"Not enough Memory" - crashes, freezes and more

[WarcraftPundit]

The official site is https://www.mersenne.org/download/#download but that should work. It just exercises your CPU cores and RAM such that if you have bad memory or flaky devices due to poor power supply output or some other flaky hardware or a terrible heatsink setup, it'll fail the test and report an unexpected result. Or it'll BSOD. Or overheat. Watch it for 15 minutes or so and if the thermals don't climb past 65-70, it should be OK for longer tests.

Something to add to the power supply comment above is that if you stack a bunch of devices up on the same rail e.g. 4 HDDs on the same SATA cable bundle, etc. sometimes that will overload just that rail and the associated outputs. Your manual will usually describe which rails are common and how much they're rated for, though being a Dell, maybe not as I don't think those are modular.

The "common" thing also applies to PCI-E SSDs and SATA ports, depending on the motherboard. Some of my MB's SATA ports for example become unavailable when I connect a PCI-E SSD on one of the M.2 ports. This usually results in a simple failure to enumerate the affected SATA ports, but I can't speak to other shenanigans that might happen if you accidentally comingle those.

I am so glad this has gone in this direction! The PSU comments has led me to some testing and an important discovery indeed.

I believe inadequate power is the problem. This computer was purchased used as a less than adequate replacement for my main PC which was killed in a lightning strike back in early June. It'll be some time yet before I can truly invest in the hardware I need.

Anyway, the power supply was supposed to be 750W. It had a label saying 750W, but under that label is one that says 500W! So with some checking of the part numbers the top label goes to a completely different type. The rating for 12V is only 150W, obviously not enough for 95W CPU & 185W GPU. This would easily explain the insane behavior. Obviously I cannot further troubleshoot or test until I resolve this.

The system will be torn down as soon as I post this and I'll feed the wiring harness through the case and replace the power supply with my tested and working 875W unit.

Next:
I just noticed your name, Ughmahedhurtz. I love it! It is something like I might have used as a chronic migraineur!

Next again:
Re CPU temps. You state "Watch it for 15 minutes or so and if the thermals don't climb past 65-70..." this makes me curious. My CPU, a XEON X5675, at idle is 33.4°C. During the testing or when I otherwise max all 12 logical cores at 100% it maxes out at 80.1°C. This didn't seem like a problem as the specs for the CPU state the max temp at the heat spreader to be 81.3°C. Am I mistaken in this? 80°C does seem hot but within spec, so I assumed it was fine. If not I will look for a better cooling option.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Next:
I just noticed your name, Ughmahedhurtz. I love it! It is something like I might have used as a chronic migraineur!

I have a last name...

Next again:
Re CPU temps. You state "Watch it for 15 minutes or so and if the thermals don't climb past 65-70..." this makes me curious. My CPU, a XEON X5675, at idle is 33.4°C. During the testing or when I otherwise max all 12 logical cores at 100% it maxes out at 80.1°C. This didn't seem like a problem as the specs for the CPU state the max temp at the heat spreader to be 81.3°C. Am I mistaken in this? 80°C does seem hot but within spec, so I assumed it was fine. If not I will look for a better cooling option.

TL;DR wall incoming...
Preface question: what does yours do under the max gaming real-world load (as opposed to stress test)?

Here's the thing about the thermals, in my experience. Consider heat soak. Your GPU, SSD/HDD, chipset, and PSU all generate heat. Your PC sitting idle will probably feel cool to the touch. When you hammer it, that spikes the CPU/RAM temps (and maybe GPU if you're running a stress test on that too) which introduces more heat into the chassis. At some point, the amount of heat load in the system may exceed the ventilation system's ability to exhaust it, which ends up causing in effect a thermal runaway. Realistically, few chassis have such poor thermal design that they'd completely runaway to meltdown (*cough*macbook*cough*), but having your fans opposing each other or something like excessive dust buildup can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of fans, heatsinks, etc. HP went from multiple fans to a ducted single-fan design to allow for smaller (read: cheaper) cases/fans/heatsinks to be used on the same CPUs. I like to run H80i CPU coolers with 4x Noctua quiet case fans in mine, which usually results in easy sub-70C stress temps and the loudest thing in the room is the NVidia fan.

I also usually try to allow for fan death or "unexpected results" in my testing as I'd rather have an unexpected spike to 80-85C instead of an unexpected spike to dramatically over-spec temps, especially if something prevents the auto-shutdown feature from saving itself. Again, much less of a problem with more modern stuff but with the way CPU build costs have been elevated lately (yours is or was $1400), I see no reason to risk heat-induced early system issues.

That said, the XEON X5675 specs show a TCase temp of 81.5C. I can't find a reasonable logical relation between TCase temp (the temp at the integrated heat spreader on the CPU itself) and a reading from CoreTemp/etc. Example of where temps are measured, at least on an older system:



Generally, I'd expect ~12C to be a reasonable difference, meaning yours should be *technically* OK up to ~93C core temps, but again that's just a guess based on anecdotal evidence. :P And I sure as hell wouldn't want to run it at 80C+ for extended periods. My hardware engineer colleagues constantly talk about how the lifespan of capacitors/transistors is directly related to how hot they run, and it's not a linear function.

[WarcraftPundit]

Update: Power supply replaced and system up and running again with 875W 80+ Silver power supply instead of the 500W PoS.

Initial tests good, overnight stress tests and then gaming tomorrow if everything works that long.

Previously the system failed the Prime95 tests within minutes. Been running for an hour now with no failures. (crosses fingers)

Preface question: what does yours do under the max gaming real-world load (as opposed to stress test)?

According to OHM log files gaming temps range from 48 - 53C — I'll test this again tomorrow when checking how well it works multiboxing with the new PSU installed.
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Thanks for all the great information on the thermals. Much more than I expected!
I'm going to look into the cooler/fans you mentioned, if not for this system for whatever I replace it with as I'm able to do so.