Will boot at 4.0 as hexcore, won't boot at 4.0 as a quad?

[rescuetoaster]

The heck is this all about? I just recently had some blue screens at my normal settings of 3.9 at X6 in battlefield. I always knew I was borderline unstable with these settings, so I figured I'd see how far this CPU would go as just a quad core.

I left voltage the same, turned off core unlocker, and booted it up with the multiplier at 20. Won't even boot to windows.

The odd thing is, I could get it to boot to windows with all cores unlocked and the multiplier at 20. Why is it unable to do this with less cores active?

I did update the bios recently, but as far as I know, they've really only updated the recognized CPU list and some minor update to the raid controller.

 

[Techjesse]

The new BIOS may have a small overlooked setting, go back through your settings and make sure your ram is unlinked.

 

[rescuetoaster]

Unlinked? Is that the same as unganged? Or do you mean tied to the CPU multiplier in some way?

 

[Techjesse]

Yes, unlinked is the same as unganged.

 

[trents]

Toaster, I sometimes find that a bios update throws everything out of whack and I just have to return everything to stock defaults and start the overclock from scratch.

 

[Techjesse]

+1 ^^

 

[RGone]

+1 ^^

^+1 FTW^.
RGone...

 

[rescuetoaster]

Well, the ram is still unganged. However, now I have an issue with the raid - disk boot failure. I think it's a sign that I need to focus on studying.

Really wish I hadn't updated the bios.

Is it a coincidence that this happened, or is there a possibility that something got hosed up with the raid after I changed from quad to hex repeatedly?

 

[trents]

Are you running RAID 0 or RAID 1 or something else?

 

[rescuetoaster]

Raid 0 on 2 250 gig 7200 rpm drives.

 

[keny]

Did you update you're bios while overclocked ???

If you're bios allows you to manipulate the core number that is active then try a different boot like, 0245 or 0345 as it will probably be running 0123 as default and they might not like working together, also will it boot at stock as a quad ?

 

[rescuetoaster]

No, the utility sets everything to default settings before flashing.
It will boot as a quad - or at least it was until this disk error crap started - it wouldn't go any higher than 3.9 as a quad.

 

[trents]

Raid 0 on 2 250 gig 7200 rpm drives.

What make and model are the drives? You're asking for trouble when you're overclocking in RAID0 because there is always a possibility of OS files corruption during that kind of activity where you're getting repeated BSOD's.

The other think I would say about RAID0 is it's pretty risky when using hard drives not manufactured for RAID purposes, such as the WD "Red" drives. They are made to reliably handle the more complex timing exchanges between two drives working in a striped array rather than a redundant array. If you're going to do striping, use one of the RAID arrays that has some redundancy built into it.

 

[keny]

That's probably just the limit of you're CPU then I'm afraid, and as for the boot issue I would try and boot with you're windows dvd in and see if a repair will sort it out as I can't remember how many times I have corrupted a os install pushing a overclock, good luck man

 

[rescuetoaster]

They are two WD caviar blacks - a few years old. I'll give the repair a shot Keny.

 

[rescuetoaster]

So, repair cannot move forward unless it will read the startup raid driver so that the windows installer can actually see the array. Which, for whatever reason, it is now refusing to do. It just throws an error saying this file does not contain information for your system, or something along those lines.

I am now in the raid array rom, and one of the two disks isn't even showing as available to add to a new array (I deleted the old array, and am wanting to re-create it.).

 

[RGone]

You know a RE-creation of an array destroys all the data on the drives in the array?
RGone...

 

[Automata]

You know a RE-creation of an array destroys all the data on the drives in the array?
RGone...

This depends on the RAID controller. Some will let you create an array without initializing* the disks, which is what wipes them. This is mainly only an option on hardware RAID cards or full blown software RAID (not on board motherboard RAID). However, there is nothing stopping them from offering the option, and it probably doesn't default to it.


*Not initializing is useful if you have to re-create an array without destroying data. For example, if your RAID controller can't read the configuration from the disks, so it has no idea how to reconstruct them. As long as you create it the same way and the disks are in the same order, the data is accessible.

 

[trents]

Toaster, for future reference, I'm wondering if somehow you can create an "image" of the array and then rebuild the array from that? Seems like I've heard of people doing that.

 

[Automata]

You could take an image beforehand, destroy the array, recreate it, then place the image back on the array. That would work, for sure.