New gaming PC random shut downs and reboots

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May 21, 2015
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I need some help, like seriously. I cant tell what is wrong with my PC. I built my first PC and It randomly shuts off and reboots. Usually not blue screen. Just straight to black and reboot. If I'm watching a video when it happens, the sound goes crazy.I suspect its my Motherboard because after it happens, in the system log it states

A fatal hardware error has occurred.
Component: AMD Northbridge
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: HyperTransport Watchdog Timeout Error
Processor ID: 0

Ive checked the Northbridge and its not being blocked or touched by anything.

I contacted Gigabyte and they said this:

System crashes/ BSOD with Watchdog Timeout Error on event viewer indicates cpu or one of the component has problem. If system has over clock setting please set it back to defaults check and test system with procedure below :

1) Test run system with single stick memory a time on slot1, it could be one of unstable stick memory cause issue.

2) Check cpu temp in bios under PC health status, normal cpu temp should be 33-59C, over 60C considers as overheated.

3) Take out add on graphic card, test run system with monitor connect to on board graphic port on MB back panel to rule out if issue to be graphic card

I only have a single stick of 8GB. I did take it out and made sure it was in the correct DIMM slot and re installed
I watched the temp of the CPU over the course of 45 minutes and it never got over 47 Degrees Celsius. It is also not OC at all.
I then removed the graphics card, and on the first reboot, it blue screened then rebooted. Since then it seems to be running fine, maybe a little sluggish.
Any thoughts?. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

NOTE: i've had the PC on for several hours, without the GPU in it, and it has not shut down and rebooted, but the other day, the GPU was in and it didnt either for several hours either.

Parts List:
AMD FX 6300 Black Edition
XFX DD R9 290
Mushkin Stealth DDR3 8GB single stick
GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-USB3 (rev. 6.0)
Rosewill ARC 750W PSU
 
Solution
To me the clue here is that the event notification pin-points the Northbridge.
I had an MSI board in one of my computers that did much the same thing along with failing to boot and I received that message a couple times over the course of trouble shooting.
If the board is still under warranty I would get an RMA and return it. If not under warranty or you don't get any help from Gigabyte (doesn't look like you are going too) I would replace it with an ASUS or ASRock board - and at that time upgrade the chipset(s) to a 990x or 990FX as that 760 chipset is quite old.
To me the clue here is that the event notification pin-points the Northbridge.
I had an MSI board in one of my computers that did much the same thing along with failing to boot and I received that message a couple times over the course of trouble shooting.
If the board is still under warranty I would get an RMA and return it. If not under warranty or you don't get any help from Gigabyte (doesn't look like you are going too) I would replace it with an ASUS or ASRock board - and at that time upgrade the chipset(s) to a 990x or 990FX as that 760 chipset is quite old.
 
Solution

Appomatic

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May 21, 2015
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I put the GPU back in and it seems to be working fine, for now. Could it possibly be the RAM? My ram is 1600 and I just looked at the Motherboard and it says that it supports 1333+ OC and 1066. I dont have another stick, or one at 1333 or 1066 to test. Its hard to test because of how random it seems. Without the GPU in I didnt have a problem, with it back in, I havent, yet. This was a DIY combo on Newegg and I did noticed before that the board didnt specifically say that it supported 1600.
 
You didn't say how long ago you built the rig, but if it has been running for awhile with that stick of RAM then it is probably o.k., even if a 1600 speed. The board will underclock it to 1333 if it doesn't want to run it at 1600 and you won't see much speed difference.
You can try running the Windows memory test (usually useless but you never know) and by all means download and run MemTest86; I would run until it showed errors OR 2 hours minimum - if the PC will stay running. Another good test of the RAM, if MemTest doesn't show anything, is run it in another system and see if that system fails: That was the only way I was able to confirm some bad ram a couple years ago.
And your PC is doing exactly the same thing mine did and I spent a long time, lots of hours, several posts here on Tom's, review of a memory dump and an event file by a professional IT person, cpu swaps, etc. before finally deciding it had to be the mobo: And during all that time the Freakin PC would often run for hours and days without a hiccup. Surprisingly the failures were almost exclusively while doing very little work: Browsing, some streaming of YouTube, file work, turning it on etc. My grandson gamed on it every weekend and it never crashed while gaming.