Defective Asus Board.

[MarmotaOta]

I'm currently waiting on a replacement board (m5a99x evo r 2.0) after having a few issues with mine, and I wonder what others think of it. The board worked fine, under the BIOS but would sometimes fail to load USB drivers once windows start and hang for a while. Second problem was failing to return from sleep mode, also occasionally. Third, and this was certainly the worst, randomly the whole system would get choppy and slow, both audio and video, with static and corruption on the sound, after which it would become unresponsive and freeze.
In these occasions that it did freeze, upon inspection, hard drive activity would be always at 100% (and this happened to 2 different drives, an ssd and a hdd, under 2 different OSs Windows 7 and 8). Eventually the freeze would evolve to a blue screen error. Bug check under windows 7, and Kernel data inpage error under windows 8.
Sometimes these issues would go as much as 15 days without occuring. Sometimes they would happen twice a day.
The issues were repeatable under 2 different Oss and 2 diferent drives. BIOS had been updated as well as drivers for chipset and whatnot. Problems arose with BIOS settings under default and also with RAM timings manually set to factory specifications. RAM sticks and drives were tested by windows and other softwares (memtest86+ for 32 hours, seagate tools all tests) with no errors. Also I took the time to test each RAM stick individually for a few days each, and both produced the same BSOD error. The CPU was replaced, a new one is set in place and the errors continue.
The whole of the computer parts are as follow:

-Motherboard is ASUS m5a99x evo r.20
-RAM is Gskill 14900 1866 2dimms of 8gb. (they were picked from motherboard QVL)
-CPU is Amd fx 8350 stock.
-Cooling is done by a Hyper 212 Evo ( max temperature is 52 degrees after a whole hour of P95 blend)
-Video card is XFX r9 280x stock (also tested in another computer satisfactorily)
- LG dvd/rom
-Seagate barracuda 1tb 7200rpm (will occasionaly click, but only once and not often, to which the local technician said is not a sure sign)
-Kingston v300 120gb SSD. (updated firmware and with OS installed at the moment)
-PSU is EVGA supernova gold 1000w. (decided to not skimp on this unit seeing as it's critical to future upgrades)

I am really hoping the new motherboard arrives and works flawlessly, but also worry that something else might be amiss... I'm sorry for the long post but it has been a long story so far... Thank you.

 

[Tradesman1]

Try the new mobo and see how it goes, with 1866 sticks, it might be the sticks are getting starved for juice on occasion, so if same occurs give a shout and we can try some adjustments to the DRAM

 

[Paul NZ]

Did you update the BIOS on it?? Since the last 2 updates fixed USB probs (its up to 2501 now)

 

[MarmotaOta]

Thanks for answering guy. It's not easy troubleshooting these things. I hope to get the replacement board in the following week or the other and continue testing. I like how this pc performs, just wish it were really rock solid as well.

Tradesman1, I appreciate that. One of my first guesses was that the RAM modules could be involved. These were tested individually and separately under AUTO and XMP. Also together, additionally with manual input of timings. Indeed, at Gskill forum they mention giving small nudges to the RAM and CPU/NB voltages if that is what you mean by juice? They were naturally set to 1.5 and very close to 1.2. Nudging them up did not seem to help in any way... Now, there are the DIGI+ settings, do you think these might help to keep the voltages stable? Which one of them would be usefull in this case?

Paul NZ, yes I did update to 2501, and did it through the USB method to avoid OS interfering in the proccess. Did have high hopes for that version when I noticed they worked on USB solutions but it changed nothing for my board in particular.

 

[Tradesman1]

I was thinking maybe 1.55 on the DRAM voltage and 1.25 to the CPU/NB

 

[MarmotaOta]

I did try these values Tradesman1. Unfortunately it did not help at all, and all the issues persisted.

Could heat have damaged the southbridge chip? It sits fairly close to the videocard heatsink, and my case was not ventilated until after issues started to show... (actually bought the case fans a few days after using it, and it was getting really hot)

 

[Tradesman1]

It's possible, let's see how the new one is

 

[MarmotaOta]

Allright guys, I finally have my system up and running again! All props to Asus for getting the new board all the way to where I live, through mail, importers, retailers and finally to my home. The new board looks amazing, and it certainly feels snappy and functional. Will be running games, audio, movies, working and whatnot, to give it a good test in the next few days.

 

[Tradesman1]

Glad to hear all is well, have some fun

 

[MarmotaOta]

30 days now with no problems, no bsods, really stable and fast. I guess I can say my system is finally rock solid then? I'm so happy, thanks for the help Tradesman1.

 

[Tradesman1]

No worries, glad all is well

 

[MarmotaOta]

Regarding the temperature readings I have during gaming, are they normal or excessive? Midday, usual room temperature, after a few rounds of Battlefield 4 I get 42 C on the motherboard, 51 C on the cpu, 71 on gpu. Is that ok? I worry that the motherboard seems a little hot, but it is a very demanding game.

 

[Tradesman1]

Those are fine

 

[MarmotaOta]

Thanks again! Cheers!

 

[Tradesman1]

No worries, have fun