Skylake CPU Build Keeps Freezing! Is it my ram?

[john citizen]

Hi I was wondering if any of you guys could possibly help me out! I've been buying a piece of my computer each week for months now and I finally got it finished two weeks ago. But now it keeps freezing every like 10mins. I can make it freeze if I start up a game of Battlefield 4 and can only play for a few minutes. It will also freeze just when I'm just on desktop and it has even frozen when I've been in the bios. Each time it freezes I can't do anything, even the HHD led isn't blinking at all, nothing, I have to do a hard reset by holding down the power button. I think its hardware and not a driver issue because it has frozen once before in the bios. I really think it's my ram! My question is should I up the voltage for my ram and if so buy how much. Or is this ram just wrong for this build and should I just go buy some G.SKILL Ripjaws 5 and I would have a better chance of stability. The specs of my computer are..

Intel Skylake i5-6600k
Asus Z170-AR Bios 1302 latest
Asus GTX 970 Strix OC
Samsung SSD 850 Evo M.2 500Gb
Windows 10 Home latest update
Cougar CMX V3 1000w Haswell-E ready???
G.SKILL Ripjaws4 F42666C15Q-16GRR DDR4-2666 4x4096mb CL 15-15-15-35 1.2v

Computer Voltages

CPU Core/Cache Voltage 1.136v
DRAM Voltage 1.200v
CPU VCCIO Voltage 0.960v
CPU System Agent Voltage 1.072v/1.080v changes
PCH Core Voltage 1.008v
CPU Standby Voltage 1.018v

Should I just cut my losses and bite the bullet and buy some better suited ram? Ripjaws5? Please help its driving me crazy!!!

Hi I was wondering if any of you guys could possibly help me out! I've been buying a piece of my computer each week for months now and I finally got it finished two weeks ago. But now it keeps freezing every like 10mins. I can make it freeze if I start up a game of Battlefield 4 and can only play for a few minutes. It will also freeze just when I'm just on desktop and it has even frozen when I've been in the bios. Each time it freezes I can't do anything, even the HHD led isn't blinking at all, nothing, I have to do a hard reset by holding down the power button. I think its hardware and not a driver issue because it has frozen once before in the bios. I really think it's my ram! My question is should I up the voltage for my ram and if so buy how much. Or is this ram just wrong for this build and should I just go buy some G.SKILL Ripjaws 5 and I would have a better chance of stability. The specs of my computer are..

Intel Skylake i5-6600k
Asus Z170-AR Bios 1302 latest
Asus GTX 970 Strix OC
Samsung SSD 850 Evo M.2 500Gb
Windows 10 Home latest update
Cougar CMX V3 1000w Haswell-E ready???
G.SKILL Ripjaws4 F42666C15Q-16GRR DDR4-2666 4x4096mb CL 15-15-15-35 1.2v

Computer Voltages

CPU Core/Cache Voltage 1.136v
DRAM Voltage 1.200v
CPU VCCIO Voltage 0.960v
CPU System Agent Voltage 1.072v/1.080v changes
PCH Core Voltage 1.008v
CPU Standby Voltage 1.018v

Should I just cut my losses and bite the bullet and buy some better suited ram? Ripjaws5? Please help its driving me crazy!!!

 

[Woomack]

1. check if cooler is mounted properly - simply check if temps are fine ( below 40*C idle even if you have really bad cooler )
2. clear CMOS / use default BIOS settings ( all auto ) and check if the same is happening ( memory should run at 2133 )
3. use 1-2 memory sticks and check if it's acting the same ( look at the mobo/manual description which slot is 1/2 )

Memory should work fine at 2666 regardless if it's designed for Z170 or not. Problems are usually starting above 3000.
Specification in general looks good. I just don't know why you picked 4x4GB RAM when this is dual channel platform. 2x8GB would be better in this case.
Anyway it's hard to say what is causing freezing and memory may not be the issue here.

 

[john citizen]

Hey thank you so much for your fast reply! Just the fella I was hoping would reply. My cooler is the Corsair Hydro Series H110i GTX. My CPU temp when idle is like 26deg, mobo 32deg GPU 62deg. Strix fans don't kick in till 65deg. My case is a Lian Li PC-10n. It's all jammed in there pretty good. I bought the case and ram right at the last minute. Was trying to get it altogether and going by the time Battlefront came out. Plus I use a computer every day at work. NX, CAD/CAM/CAE. Thought I should probably get a computer going once again. I know the ram wasn't a wise choice and didn't read into to much except for the fact that it was on the motherboard QVL. Will try all those things now and will post back. Thank you again!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Hey John, and welcome to OCF!
Looks like Woomack has you taken care of right now, but I'll be watching to see if I can put in any info as well.

Just an FYI, we typically suggest a new thread around here instead of posting in an existing thread.
Historically, this has just gotten better information to the person asking the question.
That being said, I went ahead and merged your posts and Woomack's reply to you into the thread you had created.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Hardlock in bios is usually heat or power related. Just sayin..........
PSU is made by HEC. Not that good. I'd check that first.

 

[wingman99]

I would check your motherboard mount and make sure it is not shorting to the case.

 

[john citizen]

Hi guys late reply been super busy! I think the problem is fixed! This is what I did and seems to be running perfect now. I've read for days on the net trying to figure out what was causing my computer to constantly freeze. And now I think it was such a stupid simple thing. This is what I did. I took out two sticks of ram. I changed my computer so it never goes to sleep and the big one which I think was causing the problem in the first place was I changed my gpus fan thermal threshold curve. The curve was set ridiculously high, Asus Strix default curve was just to extreme and it was overheating causing it freeze up my computer. Everything seems to be running perfect now. Battlefield 4 and Battlefront I can now play for hours! I even accidentally was running Prime95 when my mate asked me to jump in a game of battlefront with him, closed down Prime95 well I thought I did and played two hours of battlefront and had Prime95 running in the background and it never missed a beat. Thank you so much Woomack for your help and thankyou so much for your help wingman99 I even checked the CPUs substrate and it looked all good! LOL

 

[wingman99]

Glad you have it fixed.

 

[Mr.Scott]

So it was heat related.
You're welcome.