Looks like my Badaxe 2 board is going out...

[MUff1N]

I've run a series of tests on HW components & all of then show as good & yes, I did run Virus, Trojan, Malware, etc scans & my system's clean.

Problem: System's file corruptions at shutdown.
This started at the beginning of this week for no reason.
What makes me think it's the mobo is with Everything set to default with default voltages settings I'm STILL getting file corruption at shutdown.

Question: Does anybody here have a way of testing the mobo for problems, or a series of tests to run for a mobo?
To see if the mobo is about to go out?
Thanks..

[Daniel ~]

Bump!

[cloasters]

So this board is made by Intel uh, Foxconn maybe? You have my sympathy Muffin Man, not the best way to greet the annus miribilis. (We sincerely hope it won't be annus horibilis.)

[MUff1N]

Originally Posted by cloasters

So this board is made by Intel uh, Foxconn maybe? You have my sympathy Muffin Man, not the best way to greet the annus miribilis. (We sincerely hope it won't be annus horibilis.)

Yea this mobo IS made by Intel...
Intel D975XBX2 Badaxe 2 Motherboard

I just thought of this today & it's so obvious & in my face is why I didn't think of it till now. LOL
The only thing NEW in my system is the other 2 gigs of RAM I installed.
I'm pretty sure Corsair used the cheaper IC's in the modules I just got as compared to what I had in the system originally.
Those have the Micron IC's.
So...I took out the new ones & I'm going to see if it still happens again.
If it doesn't, problem solved! I'll just keep them as extras for in case I have a stick go out.

I need to replace the RAM I have now with 2x2Gbs (4GBs) of Dominator ram like what Rich has, or maybe some OCz RAM or Gskill.
But I know that 4x1Gb modules is the worst combination of ram to have, especially if you are OCing...
I saw that as soon as I installed them because it wouldn't bootup anymore at 3.5GHz where I had it at...
But I think one of these cheaper RAM modules is the problem...

I just ran Intel BurnTest & it looks good. Tested the RAM heavy at 98% ram usage.
No corruptions of any kind since I restored my backup image...
Nice & FAST on the bootup sequence! 45 seconds including startup programs!
I'm almost positive this is the problem, the "Cheap" RAM IC's I got!
No wonder they were selling it at $20 after $30 rebate which btw I DID receive!
Took 8 weeks to get it though...

Just read this review at Newegg on this...yea, this is why.

Reviewed By: dpeter

Tech Level Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Runs at 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V with no errors in memtest 86+ on my Intel 975 XBX2. Should be fine for your average user.
Cons: Probably not for overclocking. Corsair pulled a bait and switch. They used high quality Micron D9 ICs in the early revisions (what my originals are) that were sent to reviewers. They then switched to garbage ProMOS ICs that you typically find in el cheapo RAM so they could make more money. This is extremely deceptive and scummy on their part, and probably explains the high defect rate that others are reporting with this memory. I only learned about this recently, and feel a little bit ripped off.
Other Thoughts: The rebate is nice, but at its core this is basically value RAM that should already be cheap in the first place.

[MUff1N]

Yep, that's what it was...the cheap ass IC's in the new RAM modules I recently picked up...
I've restarted & shut down over 20 times now with no file or system's file corruptions at all!
With the other 2 modules installed I was getting corruption within 2 times of shutting down & starting my system.

Too bad Corsair did that with the lower end XMS2 series memory.
Well, I know not to buy that model series anymore!
I also notice that in CPU-Z in the SPD info that the manufacturing date was missing Not like in the ones I'm using now that show this.
Another strange thing about this is the tRC reading for them was 102 & in my good ones they are 22.
I wonder it the tRC was actually set at 102? LOL!

I still want to use 4Gbs of RAM because it does improve gaming performance! You can really crank up the Textures with 4 gigs!
Next RAM I'm buying is going to be the 2x2Gb modules of Dominator or OCz!
The ones below are now going for $40 after rebate & will run at 4-4-4-12 timings!

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB TWIN2X4096-8500C5D

OR...OCz $23 after rebate! This runs at CL4 by default though...Read good reviews on the Reaper memory too.
I love how the DDR2 memory is getting cheaper & cheaper to buy!

OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) CL4

[PorPorMe]

I have just sold two rigs! Biggest hit so far and I'm on the upgrade agian!
I have the G. Skill PI Black 4Gb [2x2GB] DDR2 800 [PC2 6400] Dual Channel kit CL4-4-4-12 1.8v * 1.9v.
I just bought another set as I have installed Vista 64bit.
Newegg.com - G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

[MUff1N]

I might just have to check out that Gskill memory.

Anyways, my mobo is part of the problem of corruption in my system files & is going bad as last night at shut down after gaming on it for about 4 hours it happened again. RRR
Error message boxes coming up at shutdown & then Startup taking 3 times longer afterwards...
So my mobo is on the way out but its doing better with the quality memory with the Micron IC's than with the mix of cheap-O's in there.

A ways back I said this mobo wasn't quite right when OCing it & it still doesn't "feel" right if you know what I mean.
When I first got the system the Bios Post would only last about 2 seconds then move on, but now it takes 10 seconds before it moves on.

I would say it's time to start backing everything up, but I've already done that redundantly so I'm good when it dies on me.
I just got to make sure the bios is totally cleared so they don't see the OC settings as the warranty only applies to "Stock" settings.
I think I just might go ahead & set it all back to default settings anyways with the exception of the memory timings & voltage. I'm keeping that at Optimal settings of CL4.

On another note...I'm back to insomnia again but this time it's a roller-coster ride...one night sleep, 3 nights no sleep, next night 2 hrs sleep, then anther day or 2 no sleep...
Man I'm so tired & spacey...
My stomach has been hurting too & the pain killers make it hurt even worse but it I don't take them I just want to die...
Hopefully I'll be able to get off this ride in a week or 2 before I start really getting loopy!

[PorPorMe]

Great job figuring out you problem-a lot of people would hsve stopped at thinking mobo and went from there.
It got me thinking about my own nForce 780i and I hadn't done much reasearch on it as I traded for it. Now I'm starting to read more about it.

The G. Skill is supposed to be exellent memory. In a number of cases the reviewers said it was the best they had OC'd or tested. I haven't pushed thm yet but the time draws near!

Along with the G. Skills I bought this morning, I just bought a E8400 Wolfdale and a WD 500Gb Sata HDD. Next weekis OC time!

I'm in the funny sleeping mode agian to. All that sleep clinick and the machines didn't do much for me but I,m getting enough to maintain for now. Here is one for insomnia!

Mareen needed meds and we wern't going to get anyone to dig the car out so I did-next time I'll call a cab! My OA is telling me that is something I can't do. I'm all stove in today. Limited to the bathroom and my computer. Couldn't go down the stairs if I wanted to!

[MUff1N]

Man you are going to have one kickin system there PPM!
It's going to be nice OCing easily to 4GHz!
Now you'll be able to watch your folding points add up as you sit there!

My system is getting worse quickly now & I have file corruptions every single time I shut down.
If this board is going to die I wish it would hurry up!
That's why I now have everything set to default setting in the bios & I'm going to start stressing it hard for awhile to see if I can't speed things up... So when it dies it will not look like I ever OCed it.

I want a brand new Badaxe board & the warranty covers it by ABS & Intel...so either way I'll be covered. I just got to kill it...LOL
Then I'll see about OCing this thing like I want it to be.

[PorPorMe]

Take the board out to the local skeet range. Launch it and nail it with just a 20 guage with #8 bird shot. That will kill the board and time your RMA so it arives either on Friday-people want to go home and will just rubber stamp it thru, or have it arrive on monday and they will be suffering a hangover and will never notice the little holes made by #8 bird shot! Work the angles, my boy!

[MUff1N]

Originally Posted by PorPorMe

Take the board out to the local skeet range. Launch it and nail it with just a 20 guage with #8 bird shot. That will kill the board and time your RMA so it arives either on Friday-people want to go home and will just rubber stamp it thru, or have it arrive on monday and they will be suffering a hangover and will never notice the little holes made by #8 bird shot! Work the angles, my boy!

All joking aside that's a very good point about Fridays PPM!
I've got all my ducks lined up now & I'm going to call tech support to let them know my system needs to be fixed.
I'll go into detail on on the testing I've done to narrow it down to the mobo too so with any luck, they'll just tell me to pull the board & send it to them & they'll send out a new one!

One thing's for sure, I can't have this system running like it is...
It now takes about 4-5 mins just to bootup.
I hate waiting especially when it used to bootup in about 30 seconds.
I know it's not anything to do with settings or voltage as all of those are now at default settings like it came to me.

So next week I'm going to start the process of getting this replaced.
They should give me a new mobo as the wholesale price on this is under a 100 bucks & I paid $300 for the warranty!

[PorPorMe]

Is your board acting the same under XP and Vista? Any differences at all?
The reason I ask is that when I installed Vista64 everything slowed down like molasses in winter. Boot could take as long a 5 min. Found out it was my PCI to IDE controller. It probly needs a bios change to deal with vista. I've got Vista Running smooth-still hunting drivers though. vista is bad enough but Vista64 is a bitch! My DVD Burner won't read but I havent tackeled that yet.
Have you tried back benching it? Remove 1 component at a time and then run it as normal to see if there is an improvement? Might tell you something.

EDIT:
Back to trying to get my Soundblaster to work. I might be able to get drivers to work but noy the programs. Yhat will be ok with me, for now!

[MUff1N]

Originally Posted by PorPorMe

Is your board acting the same under XP and Vista? Any differences at all?
The reason I ask is that when I installed Vista64 everything slowed down like molasses in winter. Boot could take as long a 5 min. Found out it was my PCI to IDE controller. It probly needs a bios change to deal with vista. I've got Vista Running smooth-still hunting drivers though. vista is bad enough but Vista64 is a bitch! My DVD Burner won't read but I havent tackeled that yet.
Have you tried back benching it? Remove 1 component at a time and then run it as normal to see if there is an improvement? Might tell you something.

Without the system files corruptions XP boots very fast & Vista is just a bit slower but not by a lot. I got Vista Ultimate tweaked pretty good & it's very fast for Vista.

No it doesn't matter what the OS is...this is why I think its the mobo.
I've already reinstalled the chipset drivers & bios with no change.

So far today since I've restored my backup img & set everything to default it's been OK.

This is the same behavior of my last mobo just before it died on me.
OCed it was really bad...set it back to default it worked for about a week then it just wouldn't post anymore.

I'm going to do some more testing but I'm pretty sure this next week I'm going to be seeing about replacing it via my 3 year, on site, extended warranty for parts & labor...

Edit: At the end of the day when I shut down my computer it corrupted the systems files again!
This is getting really old having to restore a backup img every single day to have a fast computer that works right...

[PorPorMe]

Go for it-I hate a rig I can't trust!

[MUff1N]

OK, now I'm not so sure about the mobo again as I installed a backup image from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back (before SP3) that I had & it's working fine so far.
Took me all day to update & install all the patches for Windows & the programs I had installed on it already.

So for the next few days I'll be running this OS/Driver configuration & monitoring it to see if I still get corruptions, but for now it's running fast & smooth with no corruptions at all.
I'm going to hold back on calling ABS support until I know for sure it's not an OS/driver issue.

This makes me look at other possible causes such as driver conflict(s) as being a possible cause of this too.
I'm sure the OS is clean though because every test I've ran came back clean including in depth rootkit scans.

I'll report my findings as I go along.

I'm really going to hate having to reinstall all of my programs & update patches again from scratch
as this takes a few weeks to do & have all the settings & tweaks the way I like it.
So far the way it's acting now is that there's a problem somewhere deep in the OS that needs to be fixed on the other image files...
OR I can just keep the OS installation I'm using now & slowly build it back up with the programs I want on it as it's working perfectly,
not to mention I got the AHCI drivers (Advanced Host Controller Interface) installed for NCQ (Native Command Queuing) if I want to enable it for my HD's.
On Vista you can install these drivers at any time, but in XP this is a F6 Floppy pre-install...which is a PITA to do!!!
I had to hookup my floppy drive from my old system just to install the drivers!
Right now it's got about 1/4 of the programs I use so there's a bunch of program to installed & update. RRR

Edit: Looks like the problem is with the OS/Drivers & not the mobo at all.
I've been updating & installing programs on my new install of XP PRO SP3 & restarted dozens of times
& the problem is just not coming up anymore...So for now I'll keep what I got & go forward from there.
I'm also OCing my system again with all 4 gigs of memory installed with no problems whatsoever!
*Fingers & Toes Crossed!* > LOL

[MUff1N]

Originally Posted by MUff1N

Edit: Looks like the problem is with the OS/Drivers & not the mobo at all.
I've been updating & installing programs on my new install of XP PRO SP3 & restarted dozens of times
& the problem is just not coming up anymore...So for now I'll keep what I got & go forward from there.
I'm also OCing my system again with all 4 gigs of memory installed with no problems whatsoever!
*Fingers & Toes Crossed!* > LOL

Turns out this is exactly what's wrong!
It's either some drivers and or a program or programs that are causing the problems!
As soon as I installed the backup I had with all my programs it corrupted files on the next shutdown & bootup!
The other system I've been slowly adding programs to is working perfectly for the last 2 days so that it!
I got to either find this problem & fix it (Which I'm working on now) or, install the other Good backup image & put my programs & updates on it.
Either way is a PITA...

So after all the testing it's NOT the mobo going out at all but programs or drivers causing the problem with systems files corruptions.

[BobRoss]

What about the possibility that the OC itself, over time corrupted some of the system files enough to cause continued corruption on those system images that it ran on for extended periods?

And the clean image you are using with the non-OCd settings have not been subject to whatever hickup started it?

I would be inclined to write over the corrupt images with the good one and rebuild to see if it happens again.

[MUff1N]

Originally Posted by BobRoss

What about the possibility that the OC itself, over time corrupted some of the system files enough to cause continued corruption on those system images that it ran on for extended periods?


And the clean image you are using with the non-OCd settings have not been subject to whatever hickup started it?

I would be inclined to write over the corrupt images with the good one and rebuild to see if it happens again.

Yea BobRoss;
This is probably what happened was a combo of OCing & corruptions in the image files over time to get it to this point of just being a bad backup image now.

Yes, the clean install works absolutely perfectly with no issues whatsoever & is very fast to respond too!!!

This is why I've been slowly installing the programs onto that image backup as I know its working perfectly with it.
But yea, I'll probably end up having to install all my programs all over again until I got what I want again...that's a LOT of programs & update patches to install...

[PorPorMe]

Welcome to the real world, MUff1n. I have been doing it that way for 10-15 years so I have my programs on a seprate drive except some hardware install disks. With Vista64 my dvd burner has the hiccups so this 2 IDE channels was driving me nuts. And I haven't mastered Acronis yet. Now That I'm getting 500Gb Sata drive my tacktics will change. Still want to get Acronis back ups figured out but I've gotten very good at formating C:\ and putting it back together agian. I also hav a lot of software but the difference is I'm set up to reinstall and you are set up to use your back ups----Have fun.

[MUff1N]

Looks like I found the problem! I cleared out all the event files so that I'd get all new entries & I followed the bread crumbs back to the program doing it...So what was it?
Sony Acid Pro with all it's stuff that got corrupted...
Since I haven't been doing any recording or mixing of my guitar playing for months now I just went a head & uninstalled it totally.
So it's now working fine again...
Took me long enough to troubleshoot the problem though to get the resolve.

I still think Acronis True Image is a God Send when it comes to restoring your OS!!!