at you Tim, but if Komplett detects the board dying was a result of overclocking, would they still give Tim a "new" board?

timmer3

i wondered that myself, but felt that the overclock change was so slight that it shouldn't have failed as a result. also i suspect a fault since the beginning, the board would randomly not boot some days, and i'd have to clear the cmos to get it to work, again i feel this was not related to my very modest overclock settings, which were orthos safe tested for 48 hours. the board is designed (and advertised) for overclocking and i'm prepared to argue with komplett/gigabyte that i was using the board within its intended use.
i'd be interested to hear other people's experience getting an RMA for situations like this.

timmer3

got my i7 setup today and just wanted to report that my vista installation booted perfectly off the new motherboard, it picked up the new drivers no problem. previously it was a gigabyte p35-dq6 and the new one is an asus P6T (x58 chipset if i remember rightly). i was well impressed, i wasn't even going to bother trying to boot vista off the new motherboard, i was all set to nuke it and spend the next 48 hours re-installing and reconfiguring (a loathsome task i'm sure you'd agree) but the vista setup dvd didn't boot because i had one of the HD controllers switched off in the bios (which also controls ATAPI), and it went straight in to windows. i let it run just for the laugh fully expecting a blue screen, and couldn't believe it, bling bling log on to windows! for once, some kudos to MS.

also just posting this for anyone else getting an asus p6t deluxe board with intel 920 etc., my first hour with this board was a little scary. installed cpu, graphics card and 3x1Gb ram dimms in the recommended slots. powered up ok, all fans whirring nicely but no video signal and no post. tried everything but to no avail. removed the RAM altogether, no difference. re-seated the CPU, no difference. tried different monitors (just in case), no difference. tried the graphics card in the other PCIx slot, same deal. then i put one DIMM back in on it's own, and it worked... then tried two, so far so good, then all three dimms back in the same slots, and it worked. bizarre. all in all though, a good day.