Problem with dual xeon rig and folding

[someguynamedmat]

Guys, in my sig is the comp I am talking about. It's a dual 1.6GHz Xeon machine oc'ed at 3.2GHz. We all know it can take it with a good stable PSU and the voltmod. Well anyways, for some reason it just locks up really bad when folding. I can't figure it out for the life of me. It ahs never done this before a few days ago. It's always been in the same general spot until I moved it today. Airflow is fine, but my temps are a tad high. 52C at full load. Are temps the issue or something else. BTW folding completely locks up the system and I have to reboot via the button. It'll lock itself typically in the screen saver. BTW my sempron system does the same thing, but at full load enclosed the cpu stays at 40C. Could it be a folding bug? Help me out as this rebooting issue is really hurting my production. Also a side note, does this when 2 OR 4 instances are running.

[HotRod]

Have you done a de-frag lately????

Also try to run check disk

[KillerBeagle]

How about a virus scan too? What's in the event log - "the previous system shutdown at xxx was unexpected", or nothing at all?

Have you run any of the other standard stress tests that people on these forums use, and if so for how long? I use Sandra's burnin test with just the CPU benchmark, but there may be other programs that have a load closer to what folding does.

[someguynamedmat]

I'm going to do the defrag as well as some other stress tests, but what I don't understand is that it has been stable since I first built it, and then about a week and a half ago it's doign this. Will report back with resutls.

[AruisDante]

sound like it might be a virus or a corrupted bit of data to me.

[someguynamedmat]

No virii and just ran a diskeeper. I am ashamed to say it was rather bad. It's currently running 4instances right now and hasn't hiccuped since. For some dumb reason I never installed diskeeper and I think that may have been the problem. Thanks for the input guys and if it happens again, I'll let you know. OMG Murphy's law... it JUST rebooted as soon as I got done typing the first part. OMG Any other ideas?

[AkXb70]

ive never defragged any of my folding machines

someguynamedmat, just a heads up. for the xeon, if youre running bandwidth intensive core's (such as QMD's when they come back out) one instance per physical core will yield better PPD due to the fsb bottleneck. for normal units like theyre issuing now though, your current method of 4 threads is probably better

[someguynamedmat]

I knew about the QMD's and running only two instances, but thanks for the heads up. I am just about ready to just tear it down and put it back up again. I just moved it and am thinking about putting a blow hole in it for more exhaust. Maybe that'll help, but I don't know. Each CPU is 54C while folding, which is fairly warm, but these processors are supposed to be stable even higher than that, I thought.

Again, OT, I've run regscrubxp, diskeeper, avg, prime95, superpi. All have come back either all clear, or passed.

[AruisDante]

hmmm.... try... lowering clock speed and see if it's a stabiltiy issue...

*edit* just got beat to the post... hmmm... well, i'd still try it just in case...

[HotRod]

Just a thought.........With all the big WU's out there running high memory.......How about mem-test.

How is the northbridge.......it may be getting too hot.

[KillerBeagle]

How about a physical checkup? Are all the fans still running? Do you have any dust accumulation on the heatsinks or fan grills? You said it's been running fine for quite a while, but that stuff can really build up on any computer that's not in a "clean room" environment.

[DriveEuro]

I would put a fan on the NB. I've had maybe 8 PC-DLs in the past... and the NB gets REALLY warm. I have an 80mm fan kinda screwed into the VRM heatsink so it cools the ram, VRM and NB. Give it a try.

[someguynamedmat]

Well guys I finally figured it out, all credit going to KillerBeagle! Mad props my friend. I too a look at everything and indeed it was a heat related issue. We've been having some rather dry weather lately and a lot of dust and crap has gotten into the air. Without ANY filters on some dirt built up. I'm going to do some case modding and possibly some salvaging. I just wanted to make sure that everything was in top notch shape before selling the system. If anyone is interested, please see the fs/wtb section.

[HeySteve]

well done on getting it back up mate

[KillerBeagle]

Glad I could help! With all the beagles in my house, I have seen that kind of problem too many times myself...

[MrObvious]

Just get to it. That's your orders .
Meh!

[someguynamedmat]

Orders? I don't need no stinkin orders.

Hey anyone got any of those 781 pointers? I just did. It'll take 50 hours to do. That's a lot of points on a single core xeon.