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Orwell
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Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:01 pm

:(

I should not have checked the Event Viewer just for fun after completing an OS reinstall. It is filled with hardware errors regarding the ECC applied to the TLB of the processor. These errors are reported by WHEA and documented over here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... 85%29.aspx

According to the documentation the short description is:
A translation lookaside buffer (TLB) error has occurred.

Here's the long version of the error:
http://pastebin.com/pnPdt6MQ

So, yeah, I know what the TLB is and that it is protected by ECC. And that these kinds of errors are unacceptable on a production machine even though the machine is prime95 stable. I suspect this problem is related to the CPU being an unlocked X2 processor. I have tried both underclocking and overvolting of the CPU, Uncore and DRAM, but to no avail. Could this be the end for this old machine from 2009? The error spam started the second this OS install went live. I don't know when it started.

Can anyone provide some insight/tips?
Last edited by Orwell on Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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anotherengineer
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:06 pm

I thought the TLB bug was corrected with the phenom II and only the phenom I suffered from the issue?

Also, some cpu cores were locked due to possible errors. You should relock those cores, set bios to default and reinstall again.

Or before that, try running Prime95 for 24 hrs minimum.

Could always see if there is a BIOS update. IIRC most BIOS's for those chips had a TLB work-around at the cost for some performance, which could actually be enabled in the BIOS.
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Orwell
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:12 pm

I thought the TLB bug was corrected with the phenom II and only the phenom I suffered from the issue?

Yeah, I thought about that too. But I'm reeeeealy sure this is in fact a Phenom II. A Phenom II X2 550 RB-C2 to be precise. The **** of **** overclockers especially when unlocked.

Also, some cpu cores were locked due to possible errors. You should relock those cores, set bios to default and reinstall again.

I don't want to face the truth. I'll have to buy a new one if this managed to fix the troubles. :(

Or before that, try running Prime95 for 24 hrs minimum.

I've done that when the overclocks were still applied. But even with ludicrous underclocks the errors keep on coming.

Image

:(

Okay, I'll lock it.
Last edited by Orwell on Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:14 pm

Some of the most frustrating servers and workstations that I've ever had to fix exhibited similar problems to what you're reporting. I.e; WHEA errors, but Prime95 stable (at least initially).

I would expect that you will start to see instability. Re-locking the extra cores and setting BIOS defaults is good advice as a starting point. I'd also run Prime for 24-48 hours if it were my system. Also worth checking for bulging capacitors on the mainboard, especially around the voltage regulation circuitry near the CPU.
 
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:16 pm

Looks like you're going to be using a Haswell CPU soon. Or an FX, if you insist on getting AMD.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:22 pm

After you relock it, run CPU and see what it throws back for the processor id.
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Orwell
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:27 pm

Blistering barnacles. Locking fixed it.

So, this is what computing on a Pentium 4 must feel like these days.
Image

Haswell it is then.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 1:28 pm

Hey, sounds like you had a really good run with it, at least!
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localhostrulez
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:07 pm

Wait, finally, someone else who's run into the WHEA error. Seems like hardly anyone from google searches.

I kept hitting ntoskml.exe!WheaAttemptPhysicalPageOffline+0x350 (according to procexp) when I put Win7 on my t440s (legacy BIOS mode). Ran, but became horribly slow/system hogging the CPU with certain tasks. But not 8.1 (UEFI). And I haven't the faintest idea why, save for drivers in general. I last rebooted 45 days ago with 8.1, and it's still stable (lots of sleeping/resuming from typical use though).
 
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:09 pm

Try 3 cores and see if it happens.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Wed Mar 18, 2015 9:16 am

localhostrulez wrote:
Wait, finally, someone else who's run into the WHEA error. Seems like hardly anyone from google searches.

I kept hitting ntoskml.exe!WheaAttemptPhysicalPageOffline+0x350 (according to procexp) when I put Win7 on my t440s (legacy BIOS mode). Ran, but became horribly slow/system hogging the CPU with certain tasks. But not 8.1 (UEFI). And I haven't the faintest idea why, save for drivers in general. I last rebooted 45 days ago with 8.1, and it's still stable (lots of sleeping/resuming from typical use though).

There were some pretty deep changes between the Windows 7 kernel and the Windows 8 kernel (mostly relating to scheduling iirc) so it's not a huge stretch to see 8.1 fixing or masking the issue.
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Orwell
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:49 pm

anotherengineer wrote:
Try 3 cores and see if it happens.


Yeah, I tried that. I've tried to disable core 2, 3, or 4 (1 cannot be disabled) and the errors persist in any case.

Must be some kind of interconnect that is failing horribly. It's either that or core 1 is broken. :(
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:07 am

You will love Haswell especially compared to your Phenom2 that like JBI said gave you a good run for very little money for the CPU.

The performance improvement will be pretty dramatic and you will giggle with excitement.....if you do not have a SSD make sure you get one because a HDD has been the biggest bottleneck in system for well over 8 years.

Also Welcome to the Darkside errr I mean Intel. Embrace you hatred it will make you stronger and invincible...no Jedi err AMD cpu will stand a chance against the power of the SITH!

Jesus I need to stop...I 1st have been talking like I am in starfleet , now star wars...and I am not very good at it.

Anyway Gluck on your new build and if you have any questions post them and JAE will probably be the 1st to rec parts with links etc.

But if you live near a Microcenter make sure to get your CPU and MB there since they have the absolute lowest prices on CPU/MB combos and possibly other stuff too since they do have sort of a price match system. On top of that you can return problem parts if you get any without having to mail it out for RMA.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Apr 07, 2015 7:05 am

I had a Phenom II X6 1055T that would do 3.73GHz stable, but after a few years it wasn't stable at that speed anymore. It comes with the unlocking/overclocking territory, especially since LLC was pushing a lot more volts through it than it was supposed to. Ditto with the GTX470 in my signature. Nowadays it seems one VRAM chip has a slight bug - in 2D mode it's stable, but when I run a 3D program it inevitably gives me memory corruption artifacts after 10 minutes. Even at stock clocks.

It's still hard for me to imagine that computer hardware has differing states of functionality in between "working" and "completely bust". I'm running my rig at stock clocks now, and to be honest I can't notice the difference.
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Orwell
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Apr 07, 2015 7:17 am

vargis14 wrote:
You will love Haswell especially compared to your Phenom2 that like JBI said gave you a good run for very little money for the CPU.

I managed to pick up a unused 2600K and a Asus Maximus IV GENE combination for about €250. Quite happy with it. It's currently doing 4.3GHz at 1.25V, which is more than enough for me. :)

vargis14 wrote:
The performance improvement will be pretty dramatic and you will giggle with excitement.....if you do not have a SSD make sure you get one because a HDD has been the biggest bottleneck in system for well over 8 years.

Yeah, I bought the Samsung 830 the day it was released. Didn't want to miss out. That's like four years ago already. :O

vargis14 wrote:
But if you live near a Microcenter make sure to get your CPU and MB there since they have the absolute lowest prices on CPU/MB combos and possibly other stuff too since they do have sort of a price match system. On top of that you can return problem parts if you get any without having to mail it out for RMA.

Phyisically move to a store because the webshop doesn't want to sell one? Lol. Haha, we Dutch laugh at you collectively. In all seriousness (or what's left of it), we pay with mobile banking apps (yay SEPA) and expect delivery the next morning!

Image

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:
I had a Phenom II X6 1055T that would do 3.73GHz stable, but after a few years it wasn't stable at that speed anymore. It comes with the unlocking/overclocking territory, especially since LLC was pushing a lot more volts through it than it was supposed to. Ditto with the GTX470 in my signature. Nowadays it seems one VRAM chip has a slight bug - in 2D mode it's stable, but when I run a 3D program it inevitably gives me memory corruption artifacts after 10 minutes. Even at stock clocks.

It's still hard for me to imagine that computer hardware has differing states of functionality in between "working" and "completely bust". I'm running my rig at stock clocks now, and to be honest I can't notice the difference.


It's a fact that integrated circuits are only designed to run for a couple of years at their specified frequency, voltage and temperature range. This is becoming more and more of a problem the smaller transistors get. The user should expect their circuits to live shorter than this expected lifespan.

This is also one of the reasons why the automotive and aerospace industry is so hesistant to move on to sub-90nm technologies, even if the technology is already considered ancient not even 10 years on. They don't want to face the calculated risk of chips breaking within the lifespan of a car or an airplane which is a very real risk for sub-90nm tech. You don't want your airplane to explode after a year or ten just because the engineers wanted to shave a couple watts off some controller chip by giving it a die shrink.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Apr 07, 2015 8:42 am

Orwell wrote:
It's a fact that integrated circuits are only designed to run for a couple of years at their specified frequency, voltage and temperature range. This is becoming more and more of a problem the smaller transistors get. The user should expect their circuits to live shorter than this expected lifespan.

Aside from (possibly) high-end GPUs that are being used for crypto-currency mining or other heavy GPU compute applications, I call BS on this.

I have never had a CPU die of old age. Ever. And that includes a few that were subjected to some fairly serious overheating (e.g. a Phenom 9550 where a dead CPU fan went unnoticed, causing the core temp to rise to 100C for an extended period of time... that CPU never skipped a beat, and is *still* in service to this day in a home server, half a decade after its little "incident"). I also own multiple AMD Phenom II and FX CPUs which were used to run Folding@home -- so 100% load 24x7, with fan profiles tweaked to run them within a couple of degrees of their maximim specified temperature (to keep noise levels down).

I understand that CPUs are necessarily getting a bit more delicate as the process sizes shrink, but we're still nowhere near the point yet where they are "only designed to run for a couple of years". The primary buyers of CPU chips (corporate and datacenter customers) would revolt, as this is shorter than the typical enterprise desktop/server refresh cycle. I would be very surprised if current CPUs that are run completely within spec have an average lifetime of less than 5 years, and expect most would still make it to 10.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Apr 07, 2015 8:55 am

I think he simply meant that a heavily overclocked CPU will have a shorter lifespan than usual.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:12 am

morphine wrote:
I think he simply meant that a heavily overclocked CPU will have a shorter lifespan than usual.

He said "at their specified frequency, voltage and temperature range". I.e., stock.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:16 am

Orwell wrote:
It's a fact that integrated circuits are only designed to run for a couple of years at their specified frequency, voltage and temperature range. This is becoming more and more of a problem the smaller transistors get. The user should expect their circuits to live shorter than this expected lifespan.

In 20 years I've only had 1 CPU die, and it was my own fault (user error). Rarely is any hardware failure the actual silicon chip.
 
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:27 am

Orwell wrote:
vargis14 wrote:
But if you live near a Microcenter make sure to get your CPU and MB there since they have the absolute lowest prices on CPU/MB combos and possibly other stuff too since they do have sort of a price match system. On top of that you can return problem parts if you get any without having to mail it out for RMA.

Phyisically move to a store because the webshop doesn't want to sell one? Lol. Haha, we Dutch laugh at you collectively. In all seriousness (or what's left of it), we pay with mobile banking apps (yay SEPA) and expect delivery the next morning!

He or she didn't suggest you move, and couldn't have known that you lived in the Netherlands. If you live in close proximity to a MicroCenter, they're excellent computer stores. No reason to get snotty.
 
Orwell
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Wed Apr 08, 2015 10:34 am

Sorry about that reply to the guy being helpful and suggesting an upgrade. It just wasn't neccesary.

About the reliability part:

just brew it! wrote:
Orwell wrote:
It's a fact that integrated circuits are only designed to run for a couple of years at their specified frequency, voltage and temperature range. This is becoming more and more of a problem the smaller transistors get. The user should expect their circuits to live shorter than this expected lifespan.

Aside from (possibly) high-end GPUs that are being used for crypto-currency mining or other heavy GPU compute applications, I call BS on this.

I have never had a CPU die of old age. Ever. And that includes a few that were subjected to some fairly serious overheating (e.g. a Phenom 9550 where a dead CPU fan went unnoticed, causing the core temp to rise to 100C for an extended period of time... that CPU never skipped a beat, and is *still* in service to this day in a home server, half a decade after its little "incident"). I also own multiple AMD Phenom II and FX CPUs which were used to run Folding@home -- so 100% load 24x7, with fan profiles tweaked to run them within a couple of degrees of their maximim specified temperature (to keep noise levels down).

I understand that CPUs are necessarily getting a bit more delicate as the process sizes shrink, but we're still nowhere near the point yet where they are "only designed to run for a couple of years". The primary buyers of CPU chips (corporate and datacenter customers) would revolt, as this is shorter than the typical enterprise desktop/server refresh cycle. I would be very surprised if current CPUs that are run completely within spec have an average lifetime of less than 5 years, and expect most would still make it to 10.

I agree with you that a high speed IC will have a lifetime of about ten years or so before it will start to fail to deliver its specified frequency. I shouldn't have used the "couple of" piece of text in my reply, because it applies to overclocked ICs. Anyway, I'll give everyone over here a mini course on CMOS reliability just for laughs.

First off, I am basing all of this information on what I am learning during my master's degree in microelectronics. I am by no means an expert in this field (yet, heh). If you want definitive answers, ask my prof.

These are the mayor factors that contribute to life expectancy of a CMOS integrated circuit and have to be simulated and accounted for during IC design:
  • Dielectric Breakdown. Unfortunately, as MOSFETs scale down, the electric field (volts per unit distance) applied to specific parts of transistors tends to increase ("constant voltage scaling") instead of stay the same ("constant field scaling"). For example, the dielectric in a planar CMOS transistor is currently only a couple of atom layers thick at 45nm and below (that's why scaling below 30nm without FinFET is nearly impossible, you can't insulate stuff with even less atom layers). At the same time, a voltage difference of over a volt is commonly applied to that layer. This translates to an electric field of billions of volts per meter. This has an added effect of quantum tunneling. Simply put, the super strong electric field forces electrons into that insulating layer (yes, conducting insulators yay), sometimes trapping said electrons in the insulator, reducing insulative capacity and thereby changing the switching characteristics of the transistor, and finally short circuiting the gate to the channel. This is basically what causes flash chips to wear out due to writing. This effect is called "Time-dependent gate oxide breakdown".
  • A different effect also caused by huge electric fields (lots of volts over tiny distances), is hot carrier damage. In essence, semiconductor conductance and electron velocity is modeled by calculating how often electrons collide with the base semiconductor material as they are pulled through said material due to an applied voltage. In some cases ("velocity saturation") and beyond, even stronger electric fields are produced in corners of the MOSFET structure ("pinch off"). This causes electrons to bump into the semiconductor structure so forcefully that it creates defects in said material and will create new charge carriers (by ionization), altering conductivity.
  • Electromigration. This is related to the item above, but instead of breaking atoms, the electron flow will start to push the semiconductor or metal material it is flowing through around (kinetic energy transfer).

Most proper papers on this subject are behind a paywall over at IEEE Xplore (seriously, **** that), but here is a free one that is okay enough in my opinion:
https://www.mosis.com/files/faqs/tech_cmos_rel.pdf

And here are some good books on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Electr ... 0792379918 (semiconductor reliability)
http://www.amazon.com/Semiconductor-Phy ... 0073529583 (semiconductor physics, $187 lol)

Most weardown equations, or even most semiconductor physics equations depend strongly on temperature, current density (amperes per square meter), and electric fields (volts per meter). These are the things you really want to limit! And these are exactly the things that keep increasing when IC's are scaled down and/or overclocked. This also means that even if you keep the temperature low, a high voltage per meter (and consequently a higher current per square meter) will still slowly kill your chip.

Fun fact: a semiconductor like Si will perform better (speaking about conductivity) than at room temperature (300K) when heated to about 1000K and beyond. There's also a somewhat less pronounced optimum regarding said property at roughly 120K which is what extreme overclockers aim for. Better add some negative cooling in your next build! Here's a graph showing some properties of Si as a function of temperature. Sigma (the conductivity) needs to be as high as possible:
http://i.imgur.com/tw6aYHm.jpg

Anyway, during IC design, one is expected to simulate and account for these kinds of problems. I haven't performed said task for fancy pantsy 32nm stuff (90nm UMC only for students :( ), but research has shown that a high speed IC at 45nm or 32nm has a lifespan of about ten or maaybe fifteen years or so at the specified frequency, voltage and temperature. Semiconductor foundries will also report their findings on the durability of designs that are sent to them (in other words, AMD and Intel know!). And this is why you do not want to use this technology in cars or airplanes which should last longer. Either use more robust tech or don't push your designs too much (reduce the three parameters listed above when possible).

Of course, saying that an IC produced twenty years or so ago still works at spec is an invalid point because it is based on older more robust tech.

Aand, I've run out of time to type more.
Last edited by Orwell on Wed Apr 08, 2015 12:44 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Wed Apr 08, 2015 11:41 am

Modern CPUs tend to have significantly lower maximum die temp specs than older ones. This is probably the manufacturers' way of keeping the expected service lifetime approximately the same, assuming the CPU is operated within spec. Using AMD as an example, the max recommended CPU temperature has declined from 90C (Athlon "Thunderbird" core on 180 nm process) to 62C (FX "Piledriver" core on 32 nm process) over the past decade and a half. That's a fairly substantial reduction in recommended maximum operating temperature!
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Orwell
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Re: Is my unlocked Phenom II finally kicking the bucket?

Wed Apr 08, 2015 11:55 am

Yep, that's about right. This also allows them to obtain higher frequencies because Si performs better at lower temperatures.

Yes folks, your overclock will in fact improve at lower temperatures due to science!

I forgot to mention that semiconductor junctions are also really sensitive to incoming high energy (E = hf > Egap) radiation. Furtunately, the actual semiconductor material is usually buried at the bottom most layer of a die below multiple metal layers of interconnect (shielding). However, specific kinds of particles/waves, especially in space, will be able to hit the semiconductor material, altering it. That's one more reason why spacecraft requires the use of more robust ICs and materials other than Si like GaAs. GaAs has much better electrical characteristics overall, but it is harder to produce ICs based on it. :(

And I've added some text to the previous post.
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