SiS 661 integrated video problems - Random lock up

[negated]

Hi,

We have had trouble with both Burn-in Pro 3.2 and 4.0 in conjunction with any motherboard (MSI, Foxconn, Asus) using the SiS 661 onboard video. Basically, any system config using this chipset's onboard video will lock up randomly while doing either the 2D or 3D test. This does not seem to effect other integrated SiS chipsets (650, 740, 651, etc) and the driver version used does not seem to make a difference either (we've used SiS's reference driver versions 3.56 through 3.59). It should be noted that the drivers used work perfectly on other SiS onboard graphic chipsets in Burn-in. Other benchmarking/burn in programs such as Futuremark's products work perfectly on these platforms, so I must assume that there is some bug between the SiS 661 graphic chipset and these versions of Burn-in Pro. Does anyone have any information?

Thanks!

Steve

[David (PassMark)]

I don't believe there is any bug in BurnInTest. That fact that this problem does not occur on any other motherboard would point towards the fault being caused by the motherboard / video chipset and not the software.

If the whole system locks up, this is an indication that the problem is more likely to be in a device driver or hardware.

You didn't say which O/S you were using nor which version of DirectX you are using. Nor exactly which motherboards. So this makes it hard to investigate.

BurnInTest uses DirectX for the 2D & 3D video tests. Exactly the same test is used for all motherboards. We do not have special code written for each video card.

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David
PassMark

[Damian]

I am having the exact same problem on the MSI 661FM-L motherboard on both XP Home and Windows 2k. After running burnin it fails some where between 20 and 30 minutes only on my systems it's consistent, not intermident. I've been working with MSI's tech support but they are saying they are NOT seeing the problem. I've even tried their latest video driver which claims to have fixed a problem with burnin posting fails for the video. If I put in a third party video card the system will run burnin fine.
I just updated directx to 9.0c so I'll know it about twenty minutes if that works or not.
I've got about 30 systems in an order that is waiting on a resolution for this problem so I need to find one fast.

[Damian]

Okay well the directx upgrade didn't work. Locked up 11 minutes into the test.

[David (PassMark)]

We don't have any solution. The problem appear to be hardware related and from what you are saying effects only the SIS 661 chipset. So it either might be a harwdare bug or a hardware compatibility issue. (e.g. the use of a particular type of RAM with the onboard video).

I would,
- Check that it happens on more than one machine. Maybe you just have a bad motherboard or CPU
- Check the cooling. A lockup after 10min can be an indication of heat problems.
- Check that you have the lastest BIOS
- Try different RAM

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David

[Damian]

Memory does play an issuse because it doesn't appear to happen with anything other then PC2700. No problems with PC2100.

[David (PassMark)]

It might be becuase the main RAM is used by the video 'card' as video RAM via AGP.

Some video cards do this to avoid using expensive video RAM on the video card. It makes for a very cheap video card becuase the card itself doesn't need hardly any RAM on it.

So maybe there is a compatibility problem between AGP on this board and some RAM types.

At least you have some type of a solution now.

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David

[Damian]

I think I narrowed it down to the AGP drivers. Once I loaded MSI's updated AGP drivers burnin started running without a hitch for a full two hours. So anybody who may be having this problem, update the AGP drivers.