GA-M61P-s3 with overclocked phenom X4 and soft reboots cause bios safe mode

[dyeager]

  Recently installed and Phenom X2 955 95 watt processor (3.2, on approved CPU list) and have noticed that when I overclock it above 3.2 it has problems with soft reboots (let us say 40% of the time) and goes into bios safe mode.  It does this if the CPU is overclocked to 3.5 or even a slight overclock with standard voltages.  No problems when not overclocked.  The m61p-s3 also did this with the previous athlon 64 X2 ada600iaa6cz which rarely did it once I slowed down its overclock to 2.95.  Soft reboots are rebooting the operating system from the windows 7 64-bit start menu or control alt del at the time the bios asks for the bios password.

The 3.5 overclocked X4 has no problems cold booting nor running any diagnostic test or software.  Soft reboot will fail even on a cold machine.

I did notice that the motherboard had 2 bad capacitors next to the CPU and replaced them with high quality replacements rated the same (it does boot faster since then).  Could the other capacitors also be bad? 

There is space for a sixth capacitor next to the cpu so maybe I should add another? (the theory is the motherboard did not have time to recharge the 5 capacitors).

Unlikely to be a CPU issue since I have seen it on two CPUs. 

Perhaps this is a bios issue/limitation with processors faster than 3.2?    Anyone else with a X4 processor and M61P-S3 motherboard with a processor faster than 3.3 with this same issue? (Delayed answers are fine since I know there is a smaller group of people with a similar combination with this motherboard - other suggestions also welcome)

[omagic]

It could be Your PSU fault... Could You write the complete hardware specs?
While You OC the CPU what are Your memory settings?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

Does the issue still show when you run at default settings and no overclock ?

What BIOS version are you runnning and are they both synchronised ?

As omagic said please post all your hardware that is to do with this issue.

[dyeager]

@ omagic

Thank you for your reply.  I did change the power supply yesterday.  I now have it on an Antec 500 watt power supply.  No change in reboot issue.  I will also try replacing the bios battery, since this motherboard was purchased about 5 or 6 years ago.

The memory is OCZ platinum 800 5-5-5-15 1GBx4 with increased voltage as per OCZ to 2.2v,  2 disks are 1TB mirrored, IDE DVD burner, well ventilated case, AMD stock fan with heat pipes. I have had the memory set at 4.0 and 3.33 multipliers.  I can play around with the FSB and CPU multipliers in numerous combinations, but when the CPU frequency gets to 3.3 the soft reboot problem occurs.

You should also know that this motherboard had its own GPU (but I use a HD 5770)).  The HT Link speed reported by CPU-Z is around 1000, likely for that reason.



@Dark Mantis

Yes, works fine at default settings and now overclock (with OCZ recommended extra voltage for 4 memory cards).  Bios is 7Fi, which was cleared after installing new CPU. 

I do also have another DDR2 system in which I may test CPU and memory overclocks for this CPU and Memory.


@ others
In searching the internet and futuremark, I have not found a person with this motherboard whose CPU frequency has exceeded 3.3.  Does yours?

[omagic]

Well it may be a ram issue. When You overclock to 3.5 with 3.33 memory settings they go quite far from defaults(800, 667 or 533mhz) if im right Your CPU multiplier is 16 so best setting would be 240mhz HT(memory @ 3.33 would reach 800mhz) but i dont know if the CPU would work @ 3.8+ ghz with stock cooler... You can try lowering the multiplier to 14.5 or 15...

[dyeager]

1) Replaced cmos battery, no change.

2) Replaced the 1Gb x 4 800 memory with 2gb x2 1066 corsair memory for testing and no change.

3) Put in an Antec 650 watt power supply to bring me above minimum and no change, even with the 1066 memory, still no change.

4) was retesting the FSB limits and set the memory speed too low for the 1066 memory, thus I cleared the cmos using the jumper. Reentered 206 settings, then put back the 800mhz memory, then was able to push it to 212 stable (bios soft reset) which puts me at 3.4.  These are some of the same setting previously tested which had failed.

Thus resetting to defaults and optimizing in bios was not enough, an actual clearing of the cmos with the jumper was required.  This is good enough for now, thus we can close this case.  Thank you for all of your help.