New build problems

[boblamont]

Having attempted, despite all read opinions regarding QOS, to use GB's Support Line, I hit a brick wall of tick box illogic from the planet Zarg. It was a sad experience, so I hope some of you gus can help enlighten me
1
Heat
a - Idle, OS up, lid off, foobar only running, 34C. Lid on, 36C
b - ET6 run on Easy Tune, system freezes, reboot, frequency +10%, temp 60+ with lid off, OS + foobar only. Stock fan spinning hard, noisy.Lid on 65C
The case is well ventilated with a 120mm dia pushing and 2 no 80mm exhausting. +10% should not cause such a dramatic difference in heat, particularly in this chassis, so thinking possible CPU fault?
I'm going to a get a Noctua C12PSE14 to quieten things down anyway, but these temps seem excessive
2
Express 2
Ran once, failed on 2nd pass. Now cannot recover/delete created space on HDD, nor run again as it sees no headroom. How do I delete the failed creation, and is it worth bothering with as it only images to the same drive?
3
Beeps
1 short beep the 3 long on cold boot, restart, 1 short beep then boot as normal. Nothing is mentioned regarding the Award Bios in terms of 3 long beeps.
As i have 2Gb sticks in each slot, is this a possible problem?

Hope somebody can shed some light on this as having enough trouble with 7/64 as it is.... (reluctant XP convert)

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

AMD is not really my section but I thought that I would try to help a little.
The problem with the memory is probably that you have all the slots filled which will put an extra loading on the memory controllers. You would probably find with only two slots filled it would behave normally. On the Intel platform we would usually increase the memory voltage a little to help compensate.

It is suprising how much tempoerature difference even a small OC can make and your idea of replacing the standard cooler with the Noctua is a good one and you should see a fair difference

Can you list all your hardware to give us a better overview of the problem please?

[absic]

Hi there,

First off the CPU temps you are getting are pretty normal for your Athlon CPU and the stock cooler and the only way to bring those down is with a decent cooler, which you will be doing with the Noctua.

Your RAM maybe rated at 1600MHz but pull it back to 1333MHz this will help protect your CPU which doesn't like running RAM, especially 8Gig, above this speed.

I would not recommend using EasyTune6 or doing any overclocking until your system is stable. Stop EasyTune from running at start-up, for the time being at least.

Go into BIOS and Load Optimized Defaults and see if your system will run OK at these settings BEFORE doing anything else.

I do not and have not used Express Recovery2 so am not sure of the best way to resolve this particular issue other than doing a clean Install of the OS and starting again.

The 3 long beeps could be due to your memory but as you have so many issues I think it would be better to try and get your system back on to a level playing field before worrying too much about that. You may find that with Optimized Defaults this is cured.

[boblamont]

Thanks guys, only just got back here, so update....
Regarding the system/hardware, the only thing missing that I can think of from my Sig is the exact model of the Elixir memory which is M2Y2G64CB9HA9N-DG set up as unganged, and running default 1332(3). Other than that all is audio video gear, WASAPI->usb->Musiland02US->Azur640R->IPL-S4KTL(thanks Ivan they're doing grand). HDMI->42"PannyPlasma.
All settings are optimised default (excepting I think fan alarms) and it seems to run stable atm, except for the occasional audio corruption to foobar on WASAPI audio to the DAC which is solved by Stop/Play, so it may be an OS issue with foobar.
The odd bit on stability is that Prime95 previously ran for most of a day without a hiccup, apart from cranking up the heat and fan speed. Not once did it fall over, until I tried ET6, then I nearly moaned as loud as the cpu fan did after reboot.
When I first booted today, I got a double dose of the beep/3 long beeps/reboot issue, so I will try lifting out a couple of sticks as suggested from one channel and see if that resolves it. It is very odd though as i would have thought Gigabyte would  have checked the memory in 1/2/4 slots before certifying it as compatible ? (What faith?...)
I am now seriously considering dropping in a couple of Samsung F4-320s in RAID1 and re-install Win7 from scratch, as I can find no other way to recover the partitions. Performance on OS and startup should be faster this way, and the 2Tb can take up storage duties, so 3rd time lucky maybe. The case holds between 5 and 6 drives, so i's no biggy.
So  I'll try the memory change tomorrow and see what transpires.
Cheers for now.

[boblamont]

Update regarding Beeps on boot....(I should add that apart from the Beep issue on boot/reboot, all installed Ram shows up in Bios and the OS without issues.... Anyway...)
Tried removing 2 sticks leaving 2x2Gb in blue slots, no problems.
Switched the installed ram to white channel, no problem.
Installed remaining 2 sticks to blue channel, no problem.
Very odd as effectively the only thing I've done differently to date is switch channels for the pairs of memory modules. If they are identical modules, they should all behave the same way I would have thought....

Excuse my ignorance but... Would Memtest+ show a faulty memory chip if they are all tested together, or more certainly if they are individually installed and tested?

I will switch the sticks into other configurations later today after I've finished housekeeping (cable tidying), and also try OS restart to see if the problem returns. Finally I'll try the original setup to see if the problem returns, and try to get all testing out of the way before tomorrow when the Noctua should arrive, which will render access to the memory slots frustrating, if not an expletive rant....
This time I am taking notes as I go, lest failing memory plays tricks...(Pun unintended)

Aside from the memory controller being on the AMD CPU and it not really being a Gigabyte problem per se, there do seem to be a lot of people on the forums having issues with memory modules, and some reportedly able to run memory at 1600, some not. Strange. I do not see the relative speed as a big issue personally, so long as it is reliable, but I can understand those who do. It would appear AMD not keeping up with he competition...

[Dark Mantis]

Excuse my ignorance but... Would Memtest+ show a faulty memory chip if they are all tested together, or more certainly if they are individually installed and tested?

Memtest would still show the faults but it wouldn't help much because you wouldn't know what module they were on and so have to retest singularly.

Very odd as effectively the only thing I've done differently to date is switch channels for the pairs of memory modules. If they are identical modules, they should all behave the same way I would have thought....

The two pairs of modules won't be identical and so you mustn't mix up the sets. The pair of modules come as a matched pair and so should be run together.

[boblamont]

Ok, thanks for that clarification

Memtest showed no fault in testing all 4 modules on the 2 channels, which is the reason I queried it. From what you are saying, if no fault turned up as a group, Memtest would be unlikely  to show a fault with a single chip, or am I misinterpreting?

Unfortunately I didn't get matched pairs, only 4 off of the same Make and Type, all manufactured in the same batching week, Y10,Wk43. I am not sure if it is of any significance, but the serial numbers are 3E2E9B63, 3E2E9CDA, 3E2E8DAC and 3C2EA304.

Anyhow, finished the tests this morning, and I could not positively replicate the problem. I tried every possible combination from single through to quadruple chip in every slot combination with no problem on cold boot at all.

However, all the more puzzling is that occasionally, and I mean occasionally, restart from Win7/64 such as following a sytem update this morning,  would cause no short beep, 3 beeps, repeat, then short beep then boot normally. I tested restarts for 5 occasions since with no issues, and cold boot 4 times with equally no issues.
It may not be normal and puzzling into the bargain, but if the system ultimately works I can live with the occasional annoyance. Curiosity caused my question to arise, but there appears to be no clear cause, so I guess it remains an unexplained anomaly....

Anyhow, the Noctua is still not here, but I gather the temperatures I reported are normal for the chip, so that is no longer a worry.

ET6 I will possibly try thereafter, but it would not appear to be well regarded as a tool, so I will not expect too much from it.

Once the new boot drives are installed and the OS is up, I'll consign Express Recovery 2 to the trash, as it has caused me more problems than it is worth. Mirroring or ghosting the OS drive would appear to be the better solution anyway.

Many thanks again guys for your help and patience.

Best regards from wintry Romania

[Dark Mantis]

Memtest showed no fault in testing all 4 modules on the 2 channels, which is the reason I queried it. From what you are saying, if no fault turned up as a group, Memtest would be unlikely  to show a fault with a single chip....

As far as I understand it that is correct. If you just wanted to do a quick check on the modules as a whole then I see no reason for not running hte tests with them all installed.

Unfortunately I didn't get matched pairs, only 4 off of the same Make and Type,

You may well find that they will not work so stably as if they were bought as matching pairs. Only trail and error will tell.

Personally I would steer well clear of the ET6 software  as I do with all the other free software provided by motherboard manufacturers because more often than not they present more problems than they fix.

Yes it must be starting to get a bit cold there now, I used to live in Northern Bulgaria and around Christmas it would start getting a bit fresh and then usually a few weeks of blizzard conditions!

[Christoph]

what was the CPU??

an Athlon? what stepping?

for an C3 will be even harder to manage 4 sticks of ram at 1333, you gonna have to increase CPU-NB voltage at least to 1.22v for ram at 1333 and even 1.3v for RAM at 1600 Mhz

get rip of software like ET6 and AMD overdrive, use Aida64/everest or Hwmonitor

[soarwitheagles]

what was the CPU??

an Athlon? what stepping?

for an C3 will be even harder to manage 4 sticks of ram at 1333, you gonna have to increase CPU-NB voltage at least to 1.22v for ram at 1333 and even 1.3v for RAM at 1600 Mhz

get rip of software like ET6 and AMD overdrive, use Aida64/everest or Hwmonitor

I agree on the get rid of ET6...it has caused me massive problems in the past!

Good luck on your system!  These guys here can work miracles!

Soar