Hi everyone, I wanted to get the communities input on a hardware issue.
I have been having some trouble recently with my computer. I started noticing the problem when playing The Secret World. It would just randomly reboot from time to time from anywhere between 30m - 2h of playtime. The only other symptoms are some soft hangs once in awhile, mainly when using Google Chrome
At first I thought it was just an issue with The Secret World, but then I was able to consistently recreate the issue when running Prime95 Blend. I have done some extensive testing on my PC components and I think I have narrowed it down to a bad motherboard.
First some system specs,
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3
Processor: AMD FX-8120
Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W
Memory: Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Video Card: Nvidia GTX 580
Testing:
PSU - Swapped with a friend, he has almost the same PSU, except not the Gold series. I still had the same issue, he had no problems.
Memory - ran memtest86 twice. First time at ~6 hours, 2 passes, no errors. Second time at ~18hours, 8 passes, no errors.
Video Card - ran FurMark for awhile (cant remember exactly), ~2 hours, no problems
Operating System - Formatted HDD, ran chkdsk (no errors), reinstalled windows, installed newest drivers, installed all windows updates. Logs are clean except the errors generated by the reboots. Still the problem persists.
Temperature - Applied thermal paste and installed 4 new 120mm fans less than 3 months ago. Under full CPU load, Core temps stayed steady at 52C-55C
Motherboard - Updated BIOS, reset CMOS, reseated all components except CPU. Still have the problem.
So, all that said, here is how I recreate the issue. I run Prime95 blend for about 15m. I try to disable/enable a device on my mobo, specifically the video card, the onboard LAN, or the PCI Wireless Card, and the computer immediately reboots. If I don't enable/disable anything and just let it run, it will run for about 30m - 2h before it reboots. It makes no difference how many devices I disconnect or disable on the mobo between tries or how much memory I test with blend.
For example, it still reboots within roughly the same time frame, whether I run Prime95 with all devices installed/enabled at ~90% memory load or run it with minimal devices installed/enabled at ~30% memory load.
I haven't ruled out the an issue with the CPU, but from what I understand, CPU's don't usually go bad, and when they do, the PC usually won't POST or boot to Windows. I am about 95% sure it is the motherboard, but I wanted to see what the community had to say. Thanks, and sorry for the long post!
I have been having some trouble recently with my computer. I started noticing the problem when playing The Secret World. It would just randomly reboot from time to time from anywhere between 30m - 2h of playtime. The only other symptoms are some soft hangs once in awhile, mainly when using Google Chrome
At first I thought it was just an issue with The Secret World, but then I was able to consistently recreate the issue when running Prime95 Blend. I have done some extensive testing on my PC components and I think I have narrowed it down to a bad motherboard.
First some system specs,
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3
Processor: AMD FX-8120
Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W
Memory: Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Video Card: Nvidia GTX 580
Testing:
PSU - Swapped with a friend, he has almost the same PSU, except not the Gold series. I still had the same issue, he had no problems.
Memory - ran memtest86 twice. First time at ~6 hours, 2 passes, no errors. Second time at ~18hours, 8 passes, no errors.
Video Card - ran FurMark for awhile (cant remember exactly), ~2 hours, no problems
Operating System - Formatted HDD, ran chkdsk (no errors), reinstalled windows, installed newest drivers, installed all windows updates. Logs are clean except the errors generated by the reboots. Still the problem persists.
Temperature - Applied thermal paste and installed 4 new 120mm fans less than 3 months ago. Under full CPU load, Core temps stayed steady at 52C-55C
Motherboard - Updated BIOS, reset CMOS, reseated all components except CPU. Still have the problem.
So, all that said, here is how I recreate the issue. I run Prime95 blend for about 15m. I try to disable/enable a device on my mobo, specifically the video card, the onboard LAN, or the PCI Wireless Card, and the computer immediately reboots. If I don't enable/disable anything and just let it run, it will run for about 30m - 2h before it reboots. It makes no difference how many devices I disconnect or disable on the mobo between tries or how much memory I test with blend.
For example, it still reboots within roughly the same time frame, whether I run Prime95 with all devices installed/enabled at ~90% memory load or run it with minimal devices installed/enabled at ~30% memory load.
I haven't ruled out the an issue with the CPU, but from what I understand, CPU's don't usually go bad, and when they do, the PC usually won't POST or boot to Windows. I am about 95% sure it is the motherboard, but I wanted to see what the community had to say. Thanks, and sorry for the long post!
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