Re: Can AMD cause fatal errors?


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Subject: Re: Can AMD cause fatal errors?
Name: ludicrous
Date: 2/12/2004 12:29:33 PM (GMT-7)
IP Address: 24.8.214.142
In Reply to: Re: Can AMD cause fatal errors? posted by RJ!
Message:

It certainly can, if there was a specific bug in a CPU hardware routine that the software was dependent upon, or a specific bug in the software that only manifest itself one a particular CPU family, or if the CPU had been damaged by an overheat/ESD/short situation but was still appearing to function.

Perhaps your friend is aware of a specific hardware issue or knows enough about the information in the error report to discern such, but if not, he's relying on an outdated bias to avoid having to troubleshoot the system (namely, AMD did have a few relatively rare, but ocassionally serious, bug problems in the K5/K6 days).

Something like this could easily be caused by --

1. a driver problem (graphics being the most likely and chipset running a close second, although pretty much anything else in the system could potentially be at fault -- a sound driver, for example)

2. an improperly-installed heatsink or dried-out thermal paste (leading to borderline heat problems under certain high-stress scenarios)

3. a buggy program installation

4. a bloated OS installation (too many other things running simultaneously on the system)

5. a corrupted OS installation (either from other causes or a compatibility problem in a recent update patch or service pack)

6. a weak power supply (leading to aberrant behavior under certain high-stress scenarios)

7. a failing memory module (which may manifest itself as slowly increasing system instability, problems in dealing with large files and compression such as ZIP, and/or sudden, inexplicable crashes)

8. a failing system board

-- in roughly that order. The easiest tests would be for your friend to review the installed software and drivers and apply any updates where appropriate; if that doesn't help, try pulling the memory modules out one at a time; if that doesn't help, try a different power supply of known high power/current capability (300W+ is an easy number to remember, and check the output specs to make sure the +5V rail can deliver 25A or more).

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