Advice on a 64bit system upgrade

[dencorso]

Do try SpeedFan on your board... it might very well be able to read actual temperatures on it.

I'm aware it probably won't solve any issues (although, maybe it even can, since it can be used to control the fans...) but, in any case, if it succeeds in giving you sensible temperature readings, that sure would be some progress, right?  

[Dave-H]

Hi again, I'm sure I posted a reply this morning, and just came to edit it and it seems to have disappeared, no idea why!

 

Anyway, as I thought I had already said, I installed SpeedFan which seems to work very well, but gives a huge amount of rather complicated information from loads of apparent sensors, some of which appear to be duplicated. It is showing high temperatures on "Diode 1" which are always about 10 degrees above and sometimes 20 degrees above the other readings.

 

SpeedFan doesn't seem to work on Windows 98 either, although the documentation says it should do. It installs OK and scans for the system information OK, but then puts up an exception error message instead of showing the readings.

 

I also found a utility called Core Temp, which seems to give just the information I want, and that looks relatively happy!

 

 

The system's quietened down again now, as long as Windows XP is running, however when I reboot the system fans are taking off again, and the BIOS hardware monitor is showing PECI Agent 1 as high but PECI Agent 2 as low, which is what I can't understand.

 

I still have a horrible feeling that there is a hardware fault, as why would one processor be apparently running so much hotter than the other? I know it's not the processor itself as swapping them doesn't move the problem, and nor does swapping the heatsinks, whose fans both seem to be working fine and there's surely nothing else that can go wrong with them!

 

[dencorso]

A third, plain vanilla XP installation, perhaps on an older 40-80 GB IDE HDD (added temporarily just for this) might be the way to go, right now... no need to activate it, since the grace period should be more than enough for what I have in mind... If the higher temps on Proc #0 go away on the plain vanilla XP, then something subtle went wrong on trasplanting your old XP to the new machine, else there really might be hardware, but, at least, we'd be double-sure your current XP installation is really working as it should... 

[Dave-H]

Thanks Den, but I don't see how this can be Windows related if the error is showing in the BIOS hardware monitoring before Windows even starts.

If I can get SpeedFan working in Windows 98 I should be able to see if the same thing is happening there. None of the other temperature monitoring utilities I've found will work under 98.

[dencorso]

Whait a sec!

Are you telling me the system uses more Proc #0 while at BIOS (= unbooted or while before booting), and that, once XP takes over the machine, the load is evenly divided between Procs? Why, I'd expect XP to be more knowledgeable about Proc/Core scheduling than the BIOS (or, I'd expect the BIOS to be more naif about multiple processors/multiple cores/hyperthreading than XP)... 9x/ME, on the other hand, knows only about a single core inside a single processor.

[Dave-H]

What is actually happening is that the system is fine when first switched on, and while using Windows XP normally. If anything stresses the processors at all, the fans ramp up in speed, as would be expected. Most of the time they are just idling however.

 

If I reboot after the system has warmed up however, the fans immediately start roaring away at full speed when Windows shuts down, and if I go into the BIOS setup, I can see that one processor is reporting high, and the other one reporting low, as in the picture below.

 

This never changes and I've never managed yet to leave it long enough to cool down to change that, in fact I've left it for so long without change that I think it's a permanent condition until I switch of and let it cool completely.

 

Supermicro's "SuperoDoctor III" monitoring software apparently takes over from the BIOS when it loads under Windows, and its settings are used instead of the BIOS settings.

 

 

[Dave-H]

Just ordered a couple of these.

I hope they will get a bit more air blowing through the processors.

They are compatible with LGA771 sockets it appears from my researches, I'm just hoping they will physically fit in the case!

The heatsinks that came with the motherboard were designed for the dual core processors that came with it, and I guess I was expecting a bit much of them to cool faster quad cores adequately.

I should get the new heatsinks before the end of the week, so we'll see how it goes.

They weren't cheap, in fact they have almost doubled what I've spent on the system so far, so they had better work!

If CPU 1 is still overheating with them fitted, I will seriously suspect that its temperature monitoring system is in fact faulty.

[dencorso]

Dave? Are you there? Do please give us an update... are things OK, now?

 

Ditto! How did the Noctuas perform?

[Dave-H]

Sorry for the lack of feedback, but I'm still waiting for the new processor coolers!

They were supposedly despatched last Tuesday, with a supposed delivery date of last Thursday or Friday, but they still haven't arrived.

Hopefully they will come tomorrow (Monday), and if they physically fit OK I will know whether they have fixed the overheat problem.

 

I'm also now getting errors reported in the BIOS for one of the memory DIMMs.

It kept reporting "single-bit ECC error in DIMM #3".

I swapped the DIMM in position #3 with the one in position #4, and was pleased to find that it's now #4 reporting the error, which at least proved that it was the module itself causing the problem rather than a problem on the motherboard!

As the DIMMs are also getting worryingly hot, I've now also ordered a couple of 4GB DIMMs (quite cheap used ones) which I'm now going to fit, which will increase the memory to 8GB from 4GB, but with only two modules instead of four, which might help the heat problem, assuming of course that 4GB DIMMs don't get four times as hot as 1GB DIMMs!

I just hope that Windows 98 will cope with 8GB as it coped with 4GB!

Edited September 14, 2014 by Dave-H

[dencorso]

I just hope that Windows 98 will cope with 8GB as it coped with 4GB!

 

That, at least, you can rest assured it will. Yet, you'll continue to access the same amount of RAM you've been used to, both from 98, and from XP, because they're 32-bit systems (the rest, however, can be accessed by using a RAMDrive: the Gavotte, with UsePAE=1, is a great solution for XP and RLoew's non-XMS Ramdrive, the only real solution for 98).

[Dave-H]

That's good to know!

One of my coolers arrived this morning (I ordered and have been invoiced for two, so where the other one is I do not know) but unfortunately it's no good for me, as it's much too large generally and the mounting holes in my motherboard do not line up with the screws.

It's designed for LGA 1366 sockets, and my processors are LGA 771, but another source advertising the same thing said they were compatible.

Obviously not!

I'm now trying to return it, and will now have to do more (and more careful!) research to try and find the correct one!

So, more delay I'm afraid.............

[dencorso]

The best source sure is Noctua's own site.

I think the one you'd be looking for is the NH-U9DX, but there may be other adequate ones, too.

[Dave-H]

Thanks Den!

I had looked at that cooler, but it's a discontinued product, and quite hard to track down in the UK.

I had found a few sources for it, but they all seem to say that it's for the LGA 1366 socket, not the LGA 771 socket, which is what I need, which is thoroughly confusing me, as the Noctua site says it's for the LGA 771 socket!

Maybe there are two versions of the NH-U9DX, one for 1366 sockets, and another for 771 sockets. I will investigate that.

See here. The one on the left is the NH-U12DX I got this morning, the one on the right is the NH-U9DX, which is smaller but it looks as if the mount is the same size, and it says it's for an LGA 1366 socket, not an LGA 771!

The whole mounting system is much bigger than the one on my motherboard.

UPDATE:

As I thought, there are indeed several versions of the NH-U9DX, and the one for the LGA 771 socket is pretty near unobtainable.

I have found somewhere in Portugal which claims to have it, so I will carefully check the physical measurements to make sure it will fit in, and see if I can order it from there.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Dave-H

[Dave-H]

I tried to order the coolers from Portugal, but the only shipping option I was offered was "collect from store", a fat lot of use as I'm in the UK!

I have messaged them to clarify whether they will ship to the UK, but haven't heard back yet.

I strongly suspect the answer will be "no"!

Edited September 17, 2014 by Dave-H

[Dave-H]

Sorry for my prolonged silence, but I've been away a lot recently, and I've been waiting for some new processor coolers to arrive.

I finally got my hands on both of them yesterday. They are Supermicro SNK-P0034AP4s, and they seem to have improved things a lot.

I can now run the system with the cover on without it sounding as if it's about to go into orbit!

 

I'm still getting big temperature reading discrepancies between the two processors though, which I'm investigating with a really helpful guy at Supermicro.

Despite not officially supporting my old motherboard, or now Windows XP, they have actually set up a system the same as mine to troubleshoot this, which is pretty amazing I thought!

They are not getting the same results as me though, and we're trying to find out why.

 

More feedback when I have it!

Cheers, Dave.