Vista - Event12, Kernel-WHEA error log question

I have question regarding Kernel-WHEA (EventID 12) error log which seems to
appear everytime Windows boots up.

I am currently running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 on AMD Opteron 280 box
with 4GB RAM. And I see following error log in Event Viewer;

Event12, Kernel-WHEA
Machine Check Event reported is a fatal Bus or Interconnect timeout error.
Memory Hierarchy Level: 3
Participation: 0
Request Type: 3
Memory/IO: 0
Address: 30422400


Same error log (different numbers in the address section, though) appears
everytime Windows boots up, but it does not seem to reappear while Windows is
on. In other words, this specific error gets logged only during the bootup
process.

Anyway, I did some research and tried to find out what it meant and how to
fix it, but only things I found were WHEA meaning 'Windows Hardware Error
Architecture' and Event12, Kernel-WHEA meaning 'Bus timeout machine check
exception'.

So I ran AMD's MCAT (Machine Check Analysis Tool) to dig little more
information, and here what MCAT says:

Event Source 0
Processor Number : 0
Bank Number : 0
Time Stamp (0x): 01C83B55 755106C4
Error Status (0x): D4384000 00000833
Error Address (0x): 00000000 01D03580
Error Misc. (0x): 00000000 00000000
Single bit errors:
Correctable ECC error
Error address valid in MCi_ADDR
Error reporting enabled
Second error
Error valid
Bus Error Code:
Participation processor: Local node originated the request (SRC)
Time-out: Request did not time out
Memory transaction type: Data read (DRD)
I/O: DRAM memory access (MEM)
Cache level: Generic (LG)
Data Cache Error MC0:
System line fill error into data cache
Syndrome: 0x70


I ran my system manufacturer provided diagnostic tool to see if I get any
CPU/RAM related error, but all test had passed without any error. I do not
have any problem in 'Device Manager' and even clean installation of Windows
Vista didn't resolve the issue.

This error log is driving me nuts for quite some time and since the my
computer manufacturer does not provide any support other than the one running
Windows XP, I am not comfortable to ask them to fix my issue unless I know
specifically which part of my hardware (such as CPU or RAM) has gone wrong.

So pelase, I desperately need any input to either resolve this annoying
error, or at least a hint what part of my hardware is gone wrong.

Thanks in advance

Try taking out 2 gig of am and see if that helps, if it does not swap over the 2g with the 2 you took out. Looking at your error log it may be faulty ram. Check to see if you have the patch so you can have over 4g of ram installed.

Thanks for your comment.
I did run some more tests. And here's what I've found out:

Swapping CPU1 to CPU2: same error message
Repositioning DIMMs with each other: same error message
Removing DIMM's for CPU1 (with rest of 2GB installed for CPU2): no error log
Removing DIMM's for CPU2 (with rest of 2GB installed for CPU1): same error
message.


So it seems that neither CPU's nor DIMM's is causing the error.

Would it be due to faulty motherboard?

Post your system set up.
You said you got no error log when removing DIMMs for cpu1, did you get any problems?

roy69,

I am using a Sun Ultra 40 workstation which has;
2 x AMD Opteron 280
4 x 1GB PC3200 ECC DDR DIMM
Sun customized motherboard with NVIDIA nForce Professional 2200+2050 chipsets.

Right now, I have 2 DIMM's (2GB) installed for each CPU, (2GB+2GB for both
CPU's)