Bent CPU pin on Asus P8 Z77-V LK?

Hello all. Haven't posted on this board in ages, but have a problem I just can't solve.

Have the above motherboard and getting random hard freezes that result in me having to reboot the machine. Happens while gaming, happens while surfing the net. Happens while machine is completely idle.

I posted a negative review on newegg and was asked to contact ASUS support by one of their service agents.

Here is what I sent him:

Serial#
Asus Z77-V LK
Intel i3570k Ivy Bridge 3.4 quad core processor
Nvidia MSI 670 gtx*
Creative Soundblaster Extreme Gamer
16 GB Corsair Vengeance Ram DDR3 1600
Antec True Power 750 gold PSU (also had the same problem with my old psu, replaced it because I thought it might be the problem as it was getting older)
Samsung Spinmaster F4 7200 RPM HD 320 GB
Corsair 60 GB Force Series GT SSD (currently not connected, but had the same issues with that drive)
Asus DVD player
Antec Case
Logitech mouse and keyboard

Running Win7 64 bit. Did a fresh install last week. All drivers for hardware and Mobo are updated and Win7 is updated as well. BIOS is updated to latest version.

Run Norton’s 360 antivirus and also periodically check machine with Malware Bytes.

Turbo mode disabled, everything running at stock speeds. All bios settings otherwise set at default.

Have run memtest86 on ram. Replaced PSU, tried two different drives. Reinstalled windows. Have tried different bios settings. Have run diskcheck on the HD. Have searched the net for hours for a solution.

Heat is not an issue, cpu idles in the low 20s and never goes above 43 while gaming.

Hard freezes are random. Might not have one for two days then have two in an hour. On average I get about one a day.

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He thinks it is a bent CPU pin, or bad ram.

The machine ran fine for 3 or so months without a hiccup, so is a bent pin possible? Wouldn't that problem have manifested itself right away?

The ram passes memtest 86.

I have done quite a bit of research and see threads about this same board just like mine that always peter out without a solution.

Any thoughts on this guys?

Thanks.

Were these problems present with earlier bios versions? You say you have the latest bios installed but I' wondering if that itself could be the problem.

And speaking of bent pins, did you remove the CPU and check the socket for that issue?

Yes I updated the bios when I was trying to solve the original problem. I was also having blue screens, but that turned out to be a bad stick of ram which I have since rma'ed and replaced. Now memory is running fine according to memtest.

I haven't checked for bent pins because I 'd rather not unseat the cpu in less I have to. Would be just my luck for it not to be the problem then bend one when I put it back together.

Was wondering if it were bent pins if it is something that would have waited a few months to manifest itself.

Thanks and Happy Easter.

Only way to know if there is a bent pin is to check, I would pull the cpu and have a look just rule it out. I would think most likely that if the board was fine that a bent pin wouldn't be the issue.

Ho many passes of memtest did you run before confirming that it's no an memory issue. In the past when I had an issue I though may have been RAM related I didn't find any errors with memtest until the 3rd pass.

Why do you have turbo mode disabled? Also, Memtest isn't the always good at detecting bad memory. Not sure if you are running two memory sticks or 4, but you could try removing all but one and see if things stabilize. Might be able to isolate a stick that's giving you problems. I tend to agree that if the system was working fine for several months and the problem just started happening, a bent pin is unlikely.

Slowpoke68 said:

Yes I updated the bios when I was trying to solve the original problem. I was also having blue screens, but that turned out to be a bad stick of ram which I have since rma'ed and replaced. Now memory is running fine according to memtest.

I haven't checked for bent pins because I 'd rather not unseat the cpu in less I have to. Would be just my luck for it not to be the problem then bend one when I put it back together.

Was wondering if it were bent pins if it is something that would have waited a few months to manifest itself.

Thanks and Happy Easter.

Click to expand...

It's not likely that you would bend a pin just removing and replacing a CPU on an LGA socket if you exercise any caution at all. It's really not that easy to do on an LGA socket.

Sounds more like a memory or a motherboard problem to me. Something like a soldered trace failing maybe. I certainly would do further testing of the possibility of the memory or maybe some of the memory sockets being bad. Do you have access to another set of known good RAM to test?

Thanks for all the suggestions friends. Today I pulled out my old Soundblaster X-fi extreme gamer. I have had it forever and I am wondering if maybe that isn't finally going bad and causing the problem.

I think I have ram from my prior mobo.

First I will rerun memtest for several passes. Then I will try other ram if this set looks good.

I will try all these tips and see what happens.

Will check for a bent pin if all else fails.

Thanks again and will keep you posted.

Last night I ran a PC Check DVD a friend lent me. The tests lasted about three hours and checked everything. The computer passed all tests.

Do you think it could be a failing soundcard causing the systems freezes?

PS To answer the above question, I disabled turbo mode because I wanted to eliminate the possibility that running at higher than stock speed was the cause of the issue and apparently that wasn't the problem

Slowpoke68 said:

Have the above motherboard and getting random hard freezes that result in me having to reboot the machine. Happens while gaming, happens while surfing the net. Happens while machine is completely idle.

Click to expand...

Clean the motherboard and reseat the RAM and all cards. That happened with my Asus P5QL Pro and I cleaned it with a paint brush then reseated all cards and RAM. I had a lot of dust on mine when that occurred.
Mine was doing that when booting the Parted Magic Linux distro, it would crash at random places during OS boot.

Linux also had random errors during boot until I did the above mentioned cleaning.

RJARRRPCGP said:

Clean the motherboard and reseat the RAM and all cards. That happened with my Asus P5QL Pro and I cleaned it with a paint brush then reseated all cards and RAM. I had a lot of dust on mine when that occurred.
Mine was doing that when booting the Parted Magic Linux distro, it would crash at random places during OS boot.

Linux also had random errors during boot until I did the above mentioned cleaning.

Click to expand...

I already did this, I agree its important to keep the inside clean and one of the first things I did was to go and reseat everything. Great minds think alike I guess

No freezes in two days since I pulled the sound card. But like I said I have thought that I had this fixed before.

Thought I would update everyone on my progress. I pulled my old soundblaster sound card last Sunday and have been freeze free for over a week now.

If I make it two weeks without a hard freeze I think I will have found the problem.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys.

I would agree with that assumption.

Still freeze free, think I will reenable Turbo and see if I can getting running at 4.2 again which was the speed I was running at for the first few months with no problems.

Thanks again.

One final update. re-enabled turbo and running at 4.2 with no freezes for a couple of weeks now.

Must have either been the soundcard or I suppose a bad pci slot could have done it too.

Thanks all. Hopefully I have my bugs worked out now.