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auxy
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[REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 9:29 pm

Hi TR! (ノ≧∀≦)ノ

As some of you may have read from my microblogging in the comment threads, I recently broke my i5-3570K. ・゜・(ノД`)
Intel replaced it for me, and I'm back up and running (at 4.4Ghz on stock voltage!! Intel XTU is amazing!) now.

BUT, in the interim, I used a backup machine, an A10-5800K.
I knew it was slower, but I overclocked the CPU bits to 4.4Ghz (the fastest my cheapie Biostar board would go), and figured it would be okay with my GEFORCE GTX TITAN installed.

I was WRONG! The gaming experience on that thing with a discrete GPU was TERRIBLE! 。゚(゚ノД`゚)゚。

Spiky frametime graphs ahoy! My framerates were similar to my usual under light load (nothing happening ingame), but in combat, it was horrible! The recorded framerate would remain relatively steady around 30-40 FPS, but with constant stutters and hitches, sometimes 200ms or longer! Obviously this made the subjective experience pretty bad.

I saw this behavior in these games:
  • RAGE
  • WARFRAME
  • Saint's Row 4
  • Lost Planet 2
  • Borderlands 2
  • Crysis (Warhead / 2 / 3)
  • Blacklight: Retribution
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
Only Space Marine, BL2, LP2, and RAGE were even what I would call playable; everything else was a stuttery, laggy mess (and BL2 and LP2 were not great.) (´;д;`)
Framerates were good, mostly -- Crysis 3 hated the chip (as expected) and Blacklight also ran very poorly (I had no idea it was so RAM-intensive! 。゚(゚ノД`゚)゚。 )

I did some messing around with settings and profiling using Afterburner and Process Hacker, and as far as I can determine, I think the issue, across the board, was memory performance, even though I was running 16GB DDR3-1866 CL9 1T RAM in it. I rarely was fully loaded on the CPU, even on a single core, and my GPU load never went over 50%. (Usually hovering around 25%! Sad! Although I rarely break 60-70% even with my i5 without enabling SSAA.)

Soo, TL;DR, I'd like to see another article exploring and explaining this kind of behavior.
The old one is, well, pretty old, and doesn't include dual-cores or APUs.
 
just brew it!
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:11 pm

Hitches/stutters lasting 200ms sounds like something bad was going on beyond just a weaker CPU.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
jazper
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:24 pm

I have noticed that Nvidia cards require more cpu power than AMD cards. (approx 20% difference)

Would be good to see a comparison between the two with cpu load measured..
 
auxy
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:57 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Hitches/stutters lasting 200ms sounds like something bad was going on beyond just a weaker CPU.

Yah, definitely. I think it's RAM-related. The FM1/FM2 chips don't have L3 cache, so their memory performance is quite bad.

At least, that's all I could come up with.
 
f0d
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:29 pm

how did you break the cpu?!?!? i havnt heard of a non working cpu in years (unless physical damage) no matter the overclock or the abuse
just wondering?
Image
 
auxy
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:32 pm

f0d wrote:
how did you break the cpu?!?!? i havnt heard of a non working cpu in years (unless physical damage) no matter the overclock or the abuse
just wondering?
I plead the fifth! ┬┴┬┴┤(・_├┬┴┬┴
 
just brew it!
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:37 pm

I don't think I've "broken" a CPU since the early Socket A days. (Frikkin' Thermaltake Orb cooler...)
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
auxy
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:50 pm

All I'll say it that it was a very unfortunate accident involving auxy the mega klutz. (ー_ー ;)
 
just brew it!
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 12:08 am

Sounds like something on par with the time I dumped a glass of beer all over a running motherboard! I quickly powered it down, unplugged it, and ran to the sink to rinse it off; but I set it on the edge of the sink with the center of gravity (due to a rather heavy copper HSF) hanging over the edge. When I let go the whole thing flipped over and crashed to the floor (hard ceramic tile). The PCB partially de-laminated in one corner (by the PCI slots) due to the impact.

Amazingly, after being rinsed off and allowed to dry for a couple of days it still POSTed and ran. PCI slots were a little flaky after that though, and I never really trusted it. It got relegated to the spares pile, and was eventually taken to the electronics recycling center after the system it was nominally a spare for got retired.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
auxy
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 12:30 am

just brew it! wrote:
Amazingly, after being rinsed off and allowed to dry for a couple of days it still POSTed and ran. PCI slots were a little flaky after that though, and I never really trusted it. It got relegated to the spares pile, and was eventually taken to the electronics recycling center after the system it was nominally a spare for got retired.
Hehe! I'm really surprised my motherboard still works after what I did.
 
just brew it!
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 12:41 am

I mistakenly plugged the PSU's PCIe power cable into the motherboard CPU power connector once. I was rather surprised I didn't kill the motherboard or PSU (or at least melt the wires to the PCIe power connector), as this results in the +12V rail being connected to the motherboard backwards (+12V and ground swapped). The over-current protection in the PSU must've kicked in quickly enough to prevent permanent damage.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
auxy
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 1:20 am

just brew it! wrote:
I mistakenly plugged the PSU's PCIe power cable into the motherboard CPU power connector once. I was rather surprised I didn't kill the motherboard or PSU (or at least melt the wires to the PCIe power connector), as this results in the +12V rail being connected to the motherboard backwards (+12V and ground swapped). The over-current protection in the PSU must've kicked in quickly enough to prevent permanent damage.

Oof. In my hardware IRC channel I hang out in , we had a guy connect a spare EPS12V to his GPU. It blew up the GPU, the motherboard, AND the PSU. CPU was okay surprisingly. He had a really cheap 1200W "server" PSU with dual EPS12V connectors. Really dumb purchase.
 
Krogoth
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 1:22 am

You can kill modern CPUs if you give it way too many volts or something goes very wrong with motherboard VRMs for the CPU (usually results in magical smoke and sparks). It is harder to kill a CPU thermally since all modern chips have build-in thermal throttling protection and any decent motherboard has its own emergency thermal shutdown if the CPU temp sensor exceeds a certain amount.
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 1:38 am

auxy wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
I mistakenly plugged the PSU's PCIe power cable into the motherboard CPU power connector once. I was rather surprised I didn't kill the motherboard or PSU (or at least melt the wires to the PCIe power connector), as this results in the +12V rail being connected to the motherboard backwards (+12V and ground swapped). The over-current protection in the PSU must've kicked in quickly enough to prevent permanent damage.

Oof. In my hardware IRC channel I hang out in , we had a guy connect a spare EPS12V to his GPU. It blew up the GPU, the motherboard, AND the PSU. CPU was okay surprisingly. He had a really cheap 1200W "server" PSU with dual EPS12V connectors. Really dumb purchase.

I still don't understand why ATX12V and PCIe power plugs are keyed such that accidental cross-connection is theoretically possible if you're not paying close attention, yet the polarity of the voltage is reversed. Both types of plugs carry only +12V and ground; it would've been so easy to make the effects of this particular mistake completely benign. Just make the polarities match, damnit! Oh well, too late now...
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Krogoth
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 1:44 am

It reminds me of the old AT days. You had to pay attention when plugging in the main AT connector, otherwise you are going to be releasing some magical smoke. :lol:

I don't see the whole EPS12V and PCIe to be as problematic as vast majority of PCIe power connectors or either 6-pin or 6pin + 2pin snap in/off connector, where the EPS12V is a straight 8-pin connector.
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 8:20 am

auxy wrote:
exploring and explaining this kind of behavior

Interesting... Not necessarily a hardware performance issue, might be an issue with mobo's BIOS configs or chipset drivers. Have you tried searching for similar experience or asking around the OCN forums? People there have extremely diverse hardware configs, I'm sure someone could also do the similar tests :wink:

Perhaps I should also try it out, though all this hardware swapping is pretty inconvenient for me right now :-/
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steelcity_ballin
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 8:38 am

just brew it! wrote:
I don't think I've "broken" a CPU since the early Socket A days. (Frikkin' Thermaltake Orb cooler...)


Not since the 2500+ barton, which was replaced with a 3200 clawhammer if memory serves. I think that was also my last AMD.
 
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 9:56 am

After my ECS K7S5A supported me through a 900 TBRD a 1400 TBRD and a 2400xp that was serving as a web browser and printer at my work was replaced with a nice new Sandy Bridge system, I had no use for the system so I took off the Heat Sink to watch in person what I have seem on many youtube videos. Watching a CPU burn itself up...was pretty cool to watch, surprisingly I do not know if it had some protection of some kind but I had to jump my PSU to make it stay on before the CPU would release its magic smoke.

So far that is the only one of my personal system's that has released magic smoke "knock on wood"
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Re: [REQ] New Inside the (CPU) Second article, please?

Tue Nov 19, 2013 1:00 pm

Krogoth wrote:
It reminds me of the old AT days. You had to pay attention when plugging in the main AT connector, otherwise you are going to be releasing some magical smoke. :lol:

Heh, yeah I did that in early 1999 going from a Pentium 166Mhz to a Super 7 board with a K6-2. The motherboard was a Gigabyte that amazingly had both AT and ATX power connectors, so after I blew up my PSU I got an ATX PSU and case to replace it and everything else was fine. (edit: I think it was this guy - I know it had an AGP slot and an ALi chipset).

My favorite (not at the time) whoopsie with a computer was a Biostar socket A system that one of the two heatsink retention tabs on the socket broke. The heat sink fell off the socket, landed on the graphcis card (some no-name S3 Savage4 card) and took out the whole f'ing thing. The mobo was obviously not usable, the CPU die (Duron 700 I think) blew up like in those THG videos, the RAM was flaky after that, the video card popped a couple resistors, and the hard drive seized. I didn't reuse the case because it stank something fierce and the PSU died probably due to a short. I think I might have salvaged the CD-ROM and the 80mm case fan, but that's about it. My wife (girlfriend at the time) was so pissed. "You broke my computer!"
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