Installed a Phenom II x4 965 - getting program crashes and problems

hypernexus · 09 Jan 2013

Hi everyone.

Not sure if my spec will show up under this post. If not, will upload on response.

Bottom line,I have just installed a new AMD Phenom II x4 965 3.4ghz quad(it's showing 4ghz on core temp) Black Edition, upgraded from my Athlon 64 x2 chip. I have an am2+ mobo, that was flashed for am3 by previous user for his 6 core.

The installation was correct, no problem booting etc, temperatures all good, but I am getting constant crashes on programs that were absolutely fine yesterday and from before. Even firefox crashes, but mainly a few games like Prince of Persia and Warframe as examples. Both of these games run absolutely fine before the new install.

I did a SiSandra check, and it came up at the end of the spec saying ' FSB exceeds Chipset rated speed - reduce FSB', 'memory hole may not be required-check bios settings' 'tpm not detected'. Sisandra also did not recognise the Phenom, still listing the athlon?

Now, the only thing that springs to mind is that, as this is a Black edition, it may be already in overclock - the specs are showing it as a 4ghz whereas as standard it should a 3.4ghz. I have not manually overclocked it, but could it have done this because the mobo has flashed bios for a 6 core or something?

If anyone could help, it would be great, as it was running perfectly stable before the new cpu was installed.

Thanks

Quick spec: ASrock mobo am2+(flashed to am3); Phenom ii x4 965BE; Arctic Freezer fan; ocz 750w psu;130gb hdd; Nvidia Geforce GT240;6 gb ddr2 cosrair ram

Dwarf · 09 Jan 2013

Hi hypernexus and welcome to W7 Forums

Reset the BIOS to its defaults by removing the motherboard battery and/or using the appropriate motherboard jumper (see manual for details). Replace the battery and remove the jumper (if you used the jumper method) and enter the BIOS when you reboot. Is everything recognised, bearing in mind that any settings adjustments you previously made (e.g. overclocking) will be reset to their defaults. Leave these settings as they are (but reset your date/time so that they are correct), save settings and reboot.

Run it at those settings for a while, and see if it is now stable. Any problems, please pop back.

hypernexus · 09 Jan 2013

Mobo battery trick worked. Cpu showing 3.4 in all spec thingies.

No crashes as of yet. Played 15 mins of Prince of Persia (the 'crash within 30secs' game) with no probs.

Thank you very much mate.

Fingers crossed that's all it'll take. I'll keep an eye on the cpu.

Cheers

Dwarf · 10 Jan 2013

You're welcome. :)

Leave it running at stock settings for a while to make sure everything is working correctly and then, if you wish, begin overclocking but do it carefully. The Black editions of AMD processors are the direct counterpart of the K-series of Intel CPUs, in that they are unlocked which allows for easy overclocking. My guess is that you overclocked your previous CPU and then just dropped the current one in, expecting that it would be able to cope (which, in theory, it might have done). However, CPUs do have a limit and it could well be that the previous settings that you had took it over that limit. In most systems, where Cool'n'Quiet or SpeedStep are enabled, you only notice the problems when running CPU-intensive applications, such as games.

hypernexus · 10 Jan 2013

I think that's what happened (previous overclock), although it wasn't me who overclocked it, so I didn't realise it was overclocked.

What you say about cool n quiet etc is probably bang on as I mainly had problems with games.

I'll be leaving it default for a long time, don't want to push it. It's already given me a nice spike fps on games like hawken which was very rough before and now is nice and smooth at higher settings than before.

Thanks.