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Unstable system, no overclocking, need help troubleshooting

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M

milkster

New Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2010
I have built myself a workstation recently with a core i3 processor but i'm having a heck of a time with it. The system keeps turning off at random times, I can't seem to pin point what is causing the crashing and I would like to turn to you for some suggestions. Here are some details on the system and what I have done so far:

Asus P7H55M-PRO motherboard with a core i3-530 CPU to take advantage of the integrated graphics.
4GB of RAM - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 PC3 12800 - Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C9.
Antec Sonata III 500 case with a 500W powersupply
Running Win 7 Home

At first for about 1 week everything was running great and then the PC started to shutdown at random times. I downloaded HWMonitor and according to it, there was not evidence of overheating. Average CPU temp was around 39C. I downloaded Prime95 and by running it reliably crashes the PC.
The event logs of Win 7 do not show any error codes of what happened. Just says that the system shut down unexpectedly. Not much info.

I also formatted the system and installed Win 7 again. Did not do any updates and ran Prime95 overnight which ran fine without failing.

Could all this trouble be related to drivers?
Should I RMA the motherboard or CPU?
Is there any programs available that log system info to the HD so that I can see what causes the shutdowns?

I'm at a loss on what to do. What do you guys suggest I try next?
 
milkster said:
I have built myself a workstation recently with a core i3 processor but i'm having a heck of a time with it. The system keeps turning off at random times, I can't seem to pin point what is causing the crashing and I would like to turn to you for some suggestions. Here are some details on the system and what I have done so far:

Asus P7H55M-PRO motherboard with a core i3-530 CPU to take advantage of the integrated graphics.
4GB of RAM - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 PC3 12800 - Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C9.
Antec Sonata III 500 case with a 500W powersupply
Running Win 7 Home

At first for about 1 week everything was running great and then the PC started to shutdown at random times. I downloaded HWMonitor and according to it, there was not evidence of overheating. Average CPU temp was around 39C. I downloaded Prime95 and by running it reliably crashes the PC.
The event logs of Win 7 do not show any error codes of what happened. Just says that the system shut down unexpectedly. Not much info.

I also formatted the system and installed Win 7 again. Did not do any updates and ran Prime95 overnight which ran fine without failing.

Could all this trouble be related to drivers?
Should I RMA the motherboard or CPU?
Is there any programs available that log system info to the HD so that I can see what causes the shutdowns?

I'm at a loss on what to do. What do you guys suggest I try next?
Click to expand...

hmm might be the ram check the timings
 
I went into CMOS and the memory timings seem to be read correctly. It displays the timings as 9-9-9-24 which are the same as the memory specs. There is also a bunch of other numbers there that i don't know much about....

I downloaded memtest86 v3.5 and the PC reboots on the very first test. I can't really tell which one because it happens so fast! I think I caught something about a "Walking one's" pattern test.....

I also did another memory test using memtest86+ v2.01 and that seems to be ok.

I am going to let memtest86+ run overnight and see what happens and report back.
 
hmmm try removing one stick of ram and turn it on and run the test if that stick passes check the other stick if one fails one is bad if they both fail it might be another problem
 
Prunecandy said:
hmmm try removing one stick of ram and turn it on and run the test if that stick passes check the other stick if one fails one is bad if they both fail it might be another problem
Click to expand...

So i tested each stick one at a time using memtest86 v3.5 and they both passed on their own.
DIMM #1 was tested in Slot 1
DIMM #2 was tested in Slot 3

When I put both sticks in and ran memtest they fail on the very first test.

Does this mean the motherboard is at fault or the memory? or something else.
 
Well, I tried all the possible combinations for the two dimms and no matter what slot they are in, memtest86 fails.

If only 1 dimm is installed then memtest passes.

Does this most likely point to bad motherboard or bad memory. OR did I buy the wrong type of RAM for this motherboard?
 
Did you buy the RAM as a set, or each stick separately?

If you bought them separately, you probably need to memtest the single stick longer, like 4 hours or so. If you bought them as a set, the don't bother trying to find the bad one; you'll have to RMA both sticks anyways. I suggest making sure they're dead before RMAing (read: zap a stick on a CRT).
 
TempliNocturnus said:
Did you buy the RAM as a set, or each stick separately?

If you bought them separately, you probably need to memtest the single stick longer, like 4 hours or so. If you bought them as a set, the don't bother trying to find the bad one; you'll have to RMA both sticks anyways. I suggest making sure they're dead before RMAing (read: zap a stick on a CRT).
Click to expand...

I disagree with dishonest tactics to ensure an RMA. I feel they're unethical, and drive the prices up across the board
 
MARCI said:
I disagree with dishonest tactics to ensure an RMA. I feel they're unethical, and drive the prices up across the board
Click to expand...

I've RMA'd faulty hardware only to have the same faulty equipment sent back to me. I sent this motherboard back again only to have it returned to me saying that it "works". I still had the same problem with my USB ports not working and I was getting tired of spending money on shipping.

That's why it's important to verify and ensure your hardware is bad before RMAing it. It saves both you and the company time and money on shipping.

I've seen many so-called fellow "IT people" do some very stupid things on the job. It's surprising how little many people in the IT industry know about the technology they work on. Therefore, the only troubleshooting I trust is my own.
 
I was finnaly able to snap a picture of my screen as it crashes.

Does the screenshot help to identify what might be the issue? Could it be the Core i3 integrated graphics that are causing issues? Keep in mind that it crashes both in Windows and when running Memtest, and memtest isn't that heavy on graphics....

crash-resize.png
 
If you have a setting in the bios to change memory state between ganged and unganged, try that. Also try changing the voltage; with 2 sticks you might need slightly different voltage settings than with 1 stick, and that could be causing crashing. At one point, I needed to actually lower my voltage with 2 sticks because my mobo was slightly overvolting the RAM (even if it shows it's the same in bios) which caused crashes.

Depends on the mobo though, yours might instead need a little more volts or this might not be the issue at all, but the symptoms do point to something not being set up properly for use with 2 sticks (otherwise one of the DIMM slots or one of the RAM sticks would be failing when you test one at a time).
 
don'tknow said:
If you have a setting in the bios to change memory state between ganged and unganged, try that. Also try changing the voltage; with 2 sticks you might need slightly different voltage settings than with 1 stick, and that could be causing crashing. At one point, I needed to actually lower my voltage with 2 sticks because my mobo was slightly overvolting the RAM (even if it shows it's the same in bios) which caused crashes.

Depends on the mobo though, yours might instead need a little more volts or this might not be the issue at all, but the symptoms do point to something not being set up properly for use with 2 sticks (otherwise one of the DIMM slots or one of the RAM sticks would be failing when you test one at a time).
Click to expand...

It looks like I have FOUND the answer to all my problems!!!!

Like you suggested it looks like it was a settings issue in the BIOS. After reading the motherboard manual and seeing that the board only supports 1 DIMM of XMP memory per channel I moved the second DIMM to the other channel. I then enabled XMP mode in bios and the system has been running Prime95 for the last 7hrs without issue.

I will leave Prime95 running overnight to see if anything turns up.

It looks like my problems have been fixed! Thanks for leading me in the right direction.
 
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