PC keeps freezing and shutting off randomly after motherboard RMA, New PSU, new Heatsink, and new graphics card

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ferret mocha latte

ferret mocha latte

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Jan 26, 2012
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Hi everyone,
I have been having a problem with my PC for some time now and I cannot seem to figure out what is going on.

Problem Description
My PC shuts down randomly during use. This could be doing things as simple as using Chrome or listening to music.

My PC also shuts down or freezes during intensive use (ie gaming). I thought this was a temperature issue so I monitored my temps using NZXT CAM and HW Monitor and saw that my motherboard gives 5 temperature readings. The fourth and fifth temperatures were the highest averaging 40°C idle and 55° C respectively. The other three temperatures were at 27°-30­°C idle. Under load, when I started gaming, temp 5 of the motherboard jumped up to 113°C.

All my other temperatures did not jump up much from their idle temps and my graphics card only jumped up 10°C.

I dialed down my graphics to medium and I am still experiencing the same issue.

The freezing happens when I am playing Wolfenstein The New Order and the shutting down happens either regularly or while I am gaming.

I have RMA'd my motherboard in the past because the freezing issue was an issue that I was having in the past and ASUS said that nothing was wrong.

I bought a new graphics card and the problem still persists, and I have a new case, PSU, fans, and heatsink.

Are there any tools that I can run for either a burn test or something that can give me a report of temps over a period of time?

PC Components
OS: Windows 8.1
Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini R2
PSU: EVGA 600B
Voltage Average: 3.31
Vcore Average: 0.032
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500k
Graphics Card: EVGA 750ti FTW (fans are exhausting air to the top of the case.)
MB: ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport Low Profile 16GB (8GB x 2)
Heatsink: Noctua NH-U12S with two 120mm fans. (Exhausting to the top of the case.)
Fan Orientation: (2x 120mm Gentle Typhoons as intake at the front of the case, 2x 120mm Gentle Typhoons as exhaust at the top of the case, 1x 120mm Noctua fan as intake from the bottom of the case, 1x 140mm Akasa Viper as exhaust from the rear of the case)

Other tidbits
I came from having an ASUS 560ti to the current card that I have. The card was giving me a lot of artifacts in game.

I came from a Kraken X40 to the current cooler I have due to cable management.

I came from a Bitfenix Phenom and a Fractal Design Node 304 before that due to cable management issues.

Images

Many thanks for any assistance or advice in advance.






 
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ferret mocha latte

ferret mocha latte

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Jan 26, 2012
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Hi Calvin,
Thanks for the response.

Below is a link to the memory I have.

http://

I was initially overclocking and now I have my BIOS set to load optimized defaults.

When I do this, the AI OC Tuner is set to Auto.

When I OC, I have it set to manual and the only voltage that I changed is my DRAM voltage to 1.35 to get my RAM speed up to 1600 MHz.

 
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ferret mocha latte

ferret mocha latte

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I've tried troubleshooting the issue even further and I notice that my CPU usage ramps up to 100% even though all I have open is Firefox and a few background processes.

When I look at my CPU usage, it does not show what is hogging up my resources.
 
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herrwizo

herrwizo

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Feb 17, 2009
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As for the random shutdowns, take a look at windows event log, "system" section (look for red error marks) and report their contents here if you find them. We will be smarter from that point.

As for the 100% CPU issue:

a) perform a virus scan

b) try disabling onboard audio, onboard LAN, serial and parallel port (if available) and see if this still happens. Sometimes IRQ conflicts can result in high CPU usage for no apparent reason. And IRQ conflicts are most common in computers with too many onboard stuff and add-on cards. If this is indeed the case, try enabling one by one until you find the culprit.

Are you 100% positive that you cannot identify the process hogging the CPU? Windows 8.1 most certainly shows which process is using your CPU.
 
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C

Calvin7

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Feb 19, 2013
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I would reinstall Windows 8.1.

With your memory set to manual, you should manually set DRAM voltage, Memory Clock, and Dram Timings.
You can also set Ai OC Tuner to XMP to set these for you.
I would run http://www.memtest.org/ to check for defective memory.

Update BIOS to latest version.
 
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ferret mocha latte

ferret mocha latte

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Jan 26, 2012
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Hi Herrwizo,
As for the 100% issue. I loaded my task manager upon each reboot I did yesterday night and this morning and found that when Chrome or Firefox was launched, the CPU usage would spike to 100% then fluctuate between 1--35% then spike up again. I would only have one of the apps open at a time and at most 3 tabs open. Dropbox running in the background displayed the same issue.

I performed a virus scan with Windows Defender, Super Anti Spyware, and IOBit's Anti-virus tool and IOBit detected one piece of malware and removed it. This did not resolve the issue.

I went to my event logger and pulled the following critical message:
Event 41, Kernel Power
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

I will disable the onboard audio, lan, and serial or parallel ports and see if that fixes the issue.

 
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ferret mocha latte

ferret mocha latte

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Jan 26, 2012
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I apologize in advance for reviving a topic that is seemingly dead, but in the time I have been away I have tried the following:

I used Memtest to run a memory module test. I ran it for 20 hours which amounted ot 8 passes and no errors were dectected.

I bought a Thermaltake Doctor Power II PSU tester. I initially tested my EVGA 600B tester while it was in my case.

The first test was of the 24 pin connector and the CPU 8 pin connector with the SATA power and PCIe power from my PSU still connected to their respective components.

The DP2's screen turned red and showed "F" indicating that the PSU was faulty.

I did a second test but added the PCIe connector and still had the same result.

I went out and bought a Corsair HX650 PSU and I tested it before placing it in the case on a separate wall outlet. I received no errors.

I then removed my old EVGA 600b PSU from my case and tested it on the same outlet as the Corsair HX650 and I did not receive any errors.

I then tested both of my PSUs on the old outlet with the tester and I received no error messages. I was getting 12 volts and 12.1 volts for the Corsair and EVGA PSUs respectively on the 12V rail.

The only things I have not done is run a CPU stress test
So far the new PSU has not given me any problems, but I have only been using it for 3 hours tops as of this post. When I loaded NZXT CAM, it showed that my CPU voltage was low….it could be faulty reporting.
I checked all the capacitors on my motherboard and none of them looking like they are bulging.
I am left with the motherboard, which I RMAd in the past, which ASUS informed me that they fixed for a problem I was having when my PC was randomly hanging, but they never informed me what they did or what they fixed.
I think it might be the motherboard. Is this a good assumption or is there something else that is wrong?
 
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