Thread: Workstation instable

i've been trying track down issue on week now, , use help.

started 6 days ago, when in morning found workstation frozen no video output. posted this thread, can find log info, received no replies.

info system:

- intel xeon w3570 stock speed
- 24gb kingston ecc pc-10600 memory
- asus p6t6 ws revolution
- sapphire flex hd 6870 (amd 6800 series)
- lsi 9260 8i, with
- 4x ocz vertex 2 in raid 0
- 4x 2tb wd ears in raid 5
- triple monitor setup, proprietary amd driver
- lucid

eventually, pressured deadline thing working, put in old nvidia card of knew fan failing , reinstalled lucid. sure enough, hot weather of late, system froze (at least convenient moment of course - in middle of fixing critical bug in live website). reboot after cutting power left system unbootable. beepcodes , p6t6 manual revealed suspected: vga failure.

put amd card in, removed nvidia drivers , reinstalled proprietary driver. @ boot ubuntu reported fs issues several times, , had me fix them. eventually, system seemed stable. cpu temps acceptable, northbridge bit on hot side. southbridge, not reported sensors, felt hot touch. p6t6 nf200 chip located powers pci buses.

last bit might relevant info, amd card not in primary pci slot. lsi raid card needs in slot, or not respond keycombo needed access card's bios. i've been told nf200 has high latency.

reset bios, , when leave onboard sata on, reports "not enough space copy pci option rom [00:1f:02]", before says "reading nvram".

anyway, seemed work, after little while chrome started freeze on "waiting cache..". ~$ ls froze. apparently raid array inaccessible. after hard reset, worked while again, repeated 3 times, until issue in original thread resurfaced: gnome menu freeze , reboot gives blank screens @ end of ubuntu boot.

morning did cold boot, worked while again. ui froze again, , we're @ blank screens. posting using bootable usb in low quality vga mode.

there several suspects seems me southbridge overheating, or in way pci controller(s) failing. buy new motherboard options x58 board support ecc memory limited. have multiple causes, other wild guesses:

- raid card overheating or defective in other way

runs pretty hot, not sure how can handle. explain fs access problems, not explain why issue not occur until @ least 1 monitor full res using amd driver.

- amd card overheating

fan runs fine, heatpipes hot not extremely. not explain fs issues. seems less likely.

- soutbridge overheating or permanently damaged due overheating

can't sure seems under heatsink of likes southbridge, both nf200 , ich10 housed. said, runs hot. hotter heatpipes on amd card. explain everything, have no concrete evidence other hot touch.

can throw money @ issue, buying new hardware, might take long time unless buy new mb, raid card, , videocard @ same time, big chunk of money @ least partly wasted. , said choices in motherboards limited. end rs2, around 500 eur think. lsi raid card costs same. new eyefinity card set me 300 eur well. not mind replacing 1 of these if confident solve issue.

need workstation can work home , standby issues on live websites. critical, eternally grateful advice whatsoever can give me.

thank in advance,

john

i forget 1 other possible issue: ssd(s) defective. show healthy in raid bios though.

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