Hi Siran,

my replacement motherboard has been the pinnacle of stability even though heavily overclocked (2.66 -> 3.85 GHz). I'm really liking this a lot better than the one I had before.

I can only hope your new hardware now gives you less trouble and more WUs crunched ;o)

Regards,
Simon.

Thanks Simon, and thanks for the opt app. So far, the worse I've seen is 8 "No work from project" messages. I have 29 minutes of crunch time left on the first WU, after just over 5 hours of crunching. I'm hoping that crunch times will get shorter once everything mellows out. I was doing crunch3r's opt app and the WU would take just over an hour. That was with 512 MB RAM. I now have 1 GB dual channel and am hoping it will be a benefit. I'll post an update periodically. Once again, thanks.... (-:<

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Hi Siran,

my replacement motherboard has been the pinnacle of stability even though heavily overclocked (2.66 -> 3.85 GHz). I'm really liking this a lot better than the one I had before.

I can only hope your new hardware now gives you less trouble and more WUs crunched ;o)

Regards,
Simon.

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Update - 07/15/06:

Emptied my cache of about 10 SETI@Home WUs. All finished, uploaded and reported without a hitch. As a matter of fact, was granted credit on the last result uploaded and reported not 10 minutes ago.

I have downloaded and installed the KWSN opt app and restarted BOINC. Let's see how the opt app fares. It's nice to see BOINC work without plastering error messages all over the screen.... (-:<

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Update 07/11/06:

Well, I have Windows completing the boot in about 2 minutes now. 10 to 15 minutes was just way too long. I used msconfig and disabled a bunch of startup stuff. I'll keep adding one item at a time and run the box for a while to see what happens.

I do believe that Windows is trying to access something on floppy or Zip disk. Several times, during boot, I will get a message to put a "disk in the drive". Does not specify what drive.

I have checked Device Manager and everything seems to be ok there, no yellow exclamations or red x's.

And why the heck does Explorer have to run when booting up? I have yet to figure out how to eliminate that frustrating event. I do not want to see Explorer when the PC is booting into Windows.

Until my next update.... (-:<

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

In related news,

a brand new (two weeks old) motherboard blew a capacitor today, destroying the board and my X64 installation partition - seems when it went, it kept writing rubbish data all over my poor disk..

Ah well. Nothing a good reinstall wouldn't fix...

Simon.

I had a MB die on me within an hour, because a spring was stuck between chipset and heatsink.

Regards Hans

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In related news,

a brand new (two weeks old) motherboard blew a capacitor today, destroying the board and my X64 installation partition - seems when it went, it kept writing rubbish data all over my poor disk..

Ah well. Nothing a good reinstall wouldn't fix...

Simon.

Simon, I feel for you man! I'm starting to think that a wipe and clean re-install is what I'm going to need to do. Gotta do a bunch of backups first. I just spent a couple hours trying to get Windows updated. First one ran into a problem. Second one, SP2, ran into a problem. It's now on a third one. It's now a little better that half way through the update installs. Will let you know what happens.... (-:<

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

In related news,

a brand new (two weeks old) motherboard blew a capacitor today, destroying the board and my X64 installation partition - seems when it went, it kept writing rubbish data all over my poor disk..

Ah well. Nothing a good reinstall wouldn't fix...

Simon.

---

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You really could use a bit of good luck now Siran :o)

All the best...
Simon.

Thanks Simon. I failed to mention that after the repair install, it now takes about 3 to 5 minutes to boot into Windows. I think I'll use "msconfig" and pare my startup down to virtually nothing. Then go from there.... (-:<

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

You really could use a bit of good luck now Siran :o)

All the best...
Simon.

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Update 07/10/06:

Got the XP box back up and running, woohoo! With all new major components, except the HD, I am now back to my original problem. Not the disappearing BOINC, yet, but all the error messages that pop up while BOINC is running. So, I will be uninstalling BOINC, getting a fresh download and re-install it [I believe I did that in the beginning].

I do not believe that with all brand new components, the culprit is hardware centric. I had no problems with the old BOINC before the release of the enhanced app. You tell me.... \\-:<

Oh, one other tidbit of info. That computer, with the exception of the new components, is only about 2 years old.... (-:<

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Update 07/09/06:

Well, I got a new video card, installed it, pulled the new HD, put the HD cooler on the old HD, installed it, double checked all connections, slid the box under the desk and hooked stuff up to it. I grabbed my XP install CD and my RAID driver disk. I fired up the box, went into CMOS setup, checked all the settings, set it to boot from the CD, tossed in the disk and the CD, hit F10 and "OK" and waited with bated breath.

The box started booting from the CD. Win setup loaded all the files for installation. I pressed enter at the welcome screen. I pressed R at the next screen to repair, setup loaded all the files without any errors. Made some progress there. Entered in the product key and Windows started with the install repair. Everything is going good. Maybe no more problems. Or so I thought....

With just 16 minutes left, I get the infamous blue screen of death. DANG!!!! Error message was for a page fault. Googled it and read that it was more than likely main RAM. Reset CMOS to boot from floppy. Tossed in my memtest86 disk. Nothing but errors throughout 10 cycles of tests. I grabbed the 2 DIMMs I pulled from my *nix box. I had put the DIMMs that didn't work in the XP box, into it because they worked in it. After swapping the DIMMs in the XP box, I proceeded to boot from the memtest floopy to run a test first. Hit the KVM switch for the XP box and the monitor crapped out!!!! The relay, was clicking between power on and power off. Damn! Damn! Damn!

Went to the computer store and got a brand spanking new 17" LCD ViewSonic monitor. Got home, pull the gigantic CRT monitor out of the systems and replaced it with the small footprint monitor. I now have mega more desk space to spread out my crap. I switched on the monitor and hit the KVM switch for this PC. WOW!!!! Wall to wall image. No black border at all. This is cool!!!! (-:<

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

That may be...
you need to have a working computer with a floppy drive to write your new drivers to it, indeed. I am almost 100% sure the driver disk will not work because SiS make their own chipsets and don't use Intel southbridges.

So maybe get a neighbour or the guy at the shop to write the files onto a floppy for you? I agree it's very silly for manufacturers not to include a ready-to-use disk - not to mention it's stupid that you have to use a floppy in the first place (blame Microsoft)...unless you integrate the drivers into your installation CD, which is only slightly more complicated but also requires a working PC and a burner and a CD-R as well as UltraISO or the like.

Also, you will very definitely not be able to move a RAID array you created on the Intel board to the SiS board. Instead, you'd have to copy/move it elsewhere, remake the RAID on the SiS board and copy/move it back.

If it's really just a single drive, it should be a matter of simply getting that darn floppy made and pressing F6 on bootup.

Regards,
Simon.

Hmmmm.... Gives me an idea. I'll be going to my brother's tomorrow for BBQ, snacks, beer, movies, etc. and I could do it there. He has an XP box I can make the disk from. Thanks Simon. I'll let you know what results I come up with. Have a great day.... (-:<

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

That may be...
you need to have a working computer with a floppy drive to write your new drivers to it, indeed. I am almost 100% sure the driver disk will not work because SiS make their own chipsets and don't use Intel southbridges.

So maybe get a neighbour or the guy at the shop to write the files onto a floppy for you? I agree it's very silly for manufacturers not to include a ready-to-use disk - not to mention it's stupid that you have to use a floppy in the first place (blame Microsoft)...unless you integrate the drivers into your installation CD, which is only slightly more complicated but also requires a working PC and a burner and a CD-R as well as UltraISO or the like.

Also, you will very definitely not be able to move a RAID array you created on the Intel board to the SiS board. Instead, you'd have to copy/move it elsewhere, remake the RAID on the SiS board and copy/move it back.

If it's really just a single drive, it should be a matter of simply getting that darn floppy made and pressing F6 on bootup.

Regards,
Simon.

---

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Ok Simon, I hope you found your way here.

Is it a RAID drive? If so, you have to press F6 right when you boot off of the installation CD/DVD. At the start, it first asks you whether you want to install additional storage drivers, that's when you press F6 (you'll need a driver floppy disk).
If it's just a single drive that the OS is not seeing anymore, it may be that your partition table is corrupted but the data is still there (you can use a data recovery or partition recovery program to get to it).

HTH & good luck again,
Simon.

I run that system as a single drive system. When first installing the current hard drive, I needed to create the RAID driver disk. That driver disk is for a different motherboard. I had already had Windows ME installed on a different hard drive which was too small to hold XP. The problem is, I need to have Windows running to create the new RAID driver disk.

I don't believe that I could try using the disk I currently have because the 2 MBs have different chipsets. The drivers on that disk are for an Intel chipset, my new MB has a SiS chipset. You would think that the MB people would spend a few extra pennies and include the driver[s] on a floppy. In your opinion, do you think I could try using my current driver disk? I believe that I already know the answer, but the only stupid question is the one that doesn't get asked.

I'm beginning to think I'm between a rock and a hard place and I'm using a rubber hammer to free myself.... (-:<

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Oops, sorry for cross-posting in the milestone thread :)
I'll post subsequent replies here...

Regards,
Simon.

---

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Update:

While talking with a tech at the store, I got the RAM at, we determined that my MB may be hosing up, on it's last leg, getting ready to bite the dust. They just happened to have a few MBs left with socket 478 for my CPU. I got one, cheap $60.00, and will be doing a transplant between now and Sunday. Fingers crossed in hopes of getting rid of the problems.... (-:<

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Memory sometimes is strange in that regard.

Mostly it's due to the modules SPD being programmed wrongly (that's the thing that tells your computer at what CAS latency and other memory settings it should run the memory module - on a good module, you'll have *correct* settings for more than one mode).

If that's the case, there are sometimes incompatibilities like you said - it works in one board, it doesn't in the next. Some chipsets are programmed to use very relaxed timings as default, some aren't. In the latter case, you'll have stability problems like you describe.

It'd be better to go back to the shop and get the kit exchanged for one from another vendor maybe.

Regards,
Simon.

P.S. ECC Ram is not necessary in desktop computers. You can plug it in though, and it should work. Most desktop boards support ECC fine, it's just disabled.

Ok, here's the new scoop:

I verified several times that the memory kit was "qualified" for my MB, even at the shop I bought it from. It is.

I tried different combinations of installing it: blue dual channel, black dual channel, the kit as single channel, all 3 DIMMs as single channel. One thing I didn't think of trying, until just now, was to try each DIMM seperately.

When in dual channel black, I was able to get into setup, but that was as far as it went. I made the changes needed, time/date. F10'd, saved and reboot and all I get is a blank screen with a flashing cursor.

The MB takes non-ECC memory so I'm assuming that since this kit is listed in the qualified vendor list, in the manual, it's non-ECC.

I will take it back to see if I can exchange it for a different vendor brand. I have 2 more days on their 7 day return policy.

Thanks again Simon, I'll let you know about any further developements.... (-:<

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Memory sometimes is strange in that regard.

Mostly it's due to the modules SPD being programmed wrongly (that's the thing that tells your computer at what CAS latency and other memory settings it should run the memory module - on a good module, you'll have *correct* settings for more than one mode).

If that's the case, there are sometimes incompatibilities like you said - it works in one board, it doesn't in the next. Some chipsets are programmed to use very relaxed timings as default, some aren't. In the latter case, you'll have stability problems like you describe.

It'd be better to go back to the shop and get the kit exchanged for one from another vendor maybe.

Regards,
Simon.

P.S. ECC Ram is not necessary in desktop computers. You can plug it in though, and it should work. Most desktop boards support ECC fine, it's just disabled.

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What Joker said happened to me once too - my first dual channel board was nicely color coded but wanted me to populate different-colored (but adjacent) slots instead of the same-colored (but spaced apart) ones.

Regards,
Simon

Hi Simon,

Ok, I just triple checked the MB manual and it indeed says to put the DIMM pairs in the same color slots. I'm going to shut down this machine and swap the kits to see what happens. Be back in a bit with the results.... (-:<

[edit] Ok, just got done and the kit works fine in my *nix box. So, why not in the XP box....? \\-:< [/edit]

What about BIOS versions? Maybe it's time to flash the BIOS on that board with the latest update.

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nem·e·sis (nĕm'ĭ-sĭs) pronunciation
n., pl. -ses (-sēz').

1. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.

2. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.

What Joker said happened to me once too - my first dual channel board was nicely color coded but wanted me to populate different-colored (but adjacent) slots instead of the same-colored (but spaced apart) ones.

Regards,
Simon

Hi Simon,

Ok, I just triple checked the MB manual and it indeed says to put the DIMM pairs in the same color slots. I'm going to shut down this machine and swap the kits to see what happens. Be back in a bit with the results.... (-:<

[edit] Ok, just got done and the kit works fine in my *nix box. So, why not in the XP box....? \\-:< [/edit]

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath