New build crashes upon full load

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Collin Baker

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Dec 2, 2013
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10,510
I put together the following build last night:

  • Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H
    Intel i7 4790k
    Asus Radeon R9 280
    Corsair RM650 PSU
    Samsung 128GB SSD
    WD Black 1TB HD
and have been having an odd issue with it. At first it seemed fine, but when I tried to run Prime95 with 8 threads it IMMEDIATELY (and I mean immediately) powered off, and started back up. I did it a few more times to make sure it wasn't an isolated incident, and surely enough, same problem. I investigated the CPU Vcore first, and it was normal (1.1V).

However, when using Gigabyte EasyTune, I got a different result: the CPU Vcore was running at 0.1 V at idle. I'm assuming that's the power saving mode, because it fluctuated with load. Here's where it get's interesting: I had a suspicion it had something to do with this, so I started Prime95 with 8 threads, but set it's affinity to one core only. It ran flawlessly. So I gradually changed the affinity to add more cores, until it was running on all 8 (HyperThreading virtual cores included). What I noticed is that the CPU voltage pretty much raised all the way to 1.1V upon starting it on one core, then everything else ran fine. So, I had the following conclusion:

Somewhere along the way, the CPU isn't getting enough power when it bumps from idle to 100% load in an instant. Where this problem is originating, I have no clue...I'm thinking one of two things however: either the PSU isn't gracefully handling this bump in voltage, or the chipset isn't bumping up the voltage fast enough when the load increases that quickly. This is where I need help though; I'm not sure which it is, or how to fix it. Can someone give me a hand? It would be very much appreciated, because I don't want all the money I poured into this rig to have gone to nothing.
 
Solution
volcanoscout
Thanks :) Kind of got the gaming-build bug a while back, which is funny as I don't actually game all that much. For every hour of gaming, I spend ten tweaking, changing fan configurations, OCing, benchmarking, etc. A year ago I couldn't have cared less how my PC looked either, but I'm currently in the planning stages for lighting mods and sleeving.

One thing I would recommend that will come in handy down the road for trouble shooting, and for overclocking if you take it up, is to start documenting your settings, both in BIOS and software, and establishing baselines for your system's temps, CPU and GPU voltages, PSU output on the various rails, and benchmarks.

For example, there's no real "stock" voltage for the DC chips (or any...
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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Jan 5, 2014
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One thing you can try is going into your Windows advance power options and under Processor power management, change your minimum processor state from whatever it's at now to 100%.

Then try Prime again and see if the problem reoccurs. Also, might want to consider changing your stress test to something like AIDA64, as there's a lot of reports and articles saying that Prime95 is good with Haswell chips.
 
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WinnRig

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Aug 26, 2014
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I'm just a novice but I have a few ideas.
Based on some research your power supply isn't sufficient for your rig.

The general consensus is that you need 750-850 Watt PS to run the R9-280 it's a beast of a card.

How old is your power supply? If it's long on the tooth it may not have the ability to run your rig stably. You are
probably at 3/4 capacity on it and some PS aren't completely stable when under complete load.
Go up to 850Watts or 1000 Watts [Allow for Future Expandability] and your problem should go away.

Another issue is what kind of cooler do you have and what temp is it at Stable. 8 Cores heats up super fast.

Also go into Bios and disable Turbo see what happens. If it does it stably with Turbo disabled that could be an indication of
what's going on.

 
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Collin Baker

Honorable
Dec 2, 2013
4
0
10,510


WinnRig: Thanks for the reply. However, the graphics card isn't the issue. The issue is with the CPU. I maxed out the GPU just fine, without any stability issues. It's not a heat issue either; I said that it runs fine if I gradually raise the load up until max, and keep it there. If heat was a problem, I wouldn't be able to do that.
 
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Collin Baker

Honorable
Dec 2, 2013
4
0
10,510


So, I decided to go into the BIOS and change the Vcore from "Auto" to "Normal" as one of those last-ditch efforts. Magically, everything works now. The voltage still floats around 0.1V at idle, but apparently it can handle max loads just fine. I tested it with AIDA64 too, as you suggested, and that works fine now as well.

Plus, I changed the power settings. Thanks!

BTW, that's a nice build you got there!
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

Dignified
Jan 5, 2014
2,861
3
14,960
Thanks :) Kind of got the gaming-build bug a while back, which is funny as I don't actually game all that much. For every hour of gaming, I spend ten tweaking, changing fan configurations, OCing, benchmarking, etc. A year ago I couldn't have cared less how my PC looked either, but I'm currently in the planning stages for lighting mods and sleeving.

One thing I would recommend that will come in handy down the road for trouble shooting, and for overclocking if you take it up, is to start documenting your settings, both in BIOS and software, and establishing baselines for your system's temps, CPU and GPU voltages, PSU output on the various rails, and benchmarks.

For example, there's no real "stock" voltage for the DC chips (or any chip, for that matter), just voltage levels that are reported for your specific chip at default hardware and software settings. You'll want to make a note of this as well as any changes you make to the voltage settings. I can't reference this but anecdotal evidence points to most if not all mobos and tuning software applying more voltage than necessary at stock settings. Mine defaults to 1.21V for stock speeds, but I can run it stable at 4.6GHz at 1.15V.

If you do this, you'll be able to easily compare differences in performance, temps, etc, when you make an adjustment. If you run into problems, it'll make it easier to track it back and identify the culprit.

I use HWMonitor and save the data to an historical file for reference. There's a dozen other good programs if you don't like that one.
 
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Solution
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Collin Baker

Honorable
Dec 2, 2013
4
0
10,510


I feel ya there...I don't do much gaming, just a little here and there. This is mostly a general-purpose build so I can do anything I want with it :) Good luck with your mods!

Great ideas, thanks! I can probably run mine at an even lower voltage then, if you can run yours at 1.15V at 4.6 GHz; hopefully reducing it a little bit will help with the overheating problems it has under max load (stupid stock cooler). Luckily it throttles itself when the core temp hits 90 C, so it's kinda self-regulating.
 
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