Z170M Pro4S - "Red Screen of Death" while gaming

I recently built a new PC with an ASRock Z170M Pro4S. Whenever I play a graphics intensive game, I get the "Red Screen of Death", a frozen red screen with no message. A hard reboot is required to regain control of the PC. No matter what game I attempt to run, I can usually play for about 30 minutes, give or take, before the PC freezes, usually with the RSOD. 

Edited by mnorvell - 07 Jul 2016 at 2:05am

mnorvell wrote: I recently built a new PC with an ASRock Z170M Pro4S. Whenever I play a graphics intensive game, I get the "Red Screen of Death", a frozen red screen with no message. A hard reboot is required to regain control of the PC. No matter what game I attempt to run, I can usually play for about 30 minutes, give or take, before the PC freezes, usually with the RSOD.  For this new PC build, I re-used an AMD Radeon 7800 series video card, that I removed from my previous PC (a stock Dell Optiplex 755 with an aftermarket 500W power supply). The AMD Radeon card gave me no problems in the old Dell PC for about 3 years, never a RSOD that I can recall, but now in the custom built PC, I consistently get the RSOD every time.  The new custom built PC includes the following components: ASRock Z170M Pro4s motherboard Intel Skylake i5 6600 CPU (non-K) @ 3.3 Ghz A single stick of Corsair LPX Vengeance 8GB DDR4 2666 MHz RAM  EVGA 500 watt PSU OCZ ARC 100 SSD (240 GB) Windows 10 (fresh install) No components have ever been overclocked. After a few days of troubleshooting, I've done the following: I've formatted my hard drive, and re-installed Windows 10, I've removed and re-seated the video card, and installed the latest video drivers (first with Windows update, and then to the latest version provided at the AMD website). I stress tested the RAM with Memtest 86+, but found no errors. I also tried moving the RAM to a different slot on the motherboard. Has anyone else had the same experience with a similar hardware configurations? Does anyone have any possible solutions or troubleshooting advice? In addition to the RSOD, I was getting a series of random Blue Screen of Death messages for a time, but not necessarily while gaming. I tried to update the BIOS to the latest version provided at the ASRock website (v. 2.80). After about 24 hours, I have yet to get another Blue Screen of Death, but I still consistently get the RSOD after about 30 minutes of gaming.  The BIOS provided at the ASRock website is labeled as a "BIOS" update, and not an "SMBIOS" update. I thought I was updating the BIOS with the file that I download from the ASRock website, but the Windows 10 System Information app indicates that the SMBIOS was updated to v2.80, while the BIOS (non-SM) still remains as the American Megatrends P1.40 version (8/13/2015).  Is it possible/advised to update the American Megatrends BIOS?  Again, has anyone else had the same experience with Red Screens and Blue Screens with a similar hardware configurations? Does anyone have any possible solutions or troubleshooting advice? Your input is greatly appreciated. Thank you! **Update:  While exploring the BIOS, I just discovered that my RAM is only running at 2133 MHz, however I installed 2666 MHz. Could that be related to my problems? Thanks!**

The usual cause of freezing screens in video games is related to over heating of the video card, CPU, or both. You did not mention any system temperature readings during gaming, so cannot comment further.

Is the new PC build in the old PC case? Are the cooling fan(s) in the PC case connected to the new board? Dell is known to use proprietary fans and connectors, so you may not be using them again. Of course this is all speculation, given all the missing hardware information.

You are using the video card and PSU from the old PC, with all the new PC components. So the majority of the hardware is new. The comparison of the two systems is not valid, they are quite different. Plus important information about the new PC is unknown.

The 2.80 BIOS update should have done nothing with SMBIOS. SMBIOS is used by Windows. A Windows update or different Windows version could change the SMBIOS version.

Why the 2.80 BIOS update you apparently performed did not work, I don't know. What method did you use to update the BIOS? If you used the Windows method, and did not restart the PC, the data about the BIOS version in Windows was likely obsolete.

Check the BIOS version in the main BIOS screen.

All DDR4 memory will default to a speed of 2133. Any speed above 2133 is an over clock, and must be done manually, or by using XMP. The memory speed at 2133 or 2666 did not create or fix your problem. Using the XMP profile can have side affects in the BIOS, including changes to CPU voltage and other settings. Those changes, as a side affect, might have had a positive affect on your video card problem.


Edited by parsec - 07 Jul 2016 at 10:31am

If you are facing red screen of death issue while gaming, then try these fixes to solve the issue- https://www.freedriverupdater.com/how-to-fix-red-screen-of-death-in-windows-10-resolved/

I hope it will help you. Thank you!