Are Bulldozers this terrible or do I have a bad motherboard?

Ok..with the original hdd(no fresh install of win7)...it failed the Overdrive Stability test...With a fresh install of windows on another drive it past an hour. I'm going to run it all night and see how it goes.
 
And the system just restarted....I'm sooooo tempted to just give up on AMD and RMA the board and chip and just get a 2500k.....RMAing chip...a 3rd time.......
 
First two were launch 8120's (forget reviews, I need variety!!) and this 8150 I bought last week.
 
I'd honestly try running half the ram and if it reboots try the other half. It is going to be something stupid like that I bet.
 
I'm giving it one more shot...If I get another bad FX chip, I'm going to avoid AMD for a loooooong time....I could deal with less performance, but 3 bad processors in a row is kind of ridiculous. I've already tested with single, dual and quad ram modules...this chip crashes and burns no matter what hardware I put around it. I have literally changed EVERYTHING except for the case and drives.
 
Wasn't there some sort of weird false failure going on in some of these stability testing tools with the newer chips?

Something seems amiss here.
 
InternationalHat said:
Wasn't there some sort of weird false failure going on in some of these stability testing tools with the newer chips?

Something seems amiss here.
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If it only failed at overdrive, I wouldn't mind...but Dirt Showdown runs like crap now and other games either don't launch or crash...
 
Honestly....I'm so fed up with AMD at this point that if the 8350 makes the i7 3960x look like an Intel Atom, and is sold for $99.99, I would still avoid AMD like a plague. I'll take stability over performance any day of the week.
 
Annoying part is I don't have to play this stupid balancing act of parts and BIOS adjustments with my 2600k...Just drop it in and go. In fact on a lark I stuck all kind of different ram modules on my 2600k and it was still rock solid. I even popped in a Radeon 5850 and tried running a GTS 450 for physics...didn't work but otherwise the system was rock solid stable....It's BS like getting 3 bad CPUs in a row that gives Intel Fanboys so much freaking ammunition....
 
Here's a tiny cross section of what I've tried in order to find out that I've gotten 3 Dud Zambezi's in a row.

qZA2X.jpg
 
I seriously don't think you've received 1 bad cpu much less 3 in a row. They are extremely rare. But having fought a couple previous systems that seemed unstable no matter what, I understand the frustration!

Try all stock settings, but 1 memory stick with extra mem voltage and relaxed mem timings/speed and cl2, etc. Try Prime95 blend, IBT, and OCCT too -- maybe one of them tickle the issue faster than Overdrive Stability tester. I agree that I've had more ram finickiness issues on my amd systems.
 
xorbe said:
I seriously don't think you've received 1 bad cpu much less 3 in a row. They are extremely rare. But having fought a couple previous systems that seemed unstable no matter what, I understand the frustration!

Try all stock settings, but 1 memory stick with extra mem voltage and relaxed mem timings/speed and cl2, etc. Try Prime95 blend, IBT, and OCCT too -- maybe one of them tickle the issue faster than Overdrive Stability tester. I agree that I've had more ram finickiness issues on my amd systems.
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Issue is I shouldn't have to do that (mius IBT, I already tried all that and it failed every time) to get a system to run stable at STOCK. I've tried every stick of DDR3 I own, underclocked, changed their voltage, tried 1, 2 or 3...even a bunch of different PSUs again, every videocard I have(think every card from the GTX275 and Radeon 4890 up to a GTX670 and my buddies Radeon 7970)Oh, and btw the 1090t and 965 run epically on this Asus Board. The depressing fact of the matter is, I got 3 Bad Bulldozers in a row.
 
Rauelius said:
Issue is I shouldn't have to do that (mius IBT, I already tried all that and it failed every time) to get a system to run stable at STOCK. I've tried every stick of DDR3 I own, underclocked, changed their voltage, tried 1, 2 or 3...even a bunch of different PSUs again, every videocard I have(think every card from the GTX275 and Radeon 4890 up to a GTX670 and my buddies Radeon 7970)Oh, and btw the 1090t and 965 run epically on this Asus Board. The depressing fact of the matter is, I got 3 Bad Bulldozers in a row.
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I think you meant AsRock which is known for not being very consistent with quality parts in the first place.

I am pretty sure your problem is with the motherboard, not the CPUs.
 
Skillz said:
I think you meant AsRock which is known for not being very consistent with quality parts in the first place.

I am pretty sure your problem is with the motherboard, not the CPUs.
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False, It acted the same in my Asus 990FX and ASRock 970X. It's yet another bad chip....unless the Asus Board and ASRock board are both bad.
 
or the slim possibility that the AsRock motherboard damaged the CPU. Are we talking about the 3rd CPU you got, the 8150 that you tired in the AsRock motherboard first?

Getting a bad CPU from either Intel or AMD is very, very rare.
 
My friend had an nforce board that would just slightly damage any stick of ram you put in it under certain conditions. It took him over a year to figure out what was happening.

How does the voltage look when it's crashing? I wonder if you're not getting one of the power cables seated properly
 
Skillz said:
or the slim possibility that the AsRock motherboard damaged the CPU. Are we talking about the 3rd CPU you got, the 8150 that you tired in the AsRock motherboard first?

Getting a bad CPU from either Intel or AMD is very, very rare.
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That thought is the only thing keeping me from returning the Asus 990FX and 8150 and just getting a 3770k. The confusing part is my Phenom II 955, 965, and 1090t work well on both boards, but whenever I put an 8120 or 8150 It's just problems not only with testing/benchmarking programs, but I get REALLY bad performance and graphic glitches in games and crashes (not the video card, I've tried almost every videocard released the last 5 years and it crashes with the 8150 and is stable and silky smooth on the 955/965/1090t)

My worry is, if the ASRock 970x damaged the chip, could the chip of damaged the Asus 990FX, so I will keep getting this revolving issue until I get a new cpu AND new motherboard...I'm tempted to RMA the Asus Board to.

:edit: whenever I got the chip at first it did run well. My handbrake times were great and the games ran very well (indistinguishable from the 2600k when using the same GPU and played at a resolution people actually use - 1920x1080) and after a while the performance deteriorated and I got graphic issues and crashes. For example, the first 8120 I got ran well for a day....then it was crash city....RMA'd it and the next one was solid for a day...then crash city...then I got this 8150 stable for a couple days...then I got massive stuttering in Arkham City (BTW, how do I unauthorize this game?!?!) and graphic issues with Dirt Showdown. It could be possible that the ASRock 970x is killing these chips as they all were first put on that board. I have yet to try a fresh chip on the Asus 990FX.
 
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Definitive test would be to swap this cpu into a known good (stock-settings) system with the same cpu.

Which brings to the thought of, is the cpu HSF making proper contact ...
 
Yeah I'm not sure the chip could damage the motherboard. I suppose anything is possible though.

What I would do, is RMA both the ASUS motherboard and the 8150 chip. When you get the new items, if they are still bad then two things.

1. They just returned the same shit back to you.
2. It's something else that's causing the problem.
 
Rauelius said:
:edit: whenever I got the chip at first it did run well. My handbrake times were great and the games ran very well (indistinguishable from the 2600k when using the same GPU and played at a resolution people actually use - 1920x1080) and after a while the performance deteriorated and I got graphic issues and crashes. For example, the first 8120 I got ran well for a day....then it was crash city....RMA'd it and the next one was solid for a day...then crash city...then I got this 8150 stable for a couple days...then I got massive stuttering in Arkham City (BTW, how do I unauthorize this game?!?!) and graphic issues with Dirt Showdown. It could be possible that the ASRock 970x is killing these chips as they all were first put on that board. I have yet to try a fresh chip on the Asus 990FX.
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Ah now that's interesting and definitely changes the game.

Maybe the voltage regulation on the Asrock board is off for the BD and it's screwing up the chip... possibly jacking up the voltage on turbo. Is there any way you can test that? Open HWMonitor or something and watch it run when doing cpu intensive tasks... or find something to log the voltage.
 
InternationalHat said:
Ah now that's interesting and definitely changes the game.

Maybe the voltage regulation on the Asrock board is off for the BD and it's screwing up the chip... possibly jacking up the voltage on turbo. Is there any way you can test that? Open HWMonitor or something and watch it run when doing cpu intensive tasks... or find something to log the voltage.
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Software monitoring would be too inaccurate and too slow, unless it's a sustained increase in voltage, but that would have also manifested itself with high temps. If it is voltage related its probably causing severe overshoots that last for milliseconds.
 
So, theoretically, it could be the 970X board overvolting the chip, damaging it and hence it doesn't work on the 990FX. And since the way turbo's work on Zambezi are different than that of Thuban and Zosma, when the 970x tried turboing on a Zambezi it would way over volt it, causing damage to the chip. That would make much more sense than AMD crapping out defective processors and making sure that NewEgg only sends the defective chips to me.
 
Skillz said:
Yeah I'm not sure the chip could damage the motherboard. I suppose anything is possible though.

What I would do, is RMA both the ASUS motherboard and the 8150 chip. When you get the new items, if they are still bad then two things.

1. They just returned the same shit back to you.
2. It's something else that's causing the problem.
Click to expand...

Short of replacing the Case, I've tried every combination of hardware possible(I was desperate enough to try two different sets of SSDs and DVD drives....)
 
Rauelius said:
So, theoretically, it could be the 970X board overvolting the chip, damaging it and hence it doesn't work on the 990FX. And since the way turbo's work on Zambezi are different than that of Thuban and Zosma, when the 970x tried turboing on a Zambezi it would way over volt it, causing damage to the chip. That would make much more sense than AMD crapping out defective processors and making sure that NewEgg only sends the defective chips to me.
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I think that's the working theory you should go on at this point. The next chip you get should just go straight into the ASUS board.

Now, the rub is if it works, is it becuase of the board or is it because you finally got a good chip? The only way to know would be to put it back in the ASRock board for a few days. Your level of curiosity will determine if you want to take that risk. lol

Good luck
 
RamonGTP said:
I think that's the working theory you should go on at this point. The next chip you get should just go straight into the ASUS board.

Now, the rub is if it works, is it becuase of the board or is it because you finally got a good chip? The only way to know would be to put it back in the ASRock board for a few days. Your level of curiosity will determine if you want to take that risk. lol

Good luck
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I will not take that risk, I'd put the ASRock for sale on the For sale section with the qualifier that it works ONLY with Deneb, Thuban and Zosma. But won't...I'm just junking the board...ASRock's RMA process seems like a PITA.
 
you have a odd problem.

i haven't had an issues with my 8120 and gigabyte 990fx ud3.

on second note, what speed are you running your ram? and size modules do you have?
 
Mobo dude... my 6 core dozer runs rock solid 24/7. On my Gigabyte 990FX board as a server.
 
ebduncan said:
you have a odd problem.

i haven't had an issues with my 8120 and gigabyte 990fx ud3.

on second note, what speed are you running your ram? and size modules do you have?
Click to expand...

I've tried multiple ram modules rated at multiple speeds. The 1600 ones I under-clocked to 1333.
 
RMAing the whole shebang....I'll come back to AMD when the 8350 comes out. Running stock shouldn't have me go through all this. Gonna use a spare P67, pop my 2600k in it and get a 3770k for my Z77 with the return money. I never had so many problems with my 1090t, 965, 955, 2120, 2600k, Q6600, Q9650...pretty much all my previous CPUs would just work no problem stock, and when OCing came into question, THEN I had to bother....But my favorite two to overclock, Q6600 @ 3.6Ghz and 1090t @ 4.2Ghz were painless to get to those points.
 
Rauelius said:
RMAing the whole shebang....I'll come back to AMD when the 8350 comes out. Running stock shouldn't have me go through all this. Gonna use a spare P67, pop my 2600k in it and get a 3770k for my Z77 with the return money. I never had so many problems with my 1090t, 965, 955, 2120, 2600k, Q6600, Q9650...pretty much all my previous CPUs would just work no problem stock, and when OCing came into question, THEN I had to bother....But my favorite two to overclock, Q6600 @ 3.6Ghz and 1090t @ 4.2Ghz were painless to get to those points.
Click to expand...

Some guys are having problems with the Ivy CPUs and instability characterized by initial load heat spikes due to the TIM under the heatspreader. Good luck. It seems like this generation of processors sucks a lot more than the last.
 
My 8120 loves my ASUS Sabertooth 990 FX. Been OC'd at 4.2 since launch. Of course it can go much higher but then I have to think about things like heat. Just easier at 4.2. Really should push it a bit more though...

Off to the bios!
 
my 8150 was having problems running at stock as well.
Originally was using an Asus M5A97 and a brand new 850w psu, single sata HDD, no optical, 4x 4gb Corsair ddr3 sticks (1600mhz rated but i ran them at 1333)
the psu started to make ticking noises since day one of putting it all together, temps were 40'c idle, almost 70'c under prime95 until it rebooted or shut off.
Decided to take it to work and try a new in box PSU we keep for spares (also 850w)..this one was better, but also had ticking..just at the end of a W7 install, it shut off as expected (press enter to reboot message) it didnt power back on, as Im looking at the connections, out of the corner of my eye i see some smoke...PSU went!
now I tried a 1000w PSU (also new in box) and it still ticked, and the temps were crazy as well.
RMA'd the Asus and got an ASRock 970 Extreme3, no ticking but still high temps (high CPUTIN temps which I think is the northrbidge chipset?)
This was all at default/auto/stock settings in the bios, with the memory underclocked to 1333, i actually have it running 3.6ghz with 1.15v on the cpu..undervolted go figure.
I think i got one of the bum Zambezi too!
 
InternationalHat said:
Some guys are having problems with the Ivy CPUs and instability characterized by initial load heat spikes due to the TIM under the heatspreader. Good luck. It seems like this generation of processors sucks a lot more than the last.
Click to expand...

No, they're not. Did you just make that up? Show me where someone had stability issues characterized by initial load heat spikes due to the TIM under the heat spreader. I'd love to see this as I've been frequenting the intel forum here and the CPU forum at AT and have never seen a single case much less "some guys"
 
InternationalHat said:
Some guys are having problems with the Ivy CPUs and instability characterized by initial load heat spikes due to the TIM under the heatspreader. Good luck. It seems like this generation of processors sucks a lot more than the last.
Click to expand...

Your scaring me about getting and IB for my main..
 
dbwillis said:
my 8150 was having problems running at stock as well.
Originally was using an Asus M5A97 and a brand new 850w psu, single sata HDD, no optical, 4x 4gb Corsair ddr3 sticks (1600mhz rated but i ran them at 1333)
the psu started to make ticking noises since day one of putting it all together, temps were 40'c idle, almost 70'c under prime95 until it rebooted or shut off.
Decided to take it to work and try a new in box PSU we keep for spares (also 850w)..this one was better, but also had ticking..just at the end of a W7 install, it shut off as expected (press enter to reboot message) it didnt power back on, as Im looking at the connections, out of the corner of my eye i see some smoke...PSU went!
now I tried a 1000w PSU (also new in box) and it still ticked, and the temps were crazy as well.
RMA'd the Asus and got an ASRock 970 Extreme3, no ticking but still high temps (high CPUTIN temps which I think is the northrbidge chipset?)
This was all at default/auto/stock settings in the bios, with the memory underclocked to 1333, i actually have it running 3.6ghz with 1.15v on the cpu..undervolted go figure.
I think i got one of the bum Zambezi too!
Click to expand...

It sucks man...don't wanna say I'm glad I'm not alone, but it's actually sad that the QC over at AMD has apparently collapsed into itself like a neutron star. I went through 3 Zambezi's (2x 8120's and this 8150) each one with the same issue and across 2 boards.
 
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