Instability - Prime 95 Error

[Hieronymous]

Beginner overclocker here, interested like everyone in getting a little more out of their rig. My BIOS has a simple A.I. Overclock method, where you can just up 1,3,5,8 or 10%. I started with 8%, then ran Prime 95 to check stability, and the whole system crashed after a few minutes. So I decided to set it back to auto, and check to be sure that I was stable w/o overclocking.

Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Torture test ran 56 minutes - 1 errors, 0 warnings
Execution halted

Ran it again, and got the same message, during the same test, but at 50 minutes. Stress.txt says "If you are not overclocking, the most likely cause is an overheating CPU or memory DIMMs that are not quite up to spec. Another possibility is you might need a better power supply." Great.

How do I figure out what's wrong with my rig?

ASUS A8N-SLI SE
AMD Athalon 64 San Diego 4000+
2x512MB Corsair DDR-RAM

Let me know if you need any more info. I was dreaming of an Overclock, but first, I need to be stable at factory specs!


Thanks for any advice you guys can offer.

 

[Nagasama]

errors that quickly mean a super flaky overclock.
usually it is:
a) not enough voltage to the cpu
b) your ram is overclocked too far past its specs.
c) you may have tried to go to far with first overclock. try starting at 3% or so.
a 4000 will overclock well past 8%, so i know you haven't gone past its specs. you should be able to get more like 20%+. depends on your ram as well, tho.
what is your ram speed, stock settings and what do you have it set to in bios?
did you re set your cmos after the first crash?
if not, that could definitely be causing it to fail p95.
you have to clear cmos every time it crashes, or you run the chance of developing all kinds of wierd bugs when you try to overclock again.
i would also suggest turning off the ai overclock deal and making all the adjustments manually.

 

[CrazeD]

So... did you do what it suggested? Get better cooling? What are your temps? What kind of power supply do you have? What's your RAM running at and what are the timings?


Need more info...

 

[Nagasama]

^^^lol...FEED ME...^^^
forgot to ask about temps....!

 

[Hieronymous]

One problem was that I had reset the 'Advanced Overclocking Features' in the BIOS to "Auto" instead of "Standard." In other words, I did not reset the cmos.

Still, even once I had done this (and thus all evidence of an overclocking attempt erased from the BIOS) When I ran Prime95, I encountered a problem:

Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Torture test ran 3 hours, 7 minutes - 1 errors, 0 warnings.
Execution halted.

In other words, even when I have NOT OVERCLOCKED my comp AT ALL, I am getting a "Hardware failure" after a few hours of Prime95.

And temps are not an issue; they never deviated from 25 Degrees C. - In other words, I am not overheating.

So what is wrong with my computer? Why am I getting this crash in Prime95 when I have NOT overclocked?

Thanks again for your Help.

 

[CrazeD]

What kind of power supply do you have, and what are your RAM timings/frequency?

 

[Hieronymous]

Thanks for answering. I've done my best to find the info you crave:

Power Supply is 400W (460W Max)
+5V - 30A
+12V - 30A
-5V - 0.5A
-12V - 0.8A
+3.3V - 28A
+5 VSB - 3a
ATX - 12V
(+5 V & 3.3V Total Output 230W)

RAM DDR-SDRAM PC3200 (200Mhz) DDR-400
Supported Frequencies : 200 MHz
CAS Latency (tCL) : 2.5 clocks @200 MHz
RAS to CAS (tRCD) : 3 clocks @200 MHz
RAS Precharge (tRP) : 3 clocks @200 MHz
Cycle Time (tRAS) : 8 clocks @200 MHz

Temp Steady
Processor at 25C
Mainboard at 45C
Power/AUX at 31C

What else do you need?

 

[OatesyX]

you could test your parts individualy,, try a memtest and let it run overnight,, get the bootable one, not the windows one,, that will prove if its your ram or not

 

[CrazeD]

Do you know what brand your power supply is?

It just sounds like a power issue to me. Consistent power input is a crucial thing to computer performance and stability. If you have a cheap power supply (like say, one that came in a 30$ case) then it is very very poor quality, and probably doesn't even have the specs it is listed at.

The specs you posted look pretty good, if it's a good brand than I don't see anything wrong there.

However, your motherboard temps look kind of high. Is that at default temps?