PC freezing or BSOD, half ram after restart.

mchldlg · Feb 4, 2017

Hello, before a few months I've bought 2 sticks of ram, Klevv Neo Creative Evolution, each one is 4GB and advertised to run on 1866Mhz.

Before purchasing, I made sure my motherboard and my CPU support 1866MHz ram, when I installed the sticks, they worked fine on 1866Mhz for about 3 months and now out of a sudden, whenever I start playing a game, the PC freezes and the HDD light shows no disk activity aswell, then I have to hard reset to get it fixed, sometimes it even restarts automatically for some reason, no BSOD's or anything.

While browsing the internet or using my desktop it doesn't freeze nor hangs, everything seems to be working fine when the RAM is running on 1066MHz, but it just bugs me that I cant use it's full potential.
The motherboard is ASRock N68-GS4 FX and my CPU is FX-4300.

Update: I've also noticed that when it restarts itself, once it boots up again, it says only 4 out of 8GB ram are available and 4 are "reserved", then I have to restart again in order to use all of the ram.

Thanks in advance.

bgunner · Feb 4, 2017

Download install Memtest86+ onto a flash drive or CD/DVD and run it from as a boot device. www.memtest.org

Run this test for 3 full passes and if it errors your ram is the issue. Now it could be the memory controller needs the voltage bumped up (CPU-NB), the ram needs more voltage (DDR), The ram is not compatible with your system, bad ram slot.

Even though the CPU and motherboard can handle 1866 MHz ram does not mean the sticks you purchased are 100% compatible with your system. While this is a worst case scenario it is still a possibility and all other options must be tested first.

SBMfromLA · Feb 4, 2017

Are these the ones:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820101005

Did you ever go into BIOS to verify that the proper Timings were set?

Shaun o · Feb 4, 2017

Just check to see if the ram sticks are firmly seated and flush in the memory slots of the board first of all.

Use your two thumbs to push down on each side of the memory sticks with equal pressure.

Your not the first person to buy ram that is supposed to run at a rated speed only to find you cannot run it at that speed in your motherboard.

But there is nothing wrong if you have a motherboard with advanced bios options, where you can overclock, or tweak voltage settings.

In the case of memory if the motherboard can increase voltage to the ram sticks fitted in 0.250Mv steps you can always try to manually apply a slight bit more voltage to the ram sticks.

The reason why is because the faster memory is pushed in speed like most things is it requires slightly more voltage to keep it stable.

mchldlg · Feb 4, 2017

I'll run memtest over night, thank you @bgunner.
However, I'm not sure how to find out if the timings are correct, nor what voltage to use if it keeps freezing, here are my BIOS settings.
Everything is set on auto except the memory clock: http://imgur.com/a/EnJSb

bgunner · Feb 4, 2017

voltage for that ram is 1.5 volts to start with but may need 1.525 volts.

please give the exact model numbers for the ram so we can look it up to tell you what it should be set at.

1.53V for the ram will be fine but don't use more as it is not needed.

EDIT: your command rate may need to be set to 2 instead of 1 for the ram timings.

mchldlg · Feb 4, 2017

bgunner :

I'll try that, by the way - here's the exact model: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820101005&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-Skimlinks-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3987228&SID=1402X558040X7b625a40a68860a2facdf0603e71b623

mchldlg · Feb 4, 2017

I have just noticed something really weird.

I've opened CPU-Z and went to open the SPD tab to notice that my ram max bandwidth is the following: PC3-12800 (800MHz) which corresponds to the 1600Mhz version of the Klevv Neo Creative Evolution RAM here: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820101004

What I've purchased is the following (PC-14900 933Mhz), also on the back of the RAM sticks it says 1866Mhz: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820101005&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-Skimlinks-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3987228&SID=1402X558040X7b625a40a68860a2facdf0603e71b623

Did they just fuck me over or CPU-Z is not showing it correctly?

Screenshot of CPU-Z SPD tab: http://i.imgur.com/zBX2mHs.png
Screenshot of my RAM stick: http://i.imgur.com/ucasTog.jpg

bgunner · Feb 4, 2017

going down the line set your top timings to 9 - 10 - 9 - 27 - 2

CPU -z is just reading it incorrectly is all nothing to worry about.

mchldlg · Feb 11, 2017

I've lowered the clock to 1066Mhz, it was good for awhile until today, the PC has just restarted itself without freezing and I wasn't playing a game nor doing anything, after the automatic restart there was only 4GB usable out of 8GB.

bgunner · Feb 11, 2017

what was the result of Memtest86+? did you test after the drop to 1066?

mchldlg · Feb 13, 2017

There were no errors, tested with Windows Memory Diagnostic Tools aswell on all possible frequencies from 1066 to 1866.
I noticed that sometimes it just freezes, no HDD activity and it requires a restart in order to continue functioning properly, then the RAM is halved to 4GB out of 8GB, sometimes it shows a BSOD saying that:

Stop code: ATTE
What failed: nvlddmkm.sys

... which makes me think it's the NVIDIA graphic drivers causing it, so I made a clean install of them, the issue still persists.

bgunner · Feb 13, 2017

Have you made sure the BIOS are the newest that ASRock has released? the Newest version for that board is 1.30. CPU-Z will show the version under the motherboard/mainboard tab.

Next I must mention this, that ram is not on the QVL for that motherboard. While this does not say it wont work on your motherboard it does say they did not test that ram on it be sure it will work with it.

nvlddmkm.sys is part of the Nvidia driver so you were correct there. A google search of ATTE for a stop code shows nothing. Try using the program who crashed to find out what caused the crash.

mchldlg · Feb 14, 2017

The BIOS version is the newest available - P1.30.
Yep, it doesn't say the RAM is supported by the motherboard, but it was working fine for several months before this happened.
About the NVIDIA drivers, I made a clean install, also used DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to make sure everything is cleaned up before proceeding to a fresh installation, this fixed the nvlddmkm.sys BSOD, but the PC still freezes with no HDD led activity after 1-2 minutes of gameplay.

UPDATE: Could it be that my motherboard is 'Windows 8.1 Ready', but I'm running Windows 10? I've been running Windows 10 on my machine for a long time though and it didn't cause any issues till now.

Another thing that I could think of because I've read that somewhere, are the HDD/SATA drivers of the motherboard or something, thing is that for this motherboard there are 'HDD' drivers only for Windows 8.1?!

bgunner · Feb 14, 2017

It is not that the motherboard is win 8.1 ready. In fact Win 10 is based off of Win 8's code so the two will work fine together.

You can install the 8.1 drivers and they will work with Win 10, see statement above, But this is not a sure fire thing. Because Win 10 is based on Win 8 most drivers will play nice but as always there are exceptions. I would install/reinstall the Win 8.1 drivers to see if it helps.

I just feel lazy and don't want to go back through the thread ATM so... I'm sorry if this has been asked before but, Have you tried using just one ram stick to see if the issue remains? If not then try that ram stick in the other slot and check again. If the issue remains with just one ram stick try the other stick, in both slots, to see if it still remain.

mchldlg · Feb 14, 2017

Actually, I tried swapping the RAM sticks, I tried with each one alone and it didn't fix it, however, for some reason the RAM problem just stopped happening (half ram after restart).

Anyway, I made a clean install of Windows 10, there are no BSOD, no graphic driver issues, no automatic restarts, thing is that when I start playing a game, the PC freezes/hangs with no HDD led activity until I restart it, after that there are no issues unless I start playing a game again, while doing desktop stuff such as browsing, watching a movie or something similar it doesn't happen at all.

None of the components are overheating, monitored.

bgunner · Feb 14, 2017

have you tried running the dskchk /f command from and administrator's command prompt?

How about a clean boot? does it happen when in a clean boot state?

Clean boot, Open task manager and click on "start up" and disable all in the window.
Next click on run and type MSCONFIG and hit enter. Click on services and at the bottom click "Hide all Microsoft services" and then disable all services that are left. Restart the PC. This will put the system in to a clean boot state. Now try and run a game. If it freezes then it is hardware or driver issue. This eliminates any possible software conflicts being the issue.

At this point if it still happens you may want to try installing all the drivers again. After that then it is hardware maybe voltage of the memory controller (CPU/NB voltage) most FX series CPU's default to 1.45V this is more than enough voltage to make it stable so insure that the voltage is not lower at this point.

Have you stress tested the GPU? OCCT is what you want to use with Error Checking Enabled. This will tell you if the GPU is having issues.
Stress test the CPU: Prime95 on blend for a minimum of 2 hours then use Intel Burn Test set to max stress for 20 runs. If both tests pass then the CPU is 100% stable. No need to test the ram since you have already done so.

Use HDDscan 3.3 to test the HDD's to ensure there is no issue.

mchldlg · Feb 18, 2017

I ended up getting a new HDD since HDTune detected write errors and it was obviously failing, hence why the whole PC was freezing.
Thanks!

bgunner · Feb 19, 2017

Glad we could help you. Good luck

PC freezing or BSOD, half ram after restart.

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