[H-GEN] [PossibleSpam-SPF] Re: I need help with a new Threadripper system.

[David Seikel]

On 2020-10-14 01:34:44, Lehmann, Greg (IM&T, Pullenvale) wrote:
> From a colleague who has built one or 3 of these. He suggested maybe
> the CPU is not seated correctly and can cause the symptoms you mentioned.
> "Notorious for it" were his words. He then sent through this link:

I have reseated it a few times before while working through the things
MIS suggested, but next time I feel like pulling it a part I'll try once
more.

Is this colleague local (near Woolloongabba), and could help me with
some parts swap tests?

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb2ad-lp53I

That video didn't tell me anything I didn't know already, except for the
issue he mentions about the water cooler thing. I'm using the air cooler
he mentioned anyway.  I'm no beginner, I've been building computers since
the '70s, sometimes even professionally.  Though in the '70s it was "use
a soldering iron and a metal workshop", and today it's "plug in parts
someone / some robot made".

> I would think relating the motherboard labelling to BIOS channel
> messages would be something google would find.

Yeah, much like that reddit you mention below, all the research tells me
it's either the RAM, CPU, or motherboard.  I knew that.

> Oh, and the next most obvious thing is faulty RAM of course.
> 
> e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/e03zzt/pmu_memory_training_error_at_socket_0_channel_1/

Which is why I spent the last day testing RAM.

Progress!

I spent the whole day running memory tests and juggling RAM.  The RAM
itself is fine, but if I have a stick in RAM socket A2, then TWO sticks
wont work and I get 192 GB, but if I fill all but A2, no matter which
sticks I use or where else I put them, then I get the full 224 GB that's
plugged in.  Just not the 256 GB I actually have, coz one stick isn't
plugged in.

Oddly enough, the error message I mentioned before is a line of text that
pops on screen for a fraction of a second, and doesn't mention which
particular socket is faulty, but when you leave out a stick from the
matched sockets the manual says to use, you get an image showing you
which one is empty, arrows showing you where to move your mismatched
sticks to, labelled the same way the motherboard and manual label them,
and two buttons to click to make the image go away, but it goes away
after 30 seconds anyway.  If that damned blink and you miss it error
message was a nice graphic like that, I wouldn't have wasted lots of time
juggling ram and making my fingers bleed coz everything is a very tight
fit and the heat spreaders on top of the RAM is SHARP!

So now I think it's NOT faulty RAM, unless things are really fussy about
what gets plugged in where.  I'm still leaning towards it being the
motherboard that is faulty.

I still have most of a week to sort things out and get Newegg to replace
something.  At the suggestion of IRC, I called Umart to see if they can
help, they can only help if I bought the parts from then. but they don't
sell most of these parts.  They did suggest a place they called My
Computer Support, though they answered the phone as Nerds To Go.  They
also can't help, since they don't have Threadripper parts for the
swapsies.  Same story from a nearby computer repair place I have dealt
with before, they just don't have the parts.

Unless I can find someone to help with the diagnoses that has suitable
parts for swapping around, I'm just gonna go with getting the motherboard
replaced on Monday, and cross my fingers.  When my fingers stop bleeding
I'll try the CPU reseat Lehman's friend suggested.

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.