Random crashing

[Mark1978]

Hi All,

I bought the following recently from Aria - Gladiator Z68 Core i7 2600K 4.60GHz 8GB Overclocked Bundle, however when purchased it the deal included the MSI Z68A-GD80 B3. Now before i start i have never had anything over clocked before and thus have no clue at how it all works, therefore apologies for my newbieness in advance!

My rig:

Mobo: MSI Z68A-GD80 Intel Z68
Chip: i7-2600K Overclocked @ 4.60GHz
Cooler:Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler.
Ram: 8GB Mushkin Ridgeback #996987 (2x4GB) DDR3 1866MHz 9-11-9-27
GPU:MSI GeForce GTX 580 Twin Frozr II
PSU: Cant remember the name but its 1200w
SSD: Crucial 256GB RealSSD C300
HDD: 2TB Samsung
OS: Windows 64 bit ultimate



When it works it works excellently, but every now and again the system will just shut off. A couple of seconds will pass and it will restart itself, I don't press a thing or touch anything. It wont boot as it keeps restarting. The only thing that will work is if i keep the power button presses, boot in safe mode, shut down and restart the system.

The only thing i have done regarding the above is change the CPU speed as in it was set to run at 4.6GHz permanently so I changed it so that when its idle the speed reduces to around 1.6GHZ. Outcasst thought about doing the same with the voltage but the only options in the BIOS are to either set it to a fixed voltage or Auto. When i set it to Auto to see if that helped the computer wouldn't boot so i changed it back again immediately.

It has been formatted in the last week if that makes a difference. But it was happening before i formatted it too.

Has anyone seen this before? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I haven't contacted Aria as yet, thought i would post here first.

Thank you in advance

Mark

[Lloyd_mcse]

Your PSU is a Cougar PSU - defo not on my recommended list as it was the first one I have seen.

Are you doing anything in paticular when it crashes?

[=ETS= GeneralClev]

It's Mark so it either playing BC2 or watching porn!

[Ya Mother]

Speedstep is what the thing is called when it reduces the ghz when not in use.....normally when a high overclock is used you usually disable speedstep as it can make it unstable.....if you have disabled it again there should be no problem.....have you looked at your power plan, sleep etc to see what the settings are?....just give aria a quick bell they are normally ok.
I would also ask for all the bios settings for that particular overclock so you can check in the bios just in case when you were changing things it didn't effect anything else....plus it's always handy to have all the settings anyway in case you get a bsod and lose them all anyway m8.

[Lloyd_mcse]

It's Mark so it either playing BC2 or watching porn!

LOL yeah I should have guessed

And +1 for checking your power plan in windows. Control Panel -> Power Options.

Description of Sleep States..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=vs.85).aspx

[Mark1978]

Hi Guys,


Thanks for the replies, got this on a couple of forums, Please see screen shots to hopefully help.

BIOS (1.23.1108). Dram V = 1.645


Memory Tab

SPD Tab


I've had the power plan on all the available ones and even created my own, it has happened on every one of them.

Here is a reply from someone on the MSI forums, not sure what it all means but you guys may. I was gonna give it a go later.

Ah, ok. Thanks for the screenshots. Helps a lot. Recommend setting Internal PLL Overvoltage from 'Auto' to 'Enable'. CPU Core Voltage, raise a step to 1.360v's. The voltage loss reading at the BIOS is telling. 1.645v set, only 1.616v is applied. This can be checked & confirmed for accuracy using a digital multi meter at the V-Check Point. For now, if we presume the 1.616v is accurate, your X.M.P. for 1866 RAM speed is 1.65v's. 1.616v is a long way from 1.65v's. With that 0.034v loss, BIOS setting would have to be raised to 1.685v range to give a true 1.65v's. I am a little reluctant to recommend that setting without a multi meter being attached to the V-Check Point. You don't really want to exceed the actual applied DRAM V. of 1.65v if at all possible.

Added: Just as an FYI, CPU V. recommended maximum is not to exceed 1.400v's. ) *

[Mark1978]

The other thing that may be pertinent is that the computer will randomly freeze to the point where even Ctrl, alt, delete wont work. It will only happen for a minute or 2 then back to normal. And at times when i say move a folder to my documents or to the recycle bin it can (again at times) take a while to kick in. Not huge files just like text only word docs.

Regarding the main issue, it has happened most when playing BC2 but not exclusively, it has happened when the computer was just sat on the desktop a couple of times. Although interestingly it has never happened when watching porn

[Ya Mother]

Most computers have a built in porn recognition device fitted these days, as a freeze or lock up at the crucial moment could be devastating to the wanking process.

Tbh if it was my machine and i bought it as a bundle i wouldn't be wanting to fix it myself,..... when i recently bought a car and the dash displayed that there was a light out when there wasn't i took it back to the garage and they fixed for me under warranty, if you try to fix it yourself and it goes tits up you will inevitably void the warranty on your machine.....my money is now on faulty ram after what you have recently disclosed about file transfers etc.....or you have changed something in the bios to make it unstable.

[Lloyd_mcse]

Could be the SSD stuttering, do Crucial have a SSD toolbox? To do a secure wipe?

[Mark1978]

Most computers have a built in porn recognition device fitted these days, as a freeze or lock up at the crucial moment could be devastating to the wanking process.

Lol. Funnily enough i have found that too!

Tbh if it was my machine and i bought it as a bundle i wouldn't be wanting to fix it myself,..... when i recently bought a car and the dash displayed that there was a light out when there wasn't i took it back to the garage and they fixed for me under warranty, if you try to fix it yourself and it goes tits up you will inevitably void the warranty on your machine.....my money is now on faulty ram after what you have recently disclosed about file transfers etc.....or you have changed something in the bios to make it unstable.

I take your point but your talking too much sense! In all seriousness I would rather not have to take the mobo etc out to send it back if i can help it. Those being the operative words. If its something that is easily fixed or maybe tweaked in the BIOS i see no need to.

In saying all that if it gets worse i will have no choice. I will be calling Aria tomorrow, see what they say. As Lloyd will tell you anything i buy from any company regarding my computer seems to go wrong one way or another!

[Mark1978]

Could be the SSD stuttering, do Crucial have a SSD toolbox? To do a secure wipe?

I don't think they do mate tbh. I have googled it and the general consensus
seems to be that it doesnt need it as it supports garbage collection

Quote from Crucial:

It runs when the drive is idle. So assuming the drive isn't in constant use you won't need to do anything special to look after it. Things like web browser caches will use the drive though while you're surfing, even when you're not directly loading things.
I personally found that natural afk's from the computer where enough for GC to work without logging off and such like. However, I run a clean computer. If you have a lot of background applications that may be using the hard drive then your experience may vary.
Manually logging off is more of a diagnostic procedure when people claim GC isn't work. The manufacturers say log off because the only way it cannot work is if you have a load of junk running that's using the hard disk and that stuff won't be running if you are logged off

.

[Lloyd_mcse]

Yeah my Corsair has BGC (Background Garbage Collection), they also said to turn off write caching,

Device Manager -> right click on the drive -> properties -> policies

[Mark1978]

Yeah my Corsair has BGC (Background Garbage Collection), they also said to turn off write caching,

Device Manager -> right click on the drive -> properties -> policies

Yeah done that.

Just had memtest running for an hour without issue, so it looks as if its not the ram. Any ideas on programs that test your psu?

I think it may be the cooler / chip. Running Prime 95 atm and its running at around 79c! Seen it go as high as 83.
Interestingly I run Prime for 15 hours a couple of nights ago with no restart issues at all. I can only assume it was reaching the same temps without crashing?

[Ya Mother]

I would try looking at event viewer to see what it says.

[Lloyd_mcse]

Yeah I wouldn't leave the clock that high with temps like that. What are the temps at default? idle & load temps pls