Windows 7: Unknown Issue (4 months long) Freezes

Hello,

Here are my specs to begin:

i7 3930k
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme - Bios 3010 post CAP Convertor
32 GB (XMP) 4x4 2 sets. - XMP Profile 1866 - 1.65V

HD 7970 ASUS DCU2T

Corsair Force GT 120GB
WD Cav Black Sata 6 1 TB

CM Cosmos 2 (Not sure about this but I'm suspecting the chassis as well with its layout)
1200w CM Silent Gold PSU

Win 7 64 Ultimate

Pre-posting this topic notes:

- Day 1 problem - 00 Debug Code - No Boot - No On-screen display (solved with reinstalling the parts)

- Day 1 problem - Random freezes

- Month and a half ago, PSU went kaput from what may be a surge

- To test damage, powered on the pc and all was running well.

- Removed PSU and sent for RMA



- Got a new set a few days back

- Rules out PSU issue

After installing and running with new PSU

- Update UEFI BIOS with Cap-Convertor

- Bios upgraded to 3010 RIVE non-custom

- Issue persists.

- Freezes are random still

- Freezes can be delayed by toying around with DIGI+ Power Control

- 00 Debug if restarted after freeze without removing power source

- Unplugging for 5 seconds results in regular boot procedure. AE > AA (select mode > boot)

- All parts are as is as it was in day 1 with the exception of PSU (RMA'ed)

Most Common Freezes

- Whilst Gaming

- When Chassis is Shaked (not always)

- When removing Wireless Adapter from front USB Panels (Chassis)

- When transfering Wireless Adapter USB Ports from 2.0 to 3.0 and vice versa.

Non Gaming / Intensive Status:

- No crashes until I start multi tasking (simple music + ms office + spidertracks)

- Sometimes it doesn't crash at all.

Tests done:

Prime
Burn
FurMark

- Before PSU was RMA'ed

- Lost result data

- Didn't shut down or freeze during those as far as I can remember.


I'm really baffled at this point. Prior to this there was a 1 week worth of pure good gaming experience without crashes even when it was at 4.5 GHz OC'ed with DIGI+ set to 400 frequencies for memory and some voltage tweaks.

I do hope to solve this issue before further RMA'ing any parts. It takes forever over here.

Thank you for reading this and do let me know if I can do anything to assist or provide.

Regards,

Shawn

Welcome to SF.
You'll hate these ideas.
You may have damaged your board, CPU, RAM, SSD, and/or GPU with the power surge.

Shaking the case? Something, somewhere is shorting/grounding out. Some cases (rare) have been found to have faults that cause this issue and would be difficult to track down.

Your board may not be fully isolated from the chassis. Remove the board and painstakingly check all stand offs are in place and each mounting hole has been screwed down.

Check the mounting on the CPU cooler, over tightening can do odd thing on some boards.


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Thanks for the welcome. I'm planning to stay and help out where I can too. Love the community so far.

On the rive you can get ground v checks I did prod into that and nothing was out of the ordinary.

I would've frankly be happier if it was a confirmed surge. Unfortunately these are the same problem that persisted for about a month prior to assembly.

I've also noticed something regarding the xmp profile ab and cd are both at 1.65v however does not share the same timing in the bios.

Would prime and memtest reports help?

It is a great forum with a lot of willing and knowledgeable members.

There must be something loose due to when you shake the case it causes freezes at times.

I don't understand the items in red.

Yeah, it's an awesome community especially when most people tear their hair out when BSODs happen (most of the time, me too T_T) and yet everyone is willing to pitch in.

RIVE - Rampage IV Extreme comes with a set of probe options that allows you to monitor many aspects of the mobo including voltage monitoring and the lots.

AB CD - Channels / XMP Profile sets. It's for ram settings including frequency / voltage and the lots of it.

Still weird though. I just realised my mobo is not saving some of the changes made.

IT may be the CMOS battery is bad even though the board is fairly new.

That's what I thought at first too and did replace to no avail. After getting the bios up to 3010 (from 1404 1 year gap) it's not even registering changes.

Thanks for opening my eyes to that it's better off to RMA instead of messing with it more and getting nothing out of the time spent.

And you're going to really hate this!

Simplify the system. Disconnect all USB connected devices (except Keyboard & Mouse), Remove any unnecessary peripherals (sound card, video card (your processor has one), etc). Strip the system down to it's minimal core components to run: PS, CPU, RAM, Hard drive. Don't forget to remove the devices from Device Manager! I would even remove all RAM except one stick in slot A1. (Try each stick individually in slot A1)

Reset the BIOS defaults. Do not tweak anything except AHCI setting. I would go further and perform a CLRTC.

Then run it like that to see if you get the problem. If it does not freeze, even when shaking it, then that is valuable info. You can assume that the core system is sound.
Then start adding components and system changes back one at a time, testing the system with each change. You are trying to find the offending component.

If the system still freezes with just the core components then at least you have isolated the problem to one of those core components. And you can rule out the PS right off.

This process is time consuming and as much fun as watching paint dry, but it might ultimately save many hours in avoiding the "NODAT"* RMA process.


* NODAT repair Procedure:
(we originally coined this term back when we worked on cars)
"Try replacing the carburetor": Nope, not dat
"Replace the starter": Nope, nodat
"Put more air in the tires": Nope, nodat.
Continue until money runs out!

Yup, use the RMA path while it is available. I has an ASRock POS board that I missed the return time to Newegg ans ASRock kept sending me bad ones back saying it was my fault-with 4 boards.

Looks like no gym for the next 3 days. The cosmos 2 isn't what i would call a comfortable working environment. But yeah I haven't given that singling out process a shot yet. Sounds good to kill time considering tomorrow's a public holiday. Will definitely rma come Saturday but in the mean time......... To the bat cave! Thanks all will update shortly


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just a quick tap though~ it kinda skipped my mind that there's no output for video without a gpu on this mobo >.< 4 parts then ^^