system lag when running RAM test

[wayneh]

Hi Sir,
Please refer to my test configuration below.
CPU: Intel® Xeon® Processor W3670
Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R
DIMM: ELPIDA 2GB UDIMM PC3-8500
OS: WinXP 64 SP2

I am using Burn In V6.0 1023, when I tested RAM, the system is lag.
For example, I set the test time to 30 minutes, and start the test at 8:00.
When the test is finished, the time of the system will be 8:30, but it will be lag over 15 minutes, the time is 8:15.
Does anyone meet the same failure?

[Ian (PassMark)]

I assume you mean the system time is 8:00 at the start of the test and the real time is 8:00, at the end of the test the system time is 8:15 and the real time is 8:30. Hence the system lost 15 minutes during a 30 minute test.

We had a report where the system time could lag by a number of seconds over 24 hours of testing when the system was heavily loaded, but nothing like a 15 minute lag in a 30 minute test period.

As I understand it, there are basically 2 types of Real Time Clocks:
(i) a hardware RTC chip driven off an oscillator and divide by logic and
(ii) a soft clock which uses the CPU to maintiain the clock (instead of a RTC chip).

In case (i) I have read that the a weak CMOS battery can cause the system clock to lag, so you might check that.

In case (ii) loading the CPU, especially interrupt load can lag the RTC as the clock is generally run at a lower interrupt priority.


In your case, the ICH10 southbridge contains a RTC with 256 bytes of battery backed RAM. The RTC is designed to operate on an external circuit with a 32.768 KHz crystal and a 3 V battery. I would ask your motherboard supplier for additional information as to the RTC implementation and the behavior you are seeing.

[wayneh]

Hi Sir,
This problem can be easily observed when testing "RAM" + "Video". The system will lag seriously. The sound cracks when test the "Video" with attached AVI file (from Windows XP32), this is a normal one. When this issue occurs, the some seconds have significant delay. significant lag of system time can also be found if watching the clock/time of Windows. It looks working normally if test "CPU" + "Video" + "2D Graphics" + "3D Graphics". So, I think the key point is "RAM" test item.

http://weyneh.myweb.hinet.net/clock.avi

[Ian (PassMark)]

Thanks for the additional information. So it would seem when you load your memory your Real Time Clock lags. This behavior won't be specific to BurnInTest, but other memory loading as well.

You could try changing your RAM. If you have overclocked your RAM, you might try the default settings and even a lower frequency - just as a test.

Being easy to produce should make it easier to resolve the problem with the help of your motherboard supplier.

Out of interest what is your motherboard model and revision as I can have a bit more of a look if you let me know. Is this a commerical motherboard in production, or is it a motherboard that you are developing?

[wayneh]

Hi Sir,
Have you ever test Burin with the same platform as I listed? If so, would you please let me know the test result? This issue only occurs with XP 64bit in my test. I tried Win7 64bit, it doesn't occur.
Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R
DIMM: ELPIDA 2GB UDIMM PC3-8500
OS: WinXP 64 SP2

[Ian (PassMark)]

What is your motherboard model and revision as I can have a bit more of a look if you let me know. Is this a commerical motherboard in production, or is it a motherboard that you are developing? Does the motherboard support XP?

We have not seen such lag on any platform we have tested, but in many cases we probably did not explicitly check for RTC lag.