GA-X58A-UD3R rev. 2.0 Cold Boot Issues

[bzmm]

Hi,

I have a self built PC based around the GA-X58A-UD3R rev. 2.0 board. I'm experiencing ongoing cold boot issues where each morning it will take up to 8 reboots to get windows 7 Ultimate to load. Once loaded its then as solid as a rock for the rest of the day - if I leave the system on its fine (I can reboot and it loads a-ok) but if I turn it off and go to a meeting for longer than an hour or two then the cold boot issue resurfaces.

I receive a number of error messages relating to:

ntdll.dll
various memory isses
various stop codes starting 0x...

Going through windows start up recovery once it finally loads without errors then means the system will reboot and load windows correctly on the next attempt. This process takes 10 to 15minutes to go from first powering up to actually being able to use the system.

I've run a mem test on the RAM both as a group and then each of the six stick individually. These tests ran for over 3 hours per memtest and reported zero errors. I take this as indicating the RAM is a-ok.

BIOS reports the RAM in full correctly and windows does too.

I'm running BIOS FG from the 29th April 2011 this was installed through @bios last week.

Here are my System/Bios specs:

CPU = Model Intel i7-950 3.06Ghz
Motherboard = GA-X58A-UD3R rev. 2.0
BIOS Version = FG
Ram = 2 x 6GB Corsair Dominator (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel Kit - CMP6GX3M3A1600C8
Ram = 1600MHz RAM Speed, CAS 8-8-8-24 Timings, 1.6-1.7v VDIMM
Ram = Total 12GB in Machine
PSU = OCW 600W ModXStream PRO Modular
GFX = Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 FLEX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express

Advanced CPU Features:
CPU Clock Ratio ................................ [23x]
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech .................. [Auto]
CPU Cores Enabled ............................ [All]
CPU Multi Threading .......................... [Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) ................... [Auto]
C3/C6/C7 State Support .................... [Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor ......................... [Auto]
CPU EIST Function ............................ [Auto]
Virtualization Technology ................... [Enabled]
Bi-Directional PROCHOT ..................... [Auto]


Uncore & QPI Features:
QPI Clock Ratio.............................. [Auto]
QPI Link Speed .............................. 4.8Ghtz
Uncore CloCk Ratio .......................... [20x]
Uncore Frequency ............................ 3200Mhz
Isonchronous Frequency ..................[Enabled]


Standard Clock Control:
Base Clock (BCLK) Control ................ [Disabled]
BCLK Frequency (MHz) ..................... [133]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P) ........... [Disabled]
System Memory Multiplier ................. [10x]
Memory Frequency ......................... 1333
PCI Express Frequency (MHz) ........... [Auto]


Advanced Clock Control:
CPU Clock Drive ..............................[800mV]
PCI Express Clock Drive ................... [900mV]
CPU Clock Skew ............................. [0ps]
IOH Clock Skew ............................. [0ps]


Advanced DRAM Features:
Performance Enhance ...................... [Turbo]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P) ......... [Disabled]
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) ........ [10x]
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) .......... quick
Profile DDR Voltage ................... 1.65V
profile QPI Voltage ................... 1.2V
X Channel Interleaving ................ Auto
X Rank Interleaving ................... Auto


Channel A + B + C

Channel A Timing Settings:
##Channel A Standard Timing Control##
CAS Latency Time ........................... 8
tRCD ....................................... 8
tRP ........................................ 8
tRAS ....................................... 24


##Channel A Advanced Timing Control##
tRC ........................................ Auto
tRRD .......................................Auto
tWTR ...................................... Auto
tWR ........................................ Auto
tWTP ....................................... Auto
tWL ........................................ Auto
tRFC ....................................... Auto
tRTP .......................................Auto
tFAW ....................................... Auto
Command Rate (CMD) ......................... 2

##Channel A Misc Timing Control##
Round Trip Latency .................... Auto
B2B CAS Delay .......................... [Auto]


Advanced Voltage Control:

CPU
Load Line Calibration ................. [Auto]
CPU Vcore ............................. [Auto]
QPI/VTT Voltage .......................  1.39v
CPU PLL ............................... [Auto]

MCH/ICH
PCIE 1.500v .......................... [Auto]
QPI PLL 1.100v ....................... [Auto]
IOH Core 1.100v ...................... [Auto]
ICH I/O 1.500v ....................... [Auto]
ICH Core 1.100v ...................... [Auto]

DRAM
DRAM Voltage 1.500v .............. 1.660v
DRAM Termination 0.750v .......... [AUTO]
Ch-A Data VRef. 0.750v ........... [AUTO]
Ch-B Data VRef. 0.750v ........... [AUTO]
Ch-C Data VRef. 0.750v ........... [AUTO]
Ch-A Address VRef. 0.750v ........ [AUTO]
Ch-B Address VRef. 0.750v ........ [AUTO]
Ch-C Address VRef. 0.750v ........ [AUTO]

Any assistance in getting this system to boot first time each day would be really appreciated.  It does seem to be an issue with power to either the CPU or memory or both as the system will eventually boot successfully and then work solidly for the rest of the day.  Is this a know issue with the X58-UD3R boards?

Thanks in advance,

Geo.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

Please post the full STOP code as 0x isn't any help at all as they always start 0x .
Your QPI/Vtt seems to be a bit high and could be what the BSOD STOP code was indicating.

Your memory voltage will certainly need to be increased to at least 1.68v maybe even 1.70v.

You could try removing half of the RAM and see if that help with the problem. If so at least we are sure of the trouble.

[bzmm]

^ Thank you for the reply.  I will write down all the stop codes on the next cold boot and post them there are a few different ones depending on the boot attempt number (it usually takes about 6 to 8 boot attempts to get going (almost as if something was "warming up").

I'll also increase the memory voltage to 1.68v and try that too.

What would/should the QPI/vtt typically be set at?  Auto sets it to 1.175v for example.

[Dark Mantis]

Well the QPI/Vtt must be set at a maximum differential of 0.5v from the memory voltage otherwise the strain on the controller is too great and it could burn out. So if you have your DRAM voltage at 1.65v the QPI/Vtt must be at least 1.15v or more. If you increase the first voltage to 1.7v then the QPI voltage must be increased alongside  to at least 1.2v. Beyond that it is a bit of trial and error. Typically more error!

[bzmm]

Good morning... okay it took four boots this morning to get the system to load:

1. System Restarted itself without blue Screen.
2. STOP error 0x0f4 - occured during Windows Animation.  Caused by NTSOKRNL.exe -> Critical Onject Termination.
3. Reboot ran straight into a Consistancy Check.
4. Reboot Loaded Login Screen and windows is up and running.

Hope that helps.  I'm very tempted to dol a complete system reinstall to eliminate that as a factor?

I've increased the DRAM voltage to 1.680v.  The QPI/vtt is still on 1.380v.

Thanks.

[Dark Mantis]

Well I must admit it is not one of the more common ones and so I am not familiar with it but it would seem to indicate a registry issue. A complete reinstall of Windows might be a good idea then especially as it is only a quick solution.

You could also try increasing the memory voltage to 1.7v