Upgraded computer; Now all my games crash!

[mugwump]

antdude:

yes, two mmmmmmm's. Sorry about that. About the format, By my way of thinking you have spent many hours of anxiety, frustration, pain, maybe even rage. By now, you could have wiped your drive, clean installed, any either cured your ills, or at the very least, eliminated many, many things as the source of your difficulties.

WJC

[xortam]

Again, you're just wasting time by band-aiding an improper installation. A fundamental difference in CPUs (PII to PIII) warrants a reinstallation of the OS. The SIMD instructions speed up processing in many multimedia apps (IE5, WMP, 3rd party apps, etc.). Many apps may decide at installation time to install the appropriate .dll to support the streaming extensions or not. You could have already performed the correct procedure and been utilizing your new system but you insist on taking this "shortcut".

[antdude]

Oooooo, I think I found the problem. Bad RAM according to a memory tester called "MemTest-86" v2.4. http://reality.sgi.com/cbrady/memtest86

I ran it for about 7.5 hours overnight and found these results:

Test 5 failed with 105 errors. According to its readme, Test 5 is:

Test 5 [Block move, 64 moves, cached]
This test stresses memory by using block move (movsl) instructions and is based on Robert Redelmeier's burnBX test. Memory is initialized with shifting patterns that are inverted every 8 bytes. Then 4mb blocks
of memory are moved around using the movsl instruction. After the moves are completed the data patterns are checked. Because the data is checked only after the memory moves are completed it is not possible to know where the error occured. The addresses reported are only for where the bad pattern was found. Since the moves are constrained to a 8mb segent of memory the failing address will always be less than 8mb away from the
reported address. Errors from this test are not used to calculate BadRAM patterns.

I also ran DocMemory Diagnostic from: http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/produ...c/docinfo.asp. However, it didn't find anything after one pass. I didn't run it overnight.

Now, I am not sure if I really have bad memory. Does it look like I have bad memory according to the first program? What do you think?

[antdude]

xortam: I will do a full reinstallation after I confirm that I do not have bad RAM.

[mugwump]

Antdude,
Did you do as Raptor suggested...Take out you new stick 'o ram and see what happens?

[antdude]

Yeah, I will try the memory suggestion soon when I get some free time. I am a bit occupied with real life (doh!).

Earlier, I was playing D2 to see if it will crash. It crashed about five minutes later with "Fatal Exception 0E in VXD VMM(01)" Heh, I lost my taskbar when I back to Windows desktop and had to restart Windozes.

I also tried v6.0 beta drivers. No help there. If the memory switching fails, then reinstallation is in order because I am out of ideas!

It is starting to sound like memory with these symptoms.

[This message has been edited by antdude (edited 07 August 2000).]

[xortam]

I'd tend to believe that you're having memory problems: either bad memory or bad memory timings or FSB timings. Also, make sure you're performing a scandisk (with repair), especially on you're swap file volume. I still think you should do a reinstall after you resolve the memory problem at least to enjoy the performance gains.

[Jorden]

Last time I upgraded my CPU to my P3, I just went to device manager in Windows Safe Mode, deleted ALL entries there, shut down the PC, took the P2 out, installed the P3, had my Win98 CD in the CD drive and booted Windows again. It found all my stuff on my mobo again, and installed the drivers for it, plus the SIMD drivers I guess.

That's one way to change your CPU's. You might want to do what xortam has been saying and just reinstall Windows, just on top of the version you have now. That won't take as long as the 7.5 hours you tested your RAM.

The fatal execption occurs to be in your Virtual Memory Manager, so you might want to reset your swap file as well. Either let Windows manage it (if it didn't do so already), or set it to another drive (if possible) for some time being.

Jord.

[Brian R.]

I asked about your OS history. Since you didn't do a reinstall of Windows, my opinion is that you should. Reinstall all software.

[antdude]

I FIGURED IT OUT! Read on!

I decided to fiddle with the CPU L2 Cache options. I disabled both CPU L2 cache and its ECC Checking, rebooted, and bam everything works! Games worked! No more BSoDs, errors, kicking me out to desktop, etc. I can finally do a simple search in my Registry Editor! No BSOD! I ran a benchmark to see how slow the system is, and man it was slower than a P2 450 Mhz! I ran Q3A and UT demos and played a few games. NO PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!!!!! I turned on L2 Cache, but left ECC disabled. Crash!

Okay, now does this mean my CPU is bad? Are both L2 caches on the Intel Pentium III CPU? Any other ideas to test this? Does this mean my 256 MB of RAM is ok? I look forward to receiving replies soon.

[HollyBerri]

Errrr, antdude.... you know how we all go wild here when someone says, "Hey, I fixed the problem with my G400 by turning off busmastering"? You know, how about a hundred people post that doing so is only a troubleshooting procedure, not a fix, and that the performance degradation makes it a really <u>bad idea</u>?

Well, turning off the L2 cache is about a trillion times worse.

I had that same board, also revision A. It's a nice board, but I've gotta say that I think you're pushing such an old board (current model is revision D and I felt that it was much improved) to put a high-end CPU that did not exist at the time the board was designed, at the highest speed the board will take (and that only after a BIOS update, furthermore). So I'm not surprised you're having trouble, the board doesn't like being pushed much in my experience, though it's very stable as long as you don't stress it.

But really, you need to reformat and reinstall. Windows doesn't like adding new hardware in the 'System Devices' section of the Device manager. At the very least, go to Safe Mode, delete <u>all</u> devices and then let Windows redetect in normal mode.

But turning off L2 is NO solution whatsoever.

-------------------------------
Holly

[antdude]

Yeah, I noticed it is slow as my P2 300. Hmmph. Ugh!

[Wombat]

Maybe the old RAM is bad?

If you had a PII 300 in there, the old RAM was only running at 66MHz. Do you have any reason to believe that your old RAM can handle 100MHz?

[antdude]

Wombat: When I bought my P2 system in July 1998, it did say it was PC100. I wonder if memory can affect L2 cache. I doubt that. Sheesh, so many variables to think about.

[xortam]

L2 cache is embedded in the Pentium processors. Disabling L2 may help you in diagnosing the problem but you definitely don't want to normally run your system that way. Again, check your memory. Pull out the new memory module. Is all of your memory SPD? If not, check that the memory timings are set in the BIOS correctly. If the two modules timing requirements differ, you will have to run them at the slower speed. Make sure your FSB is set correctly (100 MHz, check MB setting and via Sandra or such). Pay special attention to the FSB speed because that could explain your L2 experiment. What's your CPU temperature? You may be inadvertently OC'ing it.