BSOD & Crashing when gaming/streaming.

[Vir Gnarus]

I'm sorry, I missed the crashdumps you provided lately that were caused by DV kicking in. Apparently all 3 pointed to specifically one Gigabyte utility, the Easy Saver utility. If you've uninstalled all your Gigabyte utilities as recommended, this item should also be gone. You should still turn DV back on again to see if it comes up with anything else, but those three crashdumps may end up being obsolete in helping resolve this.

 

[James7679]

Were you able to resolve this Freak367?

 

[FreaK367]

Were you able to resolve this Freak367?

Not quite yet, yesterday I ordered an ESD wrist strap, a can of compressed air, some Arctic Silver ArctiClean (thermal remover and surface purifier) and a tube of Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Paste.

So they should be here within the next 1 - 2 days.

I'm either going to use the current stock heatsink+fan or order an aftermarket one today if possible, although I've left hardly anything in my bank so I'd need to get a cheap one :/

I have some questions actually which I couldn't find a proper answer for, if you don't mind giving your input:

1) What CPU's run hotter?, Intel or AMD?, looking at heatsink reviews, every single review uses an Intel i7 to test the temperatures..., is that hotter or cooler than my AMD FX-6200 at stock speed idle+load?, nobody tests AMD's -_-

2) Do all/any aftermarket heatsinks work better than stock?, if it's a proper branded product?

3) ^If so, I have a short list of reasonably cheap CPU coolers I can afford now without needing to wait until I next get paid, what would you recommend?

Xigmatek Loki SD963 H.D.T
Xigmatek Gaia SD1283 H.D.T
Coolermaster TX3
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO

Or should I wait until next week then get something like:

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro
Gelid Solutions GX7
Coolermaster Hyper 612S

I want to get the best value for money, I don't mind waiting another week to do it all if I'll be getting something considerably better with one of the slightly more expensive ones.

 

[Vir Gnarus]

Intel CPUs are able to handle temperatures a lot more than AMDs.

I personally have no knowledge of the aforementioned CPU coolers to make any recommendation or state any opinion. However, I've found that often you will go for those if you want to start overclocking your CPU. Even a stock cooler for the most part should suffice when running the CPU at base speed, though the aftermarket CPU coolers can make your CPU last longer and give you a more comfortable gap from the temperature threshold so you can run anything without concern.

However, do be aware that by far the most crucial element in keeping your CPU cool isn't so much the cooler, the thermal paste you use, or even the CPU, but your application of the thermal paste and placement of the CPU cooler. The difference between proper application and even slight misapplication can be several tens of the degrees, so you'll want to review guides so that you can understand best methods for approaching this.

Btw, skimming back through this, you mentioned you experienced a beep code previously but I don't believe I see any mention you've made that you've checked in your motherboard's manual as to what it was implying. Have you figured this out?

 

[James7679]

Had to restart, but this time instead of starting up I got a beep code and the PC was turned on, but I got nothing on the monitor, restarted, same thing. Then turned the PC off completely then back on and managed to get to the loading windows screen where it never actually loaded windows... so had to restart, then went into safe mode, didn't really do anything, then just restarted again and windows acted as normal. :/

Never heard a beep code like it, just a strange variation of 5 - 7 beeps in about 1.5 seconds, very quick.

Good point Vir Gnarus. I looked it up, but unfortunately, the section for the Beep codes is missing online. BUT, if I am not mistaken, a succession of rapid beeps indicates that the BIOS detected a Power Error.

Do you have an extra PSU to stick in there? Just to try...

 

[Vir Gnarus]

Again, it can very for any BIOS. Every BIOS has its own flavor of beep codes, and the same beep code can have different meanings depending on the BIOS. The motherboard the BIOS resides on can also alter it as some BIOS versions can be altered slightly to accommodate the mobo they're on (this is often true of OEM versions of the BIOS).

The online version of the manual should be an exact digital copy of the paper manual. I'm not sure why they would omit something as important as the beep codes from the BIOS. If you are looking for them, another name for them is POST codes.

If Freak suspects it was indeed a power issue, and if he checked your cables and all, then it's indicative of a failing PSU. While we did previously check voltage levels, those aren't the only indicator of a failing PSU. Sometimes bad PSUs may run fine then spontaneously go bonkers under specific conditions. If he were to decide on swapping hardware to remedy his BSOD/hanging problems, I'd start with the PSU.

 

[James7679]

I agree Vir, about everything you just said. The manual does omit the troubleshooting section online, everywhere. My Gigabyte Z68 manual states it as a Power Error. You are correct, it may be different. And yes, while we did look at the voltage, it could be falling off completely and not fluctuating.

Freak, are you able to replicate that Post Beep? Or was it a one time thing? Either way, your CPU was running on the hot side for that models specs. But, since the PSU you are using is from a previous build, it is possible that it is failing.

 

[FreaK367]

However, do be aware that by far the most crucial element in keeping your CPU cool isn't so much the cooler, the thermal paste you use, or even the CPU, but your application of the thermal paste and placement of the CPU cooler. The difference between proper application and even slight misapplication can be several tens of the degrees, so you'll want to review guides so that you can understand best methods for approaching this.

Btw, skimming back through this, you mentioned you experienced a beep code previously but I don't believe I see any mention you've made that you've checked in your motherboard's manual as to what it was implying. Have you figured this out?

Good point Vir Gnarus. I looked it up, but unfortunately, the section for the Beep codes is missing online. BUT, if I am not mistaken, a succession of rapid beeps indicates that the BIOS detected a Power Error.

Do you have an extra PSU to stick in there? Just to try...

I have been reviewing different methods of applying thermal paste for the past week, so many methods... Most companies/experts suggest a simple pea sized dot in the middle to be spread by the heatsink pressure. The current thermal paste on there is what came with the CPU, pre-applied from AMD on the heatsink. I'd attempt the pea method or one of the line methods since they seem to cover more area.

As for the beep code, it was a one off after one of the crashes, never heard it since or any other beep codes, infact, just using that desk fan when stressing my pc has prevented a crash or any problems atall for the past 2 - 3 days, windows seems to be working flawlessly, and I only got the event log errors after my pc had crashed each time which is as expected.

To make sure it wasn't fixed and I was using a desk fan for no reason, yesterday I turned the desk fan off and played a game, and it crashed. Which for me, seems to point to a heat problem. Like I said earlier, the Northbridge heatsink is VERY hot to the touch, I can't keep my finger on there for more than 2 seconds, and that's just when my PC is idle.

I checked my user manual which is identical to the online version and like in both it says "Refer to chapter 5, "Troubleshooting", for information about beep codes" And the manual ends at chapter 4 for some reason but has a couple of pages of lines. No idea why they didn't include them.

My old PSU was giving me trouble, it was 3 - 4 years old, a non brand and cheap, it served me well though for the most part. My current one I bought brand new on the 7th of February this year, added it to my old system until I got the other components to make the PC I have now. So I threw my old PSU out. (not before opening it up to find about 3 inches of filth on everything inside)

In hindsight I probably should have got a higher wattage PSU, but through all of my research I seen some guys with better PC's than the one I have built with a 125w CPU, a Radeon 7 series GPU, talking about overclocking the CPU to 4GHz with only a 500w PSU in their system. And having success with it... so I figured a good 80+ 550w PSU would do me fine since I don't plan on overclocking anything and I have a 6 series radeon.

 

[James7679]

If you are "thermally stable" now, I think you will be doing good once you get the aftermarket cpu cooler seated. As.far as which one to go with, I use the CM 212+ with a second fan installed for push and pull. Look in my sig for specs. Also, have you priced another fan for the front of the case? And a fan controller to get your side fan running? I am on my phone now, I will check in later.

 

[FreaK367]

If you are "thermally stable" now, I think you will be doing good once you get the aftermarket cpu cooler seated. As.far as which one to go with, I use the CM 212+ with a second fan installed for push and pull. Look in my sig for specs. Also, have you priced another fan for the front of the case? And a fan controller to get your side fan running? I am on my phone now, I will check in later.

With my case I am very limited, one 120mm fan on the back, one 80mm (120mm possible) on the front, only problem being is the front fan blows air under my massive GPU, so none of it hits the northbridge or RAM or anything, and the back fan is pulling air from the other side of the GPU, the GPU pretty much acts like a wall on my motherboard. I can't imagine the airflow is great at the moment.

I've tried my hardest to get the 360mm side fan working, but only the LED's ever turn on, the fan itself never moves or even hints that it is going to do anything. It's powered by Molex, but I've tried every one in my case with the fan and none of them do anything other than turn the LED's on. The case itself has a button to turn the LED's and fan on or off, and also a dial to change the RPM of the fan.

Which you can see here:

 

[James7679]

Freak, you have a few options here.
1. Get the fan on your current case working, if possible and add the exhaust fan to the front in addition to the one on the back. It is possible that either the switch of speed control knob has gone bad. To check this, you need a multimeter. Start at the wires going into the fan(red+ black-). Check for voltage, if there is voltage, then the fan is bad and a replacement for a fan that size will be very pricey. If there is no voltage, move to the next component of the circuit, the speed control. Same test, on the input, check for power, if there is power, then you have a faulty speed control knob, which you should be able to order from your case manufacturer. If there is no power, the only thing left is the power switch for the fan.

2. If the fan on your current case is bad or you just don't want to mess with it anymore, buy a new case.
Newegg.com - Thermaltake V3 Black Edition VL80001W2Z Black SECC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case This is the case I use. It is cheap and has great ventilation for air cooling. I have the Coolermaster 212+ with push and pull config, one rear exhaust fan, one top intake fan and one front intake fan. My system runs very cool and I am overclocked to 4.5ghz. I know that you probably won't overclock, but with the temperature problems you are already having, without overclocking, I'd recommend as much air flow as possible.

Most importantly, as previously mentioned, proper application of the thermal past and seating of the CPU and Northbridge are priority. I will be glad to answer any more questions that you may have regarding this.

James

 

[FreaK367]

I'm going to buy myself a new case, I'm due for one anyways. I've tried every Molex and I've taken the side panel apart to look for any obvious deficiencies and made sure all connections were secure, looks fine, but it just isn't going to work, and to be honest looking at professional reviews of my case, the 360mm fan on full blast might make a 1 - 2 degrees difference at most, for the size and apppeal, it doesn't give much performance since it is fairly low RPM to be silent.

I've been looking at cases for much of today, thank you for your input on that, the Thermaltake V3 looks like a nice case and is within my budget, I'll be looking for a case for around the same price as I am for a heatsink+fan.

So far, I like the look of these two:

Aerocool PGS Vs-9

Thermaltake - Global - V3 BlacX Edition - VL800M1W2N

What do you think?

 

[James7679]

The first one looks pretty nice, good features. Good price.

The second one is the same as mine only it includes a HDD dock and one USB 3.0 port for twice the cost.

 

[FreaK367]

The first one looks pretty nice, good features. Good price.

The second one is the same as mine only it includes a HDD dock and one USB 3.0 port for twice the cost.

Yeah I just noticed that, It looked a bit different so I figured it would have more features, before doing more research and just seeing that they took a Black Edition chasis and added a dock and a USB 3.0 port, and I'm probably not going to use either, USB 2.0 is fast enough. And if I need USB 3.0 my motherboard has two of them at the back.

Both have great and similar features, I'm quite taken by the AeroCool VS-9, looking at reviews it looks like a really solid case, and I like how instead of having fixed locations for fans, it has long vents allowing up to two 140mm fans on top and 1 on bottom using the included fan adapters, up to 7 fans in total which is impressive for the price.

Not familiar with the brand though.

EDIT: Not that I'm going to add 7 fans..., I'll probably go with the 120mm Rear fan it comes with, 1x 140mm top, 1x 120mm front, 1x140mm bottom, and maybe a 120mm side fan. If I even need that much.

Double EDIT, I now have my eye on this:
http://www.aerocool.us/pgs/pgs-v/pgs_v_vx9pro.htm

 

[FreaK367]

Hey, thought I'd pop back in with my progress, this is what I have done:

What I bought:

Can of Compressed Air
Antistatic Wrist Strap
Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Paste
Arctic Silver ArctiClean
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler
Zalman Z11 Plus case

The Zalman Z11 Plus is amazing for the price, it has so many features and came with 5 fans already installed, 2 of them are dedicated to the hard drives though.

What I did:

I carefully took my computer apart and blasted each component with compressed air to clean off any dust.

When it came to take the motherboard out I placed it down on a flat bench and carefully removed the northbridge heatsink, using a little thermal paste remover on a lint free cloth I wiped the northbridge chip and heatsink until shiny. Applied a little drop of MX-4 Thermal Paste and carefully secured the heatsink. (forgot to use the purifier...)

Then I finished off installing everything into my new case, then focussed on the CPU, removed the stock heatsink, brackets and backplate and secured the new backplate.

I used a couple of drops of thermal paste remover and cleaned the CPU, then a couple of drops of surface purifier until it was nice and shiny. I used the Pea method for the MX-4 Thermal Paste, put a pea sized drop in the middle of the CPU and carefully lowered the Hyper 212 EVO heatsink onto the CPU and gave it a little wiggle, then secured it, attached the fan and finished off the installation.

I now have 4 120mm fans in my case, front and bottom intake, back and top exhaust with two smaller fans built into each door which I believe are exhausts for Hard Drive heat, you can see that design by looking at the case.

I didn't get around to doing a fresh install of Windows 7, but after doing all of that my system seems pretty stable, I can game for as long as I want without crashing, and I did a Prime95 small FFT test and the max temperature of my CPU was 40*C using 93W of power and the fan was only around 850 - 890 RPM, it can go to 1600 RPM if needed... so that's promising.

In HWiNFO64 while running a small FFT test, I'm not sure what these refer to but, Temp 1: 32*C, Temp 2: 48*C, Temp 3: 52*C.

I did a FurMark test and stressed my GPU, the temperature went as high as 73*C and was steady at that temperature for about 20 minutes before I closed and called it a success I guess.


Things still of concern:

Even after putting everything into my new case, I touched the northbridge heatsink and actually burnt the end of my finger after touching it for about 4 seconds... not sure if that's bad. :/

When I tried a large FFT test and torture test, although the temperatures were all very similar to when I was running a small FFT test, after a couple of minutes or so my system does crash, just completely stops responding and requires a forced restart.

Not sure what that really means... but everything else runs flawlessly, no game or video or anything else has created a problem. I was just using the preset tests in Prime95, nothing custom.

 

[James7679]

The heat build up on the north bridge could be evident of a fault. You shouldn't crash while running torture tests. Crashing is evidence of something still being amiss. Put in a trouble ticket to Gigabyte if it becomes an issue. Do you have a digital meat thermometer or a laser thermometer? If so, see if you can get a reading on the NorthBridge. Even if sensor 3 is your NorthBridge, 52c(125f), while it is hot, it shouldn't be hot enough to burn your finger.

All in all though, I would say that if you aren't getting BSODs like you were previously getting, then you are in much better shape. I'm glad to hear that you were able to successfully repackage everything.

 

[FreaK367]

The heat build up on the north bridge could be evident of a fault. You shouldn't crash while running torture tests. Crashing is evidence of something still being amiss. Put in a trouble ticket to Gigabyte if it becomes an issue. Do you have a digital meat thermometer or a laser thermometer? If so, see if you can get a reading on the NorthBridge. Even if sensor 3 is your NorthBridge, 52c(125f), while it is hot, it shouldn't be hot enough to burn your finger.

All in all though, I would say that if you aren't getting BSODs like you were previously getting, then you are in much better shape. I'm glad to hear that you were able to successfully repackage everything.

I am very happy with the results, during normal usage and gaming the system is running smoothly, the small FFT test was no problem, just the large and torture tests caused a crash, but I'm not sure if anything else would ever really create that sort of environment to replicate the crash outside of intentionally trying to stress the hell out of my system using Prime95, so that might not be a problem.

Graphically intensive games don't come anywhere near to 100% CPU usage, or RAM usage, and that's about as hard as I push my PC really.

I'll get a temperature reading of the northbridge heatsink and post the results.

EDIT: Might take a while, turns out I have nothing to do the job in the house, but my Uncle has an Infrared Thermometer so I'll have to find time to go to his and borrow it.

Actually, I might just buy one, they are handy to have, not too expensive either.

 

[FreaK367]

Hi again, I bought myself an Infrared Digital Thermometer, checked some temperatures on my PC.

North Bridge Heatsink:

Idle: 55*C
Load (gaming): 65*C

Load (Prime95 Small FFT): 67*C
(held it pointing at the NB Heatsink for as long as I could, it kept rising and slowed at 67*C)

Load (Prime95 Large FFT): 70*C
(crashed about 10 minutes in)

CPU Heatsink:

Load (gaming):
Bottom: 40*C
Average: 33*C
Top: 25*C

CPU Software recording (Prime95 Large FFT): 36*C max.
(This heatsink rules)


Anything look worrying?


EDIT: Since my last post I have crashed once while gaming... ever since then though I can game for hours with no problems, it seemed like a fluke. (I was on a game for 2 hours earlier today to test the temperatures and suffered no crashes)

 

[James7679]

Hello Freak, I don't know how I missed this. It seems like your temps are a little high on the northbridge for this motherboard. Contact Gigabyte support if it continues to be an issue. But as you said, you aren't going to be running that high under normal circumstances. Thing is, degradation from heat might cause the crashes to start happening at lower temperatures.

Is there any way that you could get a fan over the northbridge to get air directly on it?

 

[FreaK367]

Hello Freak, I don't know how I missed this. It seems like your temps are a little high on the northbridge for this motherboard. Contact Gigabyte support if it continues to be an issue. But as you said, you aren't going to be running that high under normal circumstances. Thing is, degradation from heat might cause the crashes to start happening at lower temperatures.

Is there any way that you could get a fan over the northbridge to get air directly on it?

Possibly... I have a spare 80mm sitting in my old case which I haven't thrown out yet, 3 pin and I've used all of my current sockets so I'd need to buy a molex > fan adapter which is cheap enough if I don't have one lying around.

The only problem is, with my large graphics card sitting in the PCIEx16 slot directly next to the northbridge, and my large heatsink on the CPU, the northbridge is dwarfed between the two with very little room between until you clear the height of the CPU heatsink, which is then limited by the case, it could be side on, but even then... I have Corsair Vengeance RAM, which have gigantic heatsinks on them and run down the side of the northbridge, and the other side has limited space and an exhaust fan :/

I could try with the 80mm. I wouldn't be against buying an aftermarket northbridge heatsink if they are proven to be better, and if they'd actually fit between my GPU and CPU. Or I could get a 40mm fan and see what I can do with that. Would I need metal wire to suspend the fan?

Edit: I've heard of people getting 40mm fans and gluing them onto the northbridge heatsink, would that work? Assuming it fits.