Problem after upgrade on my brother's system

[Calidus]

Hi,

 

So my brothers machine is refusing to post after a BSOD, I wasn't in the room at the time so I couldn't see what the message said. Anyway, best I fully explain, we only added an SSD and replaced the CPU and cooler, his specs before the upgrade was:

 

AMD Phenom II x4 965 CPU

Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 Rev. 3.0 Motherboard

16Gb HyperX DDR3 RAM

Asus Strix GeForce 970

4 HDD's and one Optical Drive

Corsair TX750M PSU

 

We added a Toshiba TR200 SSD and upgraded the CPU to a FX 8320e, we had to update the Bios to support the CPU before installing, everything seemed fine, got fresh install of Windows 7 on the SSD, drivers installed and was going through Windows updates when the BSOD happened. Now that it doesn't post, I'm not sure whats up, the system before the addition of the SSD and CPU had been running without issue for many years, just got to the point that my brother needed something more then the Phenom in games and he wasn't going to update the entire platform.

 

Any idea's? could the CPU be dodgy, motherboard compatibility? or the 4+1 phase with the VRM's? has one 4 pin, though the e version is lower power draw and on the compatibility list...

 

I will try clearing cmos tomorrow, but not sure if its any bios settings as we didn't overclock anything, memory was set at XMP like with previous Phenom. Anyone come across something similar?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Calidus]

Update:

 

It decided to post after being drained of power, but freezes constantly on every boot, in Bios I can view a few tabs before its freezes, doesn't even make it back into Windows so... the system was fine for 4 - 5 hours before all this started. We really can't currently test the cpu in another machine as my test rigs motherboard doesn't support it and that pc is in bits atm.

 

Not sure how to go about this.

[AntiTrust]

hey I looked into it a bit, your right it looks like with the latest BIOS the FX8320E should be supported.. note it is a beta firmware. 

 

I see that in your motherboard RAM compatability it says:

 

"Note: Only one DIMM per channel is supported for DDR3-1866MHz and higher speed as using an AM3+ CPU." 

 

which seems strange to me.. maybe try turning xmp off and run at 1600 or lower speed? Also, What kind of cooler did you put on? I noticed that the weight limit for cooler is 450gm which seems a bit low. 

 

SSD compatability might be dodgy on this motherboard too as I see that in the bios firmware notes they had an update to increase ssd compatability at one point.. is it possible to try with a regular hard drive? 

 

anyways might not be much help but yeah its a weird issue, maybe someone else has some better ideas. 

 

[Calidus]

The ram is at 1600, that's it's rated XMP rating. Interesting finds on the ssd front, the cooler is a Titan Fenrir Evo. I'm not sure how much it weighs tbh. I did find that my test machine (which is a fx 6300 and Asrock 880GM-LE FX board) supports the 8320e also, so going to try a swap tomorrow, although I may test with the SSD unplugged as Windows isn't a factor for these problems anyway.

 

I'm thinking it might be the VRM's but if so surely it would of started showing signs before the 5th hour mark? or maybe not I'm not sure. Just going to try a few things, but if anyone else has an idea, feel free to throw them my way.

[Calidus]

An update, was still behaving the same after being off overnight so we did a cpu swap with my test machine. The computer runs fine so far with the FX 6300 from my test machine (could of put the Phenom back in but wanted to see if the board would like another FX chip or not), the test machine however with the FX 8320e refusing to boot, no beep nothing just stuff is powered on, fans running etc but nothing else.

 

Taking a break but plan to put the Phenom in my test rig to check bios, I was pretty sure I was on latest which is a few revisions from when the e variants were supported, but I technically didn't check before taking the 6300 out. If I was correct though its starting to look like the FX 8320e is faulty somehow, it is brand new and wasn't in any other machine before all this nonsence. I'll keep updating this thread as I go and see if I can see if its simply compatibilty or the processor.

[Calidus]

So an update, It was indeed faulty, RMA'd it to AMD and they tested it. Gave us a new CPU, they did however send a FX 8370e instead of a 8320e, I'm certaintly not complaining. Pretty good service from AMD directly.