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Skylake crashed --- will there be survivors !!!!


abarbarian

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Me main Skylake rig plummeted to earth this morning with no warnings.

 

Fire up the rig and it goes runs through an extensive boot process which results in  C1 code. Stops then beeeps and runs through the same routine.

 

I have replaced the coms battery but it made no difference.

 

Ci may be an indication that it is a memory fault or possibly a psu fault. Hope it is not the psu as I replaced that in the last year. Darn bad timing if it is the memory as I will have missed out on any Black Friday deals.

 

Connecting with good (very) old Tough Book an if this goes t**ts up I guess I will have to dust of and fire up one of the other ancient relics I have lying around.

 

You stand up you get knocked down - repeat indefinitely. 🤣

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Looks like the error code was spot on.

 

I have four sticks of ram. Took them out one by one and after taking out three the pc booted. So I have a working pc with one 8GB stick of ram.

 

As to if I have faulty ram or a faulty ram socket I still have to find out.  Process will be a tad tricky as I have a very large Noctua NH-D15 cpu cooler with two fans so there is not a great deal of clearance above the ram.

 

https://noctua.at/en/nh-d15

 

Quote

High RAM compatibility in single fan mode

Thanks to its recessed lower fins, the NH-D15 provides 64mm clearance for tall memory heatsinks in single fan mode, making it compatible with most high end RAM modules on the market. In dual fan mode, the NH-D15 should be used with standard height RAM (up to 32mm).*

 

Quote

*In chassis with more than 165mm CPU cooler clearance, the front fan can be moved upwards to make room for memory modules taller than 32mm.

 

inrq311.png

 

Seems like I built this rig in Nov 2015 so it has not had a bad run as I used to do 24/7 WCG Bonic computing for cancer for quite a few years. Notice the cpu water cooler , well that cracked on me and I gave up on water cooling and went with the Noctua.

 

As you can see the room may have changed but I never did manage to fashion a wooden case for the rig. No problem though as it has plenty of cooling.

 

18rqMaQ.jpg

 

😎

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21 hours ago, crp said:

did you check for dust particle stuck in a bad place yet?

 

20 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

I often have socket issues with mobos. Heat, dust, age, cheapness of manufacturing, etc. all contribute.

 

Water-Extinguisher.jpg

 

I have a large one of the above that a local shop cleaned out and adapted for me to deal with dust. I take it to my local garage and they fill it full of compressed air up to I think 120 lb/sq/". It shifts the dust from my rig in seconds. I generally do this once a year around spring time. 😎

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7 hours ago, abarbarian said:

 

 

Water-Extinguisher.jpg

 

I have a large one of the above that a local shop cleaned out and adapted for me to deal with dust. I take it to my local garage and they fill it full of compressed air up to I think 120 lb/sq/". It shifts the dust from my rig in seconds. I generally do this once a year around spring time. 😎

 

The trouble with compressed air is it can blow dust into places as well as away from...

I always use a vacuum cleaner with a thin nozzle duck-taped to the end of the hose, and a soft paintbrush. Make the nozzle out of non-metal, lately I use the cardboard tube from empty toilet paper roll reshaped into a narrow cone. Then clean contacts with isopropyl alcohol. Note to self:- time to do this, and put new thermal paste on GPU.

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V.T. Eric Layton

I usually just take mine out to the sidewalk in back and pressure wash it. That gives it a good "deep" cleaning. Of course, you have to wait a while for everything to dry before plugging in/powering on. ;)

 

maxresdefault.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=5182a47

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding, of course. Don't try this at home, kids. 🤪

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On 12/2/2022 at 9:42 PM, sunrat said:

 

The trouble with compressed air is it can blow dust into places as well as away from...

I always use a vacuum cleaner with a thin nozzle duck-taped to the end of the hose, and a soft paintbrush. Make the nozzle out of non-metal, lately I use the cardboard tube from empty toilet paper roll reshaped into a narrow cone. Then clean contacts with isopropyl alcohol. Note to self:- time to do this, and put new thermal paste on GPU.

 

I have a vacuum cleaner running with the nozzle strategically placed as I blow the dust out. So far this has worked well over the last few years.😎

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Well after extensive testing I think all my memory sticks are fine as they all work if I just have one installed.

 

I did manage to fire up the pc with two sticks in dual mode slots but it only worked twice.

 

The pc fires up with one stick in any of the four slots.

 

I have an add on PCIE card to run my nvme ssd from. In bios I get the nvme showing as one entry and Arch Boot on the PCIE card showing as another entry. Every now and again during testing only only the nvme ssd entry would show on those occasions the pc would not boot. So I tried to boot with a usb stick with MX on it. The pc would boot but show a refind boot up in the monitor and show entries for Arch as well as MX. Both Arch and MX would boot up from this boot up screen but not every time.

This was puzzling as it meant that the add in PCIE card must be working or at least sort of. Why it would not boot up when there was not a usb stick involved was a mystery.Also why would the pc boot up as normal with just the one stick of memory. This led me to believe that the PCIE card was working as it should and the problem lay elsewhere.

The bios would show one stick of memory installed with just one stick. It also showed one stick installed when two sticks were installed but sometimes would show two sticks installed.

 

During testing the memory I got strange messages when trying to boot. Such as,

Black unresponsive screen with --- No boot found connect boot medium and press a key

Getting to log in on Arch but -- there is a problem with a usb port pleas reconfigure in bios

MX would start to run but hang halfway through leaving an unresponsive screen

 

and several others.

 

This has led me to believe that the mobo is failing, or the new psu is faulty or possibly the cpu needs fresh paste and reseating.

 

I have no idea how to test the psu. I could hook up another psu and test that way but it is a bit of a pain.

This type of mobo is as rare as hens teeth here in the UK due to the age of the platform. I have located one of only three new offerings which would be ok but cost would be £110.

I could apply fresh paste to the cpu but my MX-4 syringe is nearly empty and is quite old, probably still useful though. So I ordered some MX-6 as it is my cheapest option for problem solving at the moment. If it does not work and I need a new mobo it will come in handy.

I am not convinced that it is faulty paste on the cpu as temps are stable and I have had no other indications of faulty cpu behaviour.

 

So at the moment I am running on one 8 GB stick and a hope and a prayer.Whilst waiting for the new paste to arrive I may try the replacement psu. A faulty psu would probably be the best outcome as it is still under warranty but I seriously doubt if it is the cause.

 

Meanwhile my trusty very very old Tough Book is living up to its name and ploughing on remarkably well if a little slowly.

 

😎

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V.T. Eric Layton

When booting up, do you hear your Post Beep? If so, how many beeps/duration are you hearing when the unit does NOT boot properly. Also, what is the manufacturer of your mobo. Beep codes can be VERY helpful in determining issues; at least pointing you in the right direction.

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V.T. Eric Layton
4 hours ago, abarbarian said:

I have no idea how to test the psu.

 

All you need is a volt meter and the pin-out/color code for your particular  PSU; easily found on the Internet.

 

- unplug the main connector from the PSU to the mobo (all voltages are present on that plug)

- you can usually "activate" (turn on the PSU) by shorting two pins on the plug.... often the dark green wire & any black wire (GND). This fools the PSU into thinking it's receiving the "turn on" notice from the PSU.

- once you have it powered up, you can check each of the voltages (+12, -12, +5, -5, etc.)

 

I doubt, though, that this is a PSU issue. It still sounds to me like an intermittently working RAM socket... or possibly bad solder joint on the back side of the socket (quite a common problem in cheap crap Chinese stuff these days, sadly).

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23 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

 

All you need is a volt meter and the pin-out/color code for your particular  PSU; easily found on the Internet.

 

- unplug the main connector from the PSU to the mobo (all voltages are present on that plug)

- you can usually "activate" (turn on the PSU) by shorting two pins on the plug.... often the dark green wire & any black wire (GND). This fools the PSU into thinking it's receiving the "turn on" notice from the PSU.

- once you have it powered up, you can check each of the voltages (+12, -12, +5, -5, etc.)

 

I doubt, though, that this is a PSU issue. It still sounds to me like an intermittently working RAM socket... or possibly bad solder joint on the back side of the socket (quite a common problem in cheap crap Chinese stuff these days, sadly).

You can't just lick the ends?  

                                                      :)

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V.T. Eric Layton
2 hours ago, crp said:

You can't just lick the ends?  

                                                      :)

 

That might work. ;)

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9 hours ago, sunrat said:

Testing a PSU with a voltmeter won't detect if it has unstable voltages or intermittent faults. Needs to be under heavy load for best testing.

I'll second that. A couple of years ago I had such an issue. Measured the voltages of the PSU and nothing wrong with it, until the machine actually demanded juice. I then used a 'psu tester' (in my case an ATX type, years ago) which then revealed the culprit: under load one of the voltages went downhill asap and took the 12V line with it. Without load there was obviously nothing wrong with it. And that was with a PSU of 6 months old and certainly not the cheapest model at that time. I regard a psu tester is a must have in the toolbox, it's not expensive either.

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V.T. Eric Layton

Yes and Yes... I most definitely understand this concept of troubleshooting. I've worked on all types of switching power supplies for nearly 40 years. However, the first rule of troubleshooting is to check the simplest things first. And while I have the capabilities to stress test a PSU on my bench out in the shop, most folks don't. Intermittent issues are ALWAYS ball-busters. The best way to eliminate the PSU in that case would be by using a known good "test" PSU. He probably doesn't have one just lying around, though.

 

He has never answered my question about POST beep codes. I would VERY much like to know what the unit is telling him when it fails to boot. That would be QUITE helpful.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/4/2022 at 1:19 PM, raymac46 said:

What happens if you pull the PCI-e card and just boot off the USB stick with no nvme in the system? Can you try another slot for the PCI-e card?

 

Pc boots with the card in a different slot. Not tried with just a usb yet.

 

On 12/4/2022 at 4:11 PM, V.T. Eric Layton said:

When booting up, do you hear your Post Beep? If so, how many beeps/duration are you hearing when the unit does NOT boot properly. Also, what is the manufacturer of your mobo. Beep codes can be VERY helpful in determining issues; at least pointing you in the right direction.

 

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z170X-Gaming-7-rev-10

 

The mobo has a small led screen for post codes. Looks like I get a " C1 " code which means a memory problem.

 

On 12/4/2022 at 4:19 PM, V.T. Eric Layton said:

I doubt, though, that this is a PSU issue. It still sounds to me like an intermittently working RAM socket... or possibly bad solder joint on the back side of the socket (quite a common problem in cheap crap Chinese stuff these days, sadly).

 

 I am coming to the same conclusion.

 

On 12/7/2022 at 6:51 PM, V.T. Eric Layton said:

He probably doesn't have one just lying around, though.

 

He does.  It is a right load of fa**ing around to swap out and check stuff though.

 

On 12/7/2022 at 6:51 PM, V.T. Eric Layton said:

I would VERY much like to know what the unit is telling him when it fails to boot.

 

It says it ain't working 🤣 in code of course 😜

 

Running on a crippled pc at the moment as life has thrown me a curved ball. I need the pc so do not want to chance borking it by fiddling.  Pc seems to run ok with just 8GB ram so will further investigate in the future.

 

Thanks folks for the input. 🤩

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I'm glad to hear you are getting by with "just" 8 GB of RAM. Probably you can do most stuff, maybe not intensive video or photo processing. Don't know how games would be running.

Right now I'm in Linux Mint and I'm only using 2 GB of RAM with a couple tabs on the browser. I have 16GB but I've never come close to using it the way I surf anyway.

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V.T. Eric Layton
4 hours ago, abarbarian said:

Thanks folks for the input. 🤩

 

Well, sometimes ya' just gotta' make do. Maybe Santa will bring you a late Christmas gift of £100,000 or so. ;)

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2 hours ago, raymac46 said:

I'm glad to hear you are getting by with "just" 8 GB of RAM. Probably you can do most stuff, maybe not intensive video or photo processing. Don't know how games would be running.

Right now I'm in Linux Mint and I'm only using 2 GB of RAM with a couple tabs on the browser. I have 16GB but I've never come close to using it the way I surf anyway.

 

Apart from the latest AAA title games most games are happy with less than 8GB or ram. 😎

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2 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

 

Well, sometimes ya' just gotta' make do. Maybe Santa will bring you a late Christmas gift of £100,000 or so. ;)

 

Well I did buy lottery tickets fro Christmas and New year as the Saturday draws will generate 20 or so millionaires each. I could probably manage with a million if I tightened my belt a tad. 😝

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V.T. Eric Layton

Heh! I have 12 Gig on this machine and rarely use more than 2 G.

 

vtel57@ericsbane07~:$ free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          11984        1448        9644          56         891       10038
Swap:          6907           0        6907

 

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22 hours ago, abarbarian said:

 

Well I did buy lottery tickets fro Christmas and New year as the Saturday draws will generate 20 or so millionaires each. I could probably manage with a million if I tightened my belt a tad. 😝

Did you forget about taxes?

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23 hours ago, raymac46 said:

Considering I had maybe 16MB of RAM when I first got online, 8GB doesn't sound too bad.

 

Not quite as bad fro me, I started with a whoooping 128 mb ram. 😛

 

21 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

Heh! I have 12 Gig on this machine and rarely use more than 2 G.

 

Oh go on then rub it in 😝

 

19 hours ago, crp said:

Did you forget about taxes?

 

I live in a civilised country where we do not tax lottery wins. 😁

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V.T. Eric Layton
3 hours ago, abarbarian said:
22 hours ago, crp said:

Did you forget about taxes?

 

I live in a civilised country where we do not tax lottery wins. 😁

 

I'd be more than happy to pay out my taxes right off the top. I have no issues with paying taxes. If I hit a $10M jackpot, they'd scrape about $2.5M for taxes the day I went to collect. That would be fine and dandy with me. YESSIRREE!

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