Comments for: Tweaking the Phenom 9600 Black Edition

#35. Posted at 08:22 PM on Mar 16th 2008

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loophole

The article mentions boards that have Phenom support but in a separate BIOS to the normal Athlon 64 BIOS because of BIOS ROM size constraints, what boards currently do this?

Thanks!

#7. Posted at 06:04 PM on Feb 12th 2008, Edited at 06:08 PM on Feb 12th 2008

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firewired

Good article, Damage, of particular interest for me.

I have a 9600 Black Edition Phenom, and I've been struggling with what I believe is a rather unique not-so-little problem with it.

It runs fine at stock 2.3GHz speeds in 32-bit XP or Vista, but it BSOD's when using any 64-bit Vista OS (I don't have a 64-bit XP to try that one).

I have, over the last month, systematically narrowed down the possible causes of this problem to either one of the following or a combination of the following or a compatibility of the following: mainboard, BIOS, or the Phenom CPU itself. All other parts have been ruled-out.

And get this... this is the really good part - the system runs 64-bit Vista just fine if I under-clock the CPU to 2.0GHz. The moment I pump it up to anything above that, let alone the stock 2.3GHz, the system crashes with the notorious BSOD, with a lovely little error of:

"Windows did not receive an interrupt from a secondary processor within the allotted time period."

I am hoping this is a mainboard BIOS issue (I have an ASRock ALive NF7G-HDready mATX mainboard which is supposed to support this processor with this BIOS revision). It's an nForce 7050/630a chipset mainboard, and yes folks it runs X2's and overclocks them just fine).

I'm dealing with ASrock and will update if I hear anything back from them, but if it is not a BIOS problem then it is a Phenom CPU problem. Since the CPU works fine in 32-bit Windows at 2.3GHz I have to presume the problem is with the BIOS...

#7, I have a older Asrock board that isn't quite right either. I... : FubbHead (#21) «

#7, Update... Further testing has revealed that 32-bit Vista has ... : firewired (#32) «

#7, This is a problem that I've seen quite a few posts on forums... : srg86 (#33) «

#33, Yeah, thanks for the info. This is definitely a problem. ... : firewired (#34) «

#31. Posted at 05:50 PM on Feb 17th 2008

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oldDummy

hmm...no thank you.

#20. Posted at 11:26 AM on Feb 13th 2008, Edited at 11:27 AM on Feb 13th 2008

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marvelous

Not a bad processor but then again core 2 and quads are massive overclockers and better buy.

#20, I have hit 2.7 on all 4 cores on my Phenom and passed a 1hr ... : charged3800z24 (#25) «

#25, Congrats, but a Qxxxx will still clock higher and get bet... : Nitrodist (#26) «

#26, As I said, I wish there was more head room in these as... : charged3800z24 (#27) «

#27, doesn't crysis have a lot more to do with your grap... : green (#29) «

#29, Look at the CPU bench marks on this site.. You c... : charged3800z24 (#30) «

#28. Posted at 05:15 PM on Feb 14th 2008

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Jypster

That wold have to be one of the more disapointing overclocking articles I have read on this site. Bigger cooler, CPU voltage and play with the multiplier... That's it ? ohh sorry forgot flash a BIOS

" turned the knobs and dials " Sort of lead me to think that this was going to be something interesting. Maybe next time

#2. Posted at 04:24 PM on Feb 12th 2008

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Voldenuit

I've long used Prime95 for this task, because I like how it throws an error when it gets a wrong result, even if the error isn't enough to cause a system crash. However, firing up four instances of Prime95 is a bit of a chore

Scott, Prime95 v25.5 and up allow you to set multiple worker threads. No more need for multiple instances.

Might be useful when you're stress testing systems that aren't compatible with Overdrive.

#2, Ah, cool. Good to know. : Damage (#3) «

#3, Wait, why aren't you using orthos? It just makes things e... : provoko (#22) «

#22, Orthos only spawns 2 threads afaik. : crazybus (#24) «

#2, Where does one find this elusive v25.5 and up? Every time I ... : bdwilcox (#5) «

#5, http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Home-Education/Prime9... : derFunkenstein (#6) «

#6, I meant an official link. I don't know where Softpedia... : bdwilcox (#11) «

#11, ftp://mersenne.org/gimps Newer versions are on their... : crazybus (#15) «

#15, Thanks. Had no idea about their FTP site. Looked... : bdwilcox (#16) «

#2, Bit of a chore? Copy and pasting three shortcuts while changi... : DASQ (#10) «

#23. Posted at 12:35 PM on Feb 13th 2008

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ryuasiu

I was kind of hoping of hearing how well the Phenoms worked on the Asus M2N32-SLI deluxe board sense I have one as well, and was thinking about getting a Phenom for it but no one has gone in-depth on how well it works.

#18. Posted at 02:38 AM on Feb 13th 2008, Edited at 09:27 AM on Feb 13th 2008

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Fighterpilot

Semi Ninja edit ....

#18, You really want to get TR into trouble? : Flying Fox (#19) «

#12. Posted at 08:12 PM on Feb 12th 2008, Edited at 08:13 PM on Feb 12th 2008

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Gambini

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/248265-28-phenom-exposed-shipping...

Sorry if it is "illegal" to post a link to another forum, but that is a thread worth looking at. It says something about the 3rd core being a setback. I didn't read the review word for word, but I don't think anything of the sort was mentioned.