The auto tuner is an "option" in the bios (Asus P8P67 Deluxe) I can't "uninstall" it. I simply didn't use it and instead set manual values, the BLCK is 100, not 103.
EDIT: I guess in the past when I used it it could have changed settings on ANOTHER "page" but I don't believe so.
Depends, sometimes a week goes by and nothing happens, sometimes it happens twice in the same day. That might have a bit to do with how much I use the game on any specific day?
EDIT: Honestly, I can deal with being kicked from servers every now and then and having to verify, that's not my main issue anymore, it's the freezes it causes that are annoying the hell out of me.
EDIT2: Could my horrendously long load times be related?
I think you should try another HDD test, such as HDTune and Seatools. Moreover, I don't mean to be rude, but how long have you run the stability tests to make sure your OC is stable? Anything less than a successful 24-hour burn with no WHEA errors in the windows log may mean you're not entirely stable.
Also, did you run memtest86+ yet? You should really do that. You'll need more than one pass through the memory to be sure. Leave it on overnight for example.
Are you getting any errors in the windows logs after these problems occur? (Start menu -> Right click Computer -> Manage -> Event Viewer -> Custom Views -> Administrative Events)
I'll run HDTune.
I ran Prime for about an hour with no issues and stopped it at that.
I haven't run memtest yet, as I've stated before, my PC is always on so it's difficult to find a time to do it, I did run it a few months ago and it was fine however.
I get SO many errors in the logs it'd be hard to sort through them to find something relevant. Having a quick look through them though, most are the same and not related.
Your overclocking could lead to some issues with your Sata controller, causing it to write false data to the HDD. (BCKL doesn't match the programmed frequency in the controller and missing the right timing and stuff)
Had that problem before.
I'll run HDTune.
I ran Prime for about an hour with no issues and stopped it at that.
I haven't run memtest yet, as I've stated before, my PC is always on so it's difficult to find a time to do it, I did run it a few months ago and it was fine however.
I get SO many errors in the logs it'd be hard to sort through them to find something relevant. Having a quick look through them though, most are the same and not related.
An hour of prime95 testing is not enough to test for stability, especially when we're talking about such a huge overclock. I have seen prime95 fail even after 16 hours due to an unstable overclock, which meant that the system could crash at any time during normal use (and did).
Well I've had my PC on for about 30 days straight now and haven't experienced a crash or ANY problems except for this (which really is quite minor) I figured an hour of stress testing in prime not crashing it proved it was stable enough to handle the stress of NS2 or other games without overheating/crashing. I'll do a longer test if you think it is ABSOLUTELY necessary for this issue.
Troubleshooting an issue like this is often not easy. If you believe the problem to be trivial enough to not warrant a day long stress test, you can skip it. However, this would definitively eliminate instability from a bad overclock as the cause of this. One less thing to worry about.
This probably wouldn't reveal any such issues as JCD mentioned, though. I have to say I've never heard of an issue like that, but I suppose it is a possibility. Fiddling with the baseclock might help in such a case. I wouldn't recommend raising the baseclock, though, as that will raise your memory clockspeed aswell, which might bring more problems. Lowering a component's operating frequency usually doesn't muck things up.
Afaik the SATA Bridge chip is connected to the PCI-X Hardware interface, so that if you increase the frequency of PCI-X the SATA Bridge chip passive with it.
Increasing BLCK increases PCI-X freq and so on.
Sorry for my bad english
That is a defect sector scan if the data is corrupted by frequency issues it won't show up there because this test just looks for physically damaged sectors on your HD.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Ok im gona ignore your overclock. you know more about it then I do so I expect you did all relevant tests. (Only one I know of is running prime for hours upon hours)
* run memtest for hours upon hours to test your memory.
* update all your AHCI drivers. Most are marvell and intel. Intel has a checkup on there website if you do not know which ones you need. It gives you a download link.
* SSDs? DFINATELY check for firmware upgrades then. Most format the drive!
* Disable caching on your disks. Go to your windows system manager and find the disks. Disable the caching under properties. This will sacrifice speed for a guarantee that files are written away. May aswell test and see. Enable again for speed if its not the issue.
* Some drivers in the system manager ALSO have a cache option. This is the cache on the controller rather then the disks if I remember correct. Disable as test. If its not the problem, enable for speed.
* Disable programs, sometimes even AV programs as a test. As this leaves you open to viruses and other nasties, check your computer later on with a offline outside windows scan.
- https://www.systinternals.com links you to MS technet. You can use autoruns to disable all non microsoft software. Reboot and test again. Remember To check for virusses later on.
- Test for virusses by a bootable cd/dvd outside windows. Just because we are paranoid. No I do not think a virus does this (although its possible), this is just because I am advicing tests without AV.
- Tests at own risk.
Lets start with this shall we.
Also..
* if you use process monitor (also from sysinternals) you can enter filters in the program. You can set the filter to only monitor the path to your .dds files.
Now let it run untill your problem is back. Check the monitor logs what happened.
Problem with this is monitor captures a lot of data AND eats cpu power.
Also the data it collects is so huge if you let it run for prolonged periods that it eats away your page file. Run it as administrator but keep a good eye on memory.
- WIll run memtest.
- Drivers up to date.
- Don't have an SSD.
- I've disabled write caching (that's right?) on the HD the game is on only.
- Will disable AV, find viruses in things I'm not aware are viruses anyway...
- I'll run the monitor if you can tell me how long it can run without raping my system? Can I run it every time I play NS2 until I have the problem?
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
@ghosthree3
It doesnt save your log unless you do it manually. But it will start collecting info when you start it.
So if you start it, then run ns2, then keep running it till you have the problem. How long you can run it? I do not dare say. It will eventually max out your memory and pagefile and crash. haha
You just have to keep a eye on it. Id say sessions of 1 match and then reset process monitor? (stop capture, clean logs, start capture)
What does windows event viewer say? When my ssd was playing bad with my ahci driver (which at the time was latest) windows was spewing error messages.
Disk management counts drives differently than many other programs. Disk 0 is the first disk in disk management, but most software display it as disk 1, so disk 4 in most software is disk 3 in disk management.
Comments
EDIT: I guess in the past when I used it it could have changed settings on ANOTHER "page" but I don't believe so.
EDIT: Honestly, I can deal with being kicked from servers every now and then and having to verify, that's not my main issue anymore, it's the freezes it causes that are annoying the hell out of me.
EDIT2: Could my horrendously long load times be related?
Also, did you run memtest86+ yet? You should really do that. You'll need more than one pass through the memory to be sure. Leave it on overnight for example.
Are you getting any errors in the windows logs after these problems occur? (Start menu -> Right click Computer -> Manage -> Event Viewer -> Custom Views -> Administrative Events)
I ran Prime for about an hour with no issues and stopped it at that.
I haven't run memtest yet, as I've stated before, my PC is always on so it's difficult to find a time to do it, I did run it a few months ago and it was fine however.
I get SO many errors in the logs it'd be hard to sort through them to find something relevant. Having a quick look through them though, most are the same and not related.
Had that problem before.
EDIT: Perhaps I should use a BCLK of 103 instead of 100 as that is what it likes to set itself if the "OC Tuner" is used?
An hour of prime95 testing is not enough to test for stability, especially when we're talking about such a huge overclock. I have seen prime95 fail even after 16 hours due to an unstable overclock, which meant that the system could crash at any time during normal use (and did).
This probably wouldn't reveal any such issues as JCD mentioned, though. I have to say I've never heard of an issue like that, but I suppose it is a possibility. Fiddling with the baseclock might help in such a case. I wouldn't recommend raising the baseclock, though, as that will raise your memory clockspeed aswell, which might bring more problems. Lowering a component's operating frequency usually doesn't muck things up.
EDIT: Or perhaps set it to "auto" if that's an option?
Increasing BLCK increases PCI-X freq and so on.
Sorry for my bad english
Whatever it is, the HD ain't it.
* run memtest for hours upon hours to test your memory.
* update all your AHCI drivers. Most are marvell and intel. Intel has a checkup on there website if you do not know which ones you need. It gives you a download link.
* SSDs? DFINATELY check for firmware upgrades then. Most format the drive!
* Disable caching on your disks. Go to your windows system manager and find the disks. Disable the caching under properties. This will sacrifice speed for a guarantee that files are written away. May aswell test and see. Enable again for speed if its not the issue.
* Some drivers in the system manager ALSO have a cache option. This is the cache on the controller rather then the disks if I remember correct. Disable as test. If its not the problem, enable for speed.
* Disable programs, sometimes even AV programs as a test. As this leaves you open to viruses and other nasties, check your computer later on with a offline outside windows scan.
- https://www.systinternals.com links you to MS technet. You can use autoruns to disable all non microsoft software. Reboot and test again. Remember To check for virusses later on.
- Test for virusses by a bootable cd/dvd outside windows. Just because we are paranoid. No I do not think a virus does this (although its possible), this is just because I am advicing tests without AV.
- Tests at own risk.
Lets start with this shall we.
Also..
* if you use process monitor (also from sysinternals) you can enter filters in the program. You can set the filter to only monitor the path to your .dds files.
Now let it run untill your problem is back. Check the monitor logs what happened.
Problem with this is monitor captures a lot of data AND eats cpu power.
Also the data it collects is so huge if you let it run for prolonged periods that it eats away your page file. Run it as administrator but keep a good eye on memory.
- Drivers up to date.
- Don't have an SSD.
- I've disabled write caching (that's right?) on the HD the game is on only.
- Will disable AV, find viruses in things I'm not aware are viruses anyway...
- I'll run the monitor if you can tell me how long it can run without raping my system? Can I run it every time I play NS2 until I have the problem?
It doesnt save your log unless you do it manually. But it will start collecting info when you start it.
So if you start it, then run ns2, then keep running it till you have the problem. How long you can run it? I do not dare say. It will eventually max out your memory and pagefile and crash. haha
You just have to keep a eye on it. Id say sessions of 1 match and then reset process monitor? (stop capture, clean logs, start capture)
What does windows event viewer say? When my ssd was playing bad with my ahci driver (which at the time was latest) windows was spewing error messages.
This is the only could be relevant thing I found in the event viewer,
Not even sure that's the right disk.
Not sure but paging is different then changing files.
Constant failed paging does however slow your computer down.
I have looked a bit and seen on some websites that the paging operations refer to caching problems.