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Not sure if this is a motherboard problem...

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gsrcrxsi

Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2008
Location
Baltimore, MD
ok, so i decided to beef up my HTPC. Its been doing fine on its HTPC duties thus far, but i wanted to bump it up a tad to start getting it to handle some games.

old specs are in the sig. use that for reference.
TV is a Samsung LED/LCD hooked up to the GT430 via an HDMI cable (audio and video passed to the TV via the GT430).
i have 3 connections to the box. Power, HDMI, and 1 USB for KB/Mouse
internet is supplied wireless via a PCI card

so ive been looking for a new quad core processor for a while now on ebay, and finally scored an X3360 (2.83GHz quad, 12MB L2). according to the intel supported processors page :

http://processormatch.intel.com/CompDB/SearchResult.aspx?Boardname=dg33tl

the X3360 is fully supported. given that i have at least the min BIOS listed. so i threw in the new chip, re-TIMed it. power on. nothing. power cycle. nothing.

CRAP, forgot to update the BIOS. so i threw the E5200 back in, TIMed, powered up. go to download the latest BIOS, wait a tic... I already have the latest BIOS. hmmm. so i reflashed it anyway with the same BIOS.

threw the X3360 back in. TIMed. powered up. nothing. power cycle. SUCCESS. go into the BIOS, everything seems fine, but the TV was emitting a loud high pitched squeal. Turned the TV off and back on and the noise went away. boot into windows, again everything seems fine. ran 20 cycles of LINX, no errors, temps under 70C (passively cooled at that!).

two problems i've noticed so far.

1. Intermittent POST or power up.

Seems to only power on 50% of the time. Restarts via Windows almost always results in the computer failing to POST on reboot. power cycle fixes it and it comes up fine. However, Sleep mode seems to work ok, and it resumes properly from sleep 90% of the time.

thinking the power issue was due to the old 400w dynex PSU (even though my system should use WELL below that - closer to 150w), i decided to just replace the PSU and see what happens. I replaced it with a Corsair CX750M 750w PSU that is rated for 80+ bronze (best they had at Best Buy, it was between this or a Thermaltake TR2 600W or 420W, I chose the Corsair for the reputation and for the efficiency rating, and it was only $2 more expensive than the TT 600W). Ideally i would have purchased something 80+ rated that was 500-550W.

The Corsair PSU did not fix the issue.

2. Weird Sound Glitchiness.

when powering on, the default windows start sounds are always glitchy. almost like a stutter or hesitation. the same glitchiness can be heard when starting and shutting down Windows Media Center. most of the time when playing movies/shows/netflix, the sound is OK, but i have heard the same issue during playback before, its just less common.

thinking the sound issues were due to lag on the part of the hard drive (even though it's an SSD), I replaced the SSD from the OCZ 60GB to an Intel 80GB G2 that i had laying around. I re-imaged the system with a year old image (pre-issues). Re-imaged, extended the partition to the full 80GB, and installed new updates, and updated the drivers and also installed the latest Nvidia drivers (audio and video).

still glitchy sound.


so what do you guys think? MB screwed? or could it possibly be some kind of fault with the CPU itself? I want to say that the issues are related, as i know most audio processing is performed on the MB, but how exactly does it work with GT430->HDMI? is the GT430 actually processing the sound, or is it just passing it from the MB?
 
Sounds like that board is not compatible with the new CPU that you have and the sound problems could be drivers.
 
put the old chip back in again. sound issues DID go away. and the POST/power issues went away too.

I'm not inclined to believe the CPU itself is faulty. I've been under the impression that if a CPU was bad, it would just fail totally and not work at all. is this a good assumption?

I agree that this SEEMS like a compatibility issue, but Intel lists it as being fully compatible. are they ever wrong about compatibility? they list full compatibility with min BIOS 0326, however BIOS 0326 is not even available for download, but there are version numbers before and after that. is it possible that the Latest BIOS somehow is not compatible? should i try reverting to the older BIOS immediately post-0326?

now, if we assume that the MB is somehow at fault. is it possible that the extra stress that the quad-core puts on the system as a whole, exacerbates issues that are otherwise going undetected with the dual-core? as in, the MB is faulty, but i just dont notice with the dual vs quad because the faulty parts arent being utilized at all or as much with the dual?

just trying to think out loud. thoughts?
 
so I looked up all your parts that u seem o be having problems with and I see no reason for them to now be compatible but you did get it off ebay and it being a bad chip doesn't neccesarily mean that its insta-fry so it is always a possibly. there are some things that I just would not get on ebay and in all honesty processors are one of them I wouldnt even get one of them used
 
Motherboard is several years old. Maybe 4-5 at this point. And it gets a lot of use as my HTPC.

And as an update.

I traded the X3360 for a Q9550. Basically the exact same chip just not Xeon and will have more compatibility with desktop boards. SAME exact issues. Only boots half of the time. And increased sound glitchiness. And I started getting a lot of sound glitches with the E5200 even :(. The recipient of the X3360 is having zero issues.

So I guess this really is the motherboard.
 
Not sure if I should just replace the MB or look into an i5 setup.

I really don't want to put a whole lot of money into this. Going to i5 would be a more powerful (and probably more power efficient) but is have to buy a new board AND new CPU AND new memory.

A new replacement MB will be 75-100 bucks. Less in the used market. I would likely buy another DG33TL as I can't find any other boards with:
microATX
775 socket
DDR2-800
1x x16 PCIe (needed for video card)
2x x1 PCIe (needed for Ceton TV tuner card)
1x PCI (needed for wifi card)
 
so i decided to just buy a new motherboard. $85 shipped from ebay for a BRAND NEW DG33TL. not too bad.

while i would love to drop 400 bucks for an all new system, i didnt think the added cost was necessary for an HTPC/light gaming rig. i mean the HTPC portion of it has been completely fine running with a dual-core 2.5GHz. quad 2.83 + new video card should be plenty enough for some games at 1080p
 
verdict is in.

MB solved the issue.

It appears that either the SB or the NB is overheating (i cant remember if it was ICH or MCH. in the bios, i noticed the temps were in the 80-90C range. thought it was just the nature of the beast with all passive cooling.

new MB in, and temps are all <60C with the exact same config. and no sound issues.

and honestly that makes sense. exactly like i said. the quad core chip was stressing the system more than the dual core, exacerbating the issue.

maybe a re-TIM of the NB and SB would solve the issue on the old board too?
 
well it's good in the sense that i didnt have to re-install any software. but it's still been a pain trying to narrow down the issue.

honestly now that i think about it, i think it was probably the NB having the overheating issues. since sound was being processed by the video card (PCIe, controlled by NB), and with the boot/POST issues, seems to be a NB issue.
 
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