Computer crashes, have to do "Ram dance" to boot

Charles Faucette

Honorable
Sep 2, 2013
3
0
10,510
i5 2500k
EVGA gtx 680
Asrock p67 extreme 4 gen 3
ddr 1600 g.skill ripjaws (16 Gb)

Until recently I had my processor set at 4.6 Ghz via the 4.6 turbo settings in my UEFI bios. While I was playing Planetside 2 this morning, my pc crashed. The screen went black and turned off, my speakers produced a long, crackly "wooshing" sound. After that, I tried to power the machine back up, but it wouldn't start. The power LED and fans would turn on, turn off, turn on, turn off ad nauseum. the only way to stop the cycle was to either turn off my power supply or unplug it.

After some troubleshooting I found that after I took out all the ram sticks, and placed one back in the first DIM, it booted. After that I was able to plug in all four sticks, and it still booted. I had to reinstall Windows 7, the computer wouldn't boot into the O/S and kept asking me to run the repair utility, which did nothing.

After I installed Windows 7, the computer ran fine for several hours, but after I dropped into a game of Payday 2, the same thing happened again. This time I only had to take the ram out and reinstall it to boot, an install of Windows 7 was not necessary.

Is there any way to find out what the issue is?
 
Solution
Drop your memory speed down to 1333mhz, you know the speed the 2500Ks on board memory controller was designed to operate at.

Try 1333mhz 9,9,9,24, 2T @ 1.50v

It could possibly be intermittent power supply failure, but more than likely is you memory.

Commenting on the statement below, your AsRock P67 Extreme 4 Gen 3 motherboard does not have BIOS selectable PCI-E 3.0 capability, it is a PCI-E 2.0 motherboard and it auto defaults your 680GTX to PCI-E 2.0.

mr1hm

Distinguished


after the first time it crashed, did you reset the CMOS on your motherboard?
 
Drop your memory speed down to 1333mhz, you know the speed the 2500Ks on board memory controller was designed to operate at.

Try 1333mhz 9,9,9,24, 2T @ 1.50v

It could possibly be intermittent power supply failure, but more than likely is you memory.

Commenting on the statement below, your AsRock P67 Extreme 4 Gen 3 motherboard does not have BIOS selectable PCI-E 3.0 capability, it is a PCI-E 2.0 motherboard and it auto defaults your 680GTX to PCI-E 2.0.

 
Solution

Charles Faucette

Honorable
Sep 2, 2013
3
0
10,510


Yes. I've reset it several times, in fact. I had to do it today. Last night the computer crashed as I was going to bed. I came home, reset the cmos, took all the ram out, reseated it, and booted. Also, I'm not sure if this is helpful information, but reseating the ram isn't quite enough. I have to take out the ram, turn the computer on with no ram, turn it off, and then reinstall the ram.
 

mr1hm

Distinguished


hmm, i was thinking it may be a PCI-E issue, do you have PCI-E 3.0 enabled in BIOS? (i5-2500k does not support this).

also, your motherboard has a Debug LED display which should be located on the bottom right side (if looking in to your case in the upright position through the side panel). could you post the code that it gives you when your PC reboots or crashes? your motherboard manual should have a couple pages dedicated to what those codes mean (sometimes the explainations can be a code in itself...)
 

Charles Faucette

Honorable
Sep 2, 2013
3
0
10,510


I'll have to check on the code if it happens again, however it seems as though I remember seeing nothing on that display the first two times I checked. Also I'm not sure about pci express 3.0, I'll go look into that.