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heldt139 · ‎09-12-2014

Hi there, I tried searching but couldn't find a specific similar problem, and I could really use some help with breaking down what's wrong!

The setup:

ASUS Sabertooth 990fx / GEN3 r2.0 - BIOS 2501
AMD FX-8350 w/ Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL7D-8GBXM (2x4gb)
GIGABYTE Radeon r9 280 3gb WINDFORCE
Crucial M4 128gb SSD
Corsair GS700W
NZXT Source 220 w/ 5 Cooler Master Sickleflows.

Driver list (everything downloaded last week):
AMD Chipset
VGA, Catalyst
Asmedia SATA Controller
Asmedia USB 3.0
Realtek LAN driver
Realtek Audio driver (later removed because microphone wasn't working, windows default drivers didn't fix it though)
Crucial firmware up to date

First off, I only tried playing two games on this pc to test how it would work (DotA 2, TrackMania), and TrackMania is _ALWAYS_ crashing in the first 15 minutes, usually it only lasts a few minutes before going crazy. DotA 2 has lasted up to a few hours without a freeze. No BSOD's ever occured, it's only freezes (which sometimes turn the screen completely white).
I only did minor changes to the settings, like putting 21x ratio on CPU, didn't mess with voltage really.

The problems: (all freezes cause sound to loop if there is any present)

Sometimes won't load into BIOS, it's stuck at the TUF logo.

Tiny (under half a sec) freeze during splash screen.

During login, a short freeze occurs, including sound looping.

Opening of CPU-Z and HWMonitor, the system will freeze shortly with VERY heavy sound looping.
EDIT: I just noticed the freeze happens when it's loading PCI!

Occasionally it will freeze for under a second after opening TrackMania (not DotA 2).
EDIT: this also happens in DotA 2, I just hadn't noticed

When TrackMania freezes, I can't recover and must reset the computer, when DotA 2 freezes I can ctrl-shift-esc and close it there, some times triggering "display driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered".

"Display driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered" can happen on the desktop aswell (can't recall if I had any games open, but I'm pretty sure it happened without at one point)
I thought maybe it was a PSU issue, but reading this post I'm not quite sure, could it be the RAM?

Prime95/memtestx86/Realbench
These tests were done with everything in BIOS on AUTO (removed CPU ratio)

I first ran Prime95 in Blend mode for about 30 minutes to see what temps it would hit, these are the results in AI SUITE 2:
CPU: 45
MB: 24
VCore1: 46
VCore2: 39
NB HT: 30
DRAM: 25
USB3.0-1: 29
USB3.0-2: 24
PCIE/Gen3-1: 27
PCIE/Gen3-2: 27

memtestx86:
I feel asleep while it was running, when I woke up about 3 hours later, it was 0 errors, I unfortunately didn't pay much attention to anything else other than that, and just shut my computer off. How long does a cycle usually take to complete?

Realbench:
Image editing,
70326, time 122

Encoding,
77088, time 155

OpenCL,
this is where it crashed (edit: froze).. I know with almost certainty that the graphic card is not the problem, as I had an HD 6850 in last year in the very same system, and it crashed when playing games aswell (stopped using the parts, but I wanna put them to good use now).
If the graphic card is not the problem, what could cause it to crash in OpenCL test? I'm thinking a communication issue, but I'm not sure. Perhaps RAM/GFX? If not that, I would go back to thinking the PSU is the problem, although the wattage is around 450 (444) according to www.PCPartPicker.com

I'm gonna try using different DIMM slots (currently 2&4) and see if it has any impact.
EDIT: tried and it's exactly the same as before

Could really use some help, I have a dota 2 tournament to train for! 🙂

Thanks,
heldt139

heldt139 · ‎09-22-2014

A little update:
I tried putting my graphic card into the PCI-E 2.0 slot, and it no longer crashes the program or the computer, instead it softcrashes it, disabling what I imagine is the driver, the screen turns black with some random stripes, then it goes back to running the game.
What could this mean?

MeanMachine · ‎10-08-2014

Hi heldt139, Welcome to ROG and sorry for the late response.
Your symptoms have the hallmark of inadequate cooling to your CPU when under load. I recommend a liquid cooling solution.
To prove this, undertake a stress test using Prime95 for ten minutes whilst monitoring you temps. Use only one temp monitoring application at a time. An excellent monitoring package is CoreTemp and its Grapher plugin, to monitor each cores performance.

RealBench will report an error regarding the .dll (Dynamic link library) file associated with the application ( RealBench )if it is not in the correctly installed location. Suggest you uninstall, then install directly to your C drive primary DIR.

We owe our existence to the scum of the earth, Cyanobacteria

My System Specs:

MB:ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero/WiFi GPU:EVGA GTX 1080 sc PSU:Corsair AX-1200i
CPU:AMD R7 2700X Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i Case: Corsair Carbide 780t
Memory:G.Skill TridentZ F4-3200C14D-16GTZR SSD:Samsung 500GB 960 EVO M.2

[/HR]

heldt139 · ‎10-30-2014

Thank you for your response, I had almost lost hope and forgotten about this post 🙂

I did as you said regarding CoreTemp & Grapher and started Prime95 on small FTTs.
Idle temps say 9c in Grapher, gradually increasing to a peak value of 39c under 100% load when Prime95 is run, not spiking above that anywhere. Cooling doesn't seem to be the problem.

Any other ideas? I'm kinda lost...
thanks again

MeanMachine · ‎11-03-2014

Hi heldt139
Something is wrong with those readings, Your min at idle should be 10-15c above ambient room temperature and would be at least 70-75c under load and using Prime95 Small FFT. (depends on cooler used) Using Air, I can imagine your temps to go up to 80-85c.

Recapping on your original post you mentioned Realbench stopping on OpenCL, This is a graphic card related issue with the driver or settings. Are your drivers up to date? Have you OCed at all?

Best to go back to basics till you can achieve stability at stock settings. (by clearing CMOS and default settings in Bios) No OCing at all at this stage!
Should this instability continue, you will have to test your PSU to eliminated that possibility.

When you conduct your next stress test use HWMonitor and stress test using RealBench. Only one monitor at a time to avoid erroneous readings.
Either post your results or pm them to me.

We owe our existence to the scum of the earth, Cyanobacteria

My System Specs:

MB:ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero/WiFi GPU:EVGA GTX 1080 sc PSU:Corsair AX-1200i
CPU:AMD R7 2700X Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i Case: Corsair Carbide 780t
Memory:G.Skill TridentZ F4-3200C14D-16GTZR SSD:Samsung 500GB 960 EVO M.2

[/HR]

Dr__Zchivago · ‎11-03-2014

He's reading the individual core readings - I see the exact same thing in Aida64.

The only reliable readings I ever get are the "CPU Temp," and not "Core ## Temp."

My room temperature is 24 degrees C, and I see the same stuff.

Additionally, I've always understood CoreTemp and/or RealTemp to be specific to Intel? I was never able to get RealTemp to work on my AMD PC, but I've heard that people use it - no idea.

Z

MeanMachine · ‎11-03-2014

@Dr. Zchivago

Yea its strange, Some readings are erroneous in some monitors and not in others.
I use CoreTemp and the grapher plug in with accurate results that correspond to other packages such as HWMonitor.
In HWMonitor I get a reading of 126c on one of the probes. I know this is incorrect and probably not monitoring anything as the MB or chip would have fried by now, so I think its dependent on how the software reads these sensors and can be really confusing for the uninitiated.

We owe our existence to the scum of the earth, Cyanobacteria

My System Specs:

MB:ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero/WiFi GPU:EVGA GTX 1080 sc PSU:Corsair AX-1200i
CPU:AMD R7 2700X Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i Case: Corsair Carbide 780t
Memory:G.Skill TridentZ F4-3200C14D-16GTZR SSD:Samsung 500GB 960 EVO M.2

[/HR]

WKjun · ‎12-11-2014

Have you identified yet, if the freezes happen only in 3D applications, or while being idle some time or running CPU-only benches (Prime95) too?

heldt139 · ‎04-15-2015

WKjun wrote:
Have you identified yet, if the freezes happen only in 3D applications, or while being idle some time or running CPU-only benches (Prime95) too?

I have, it doesn't matter how many or few applications that are open, it will happen even on desktop with only background stuff running. It does feel like it's more frequent if more RAM is in use though. Iirc running prime95 would be close to idle regarding frequency of the driver crashes.

heldt139 · ‎04-15-2015

I recently decided to give this another shot, its a shame if this beast sits idle.

Sabertooth 990fx GEN3/r2.0 & FX-8350 very unstable w/ freezing