New ASRock Z170 Pro4 - Randomly freezing
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Technical Support
Forum Name: Intel Motherboards
Forum Description: Question about ASRock Intel Motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1712
Printed Date: 26 Jun 2024 at 10:20am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: New ASRock Z170 Pro4 - Randomly freezing
Posted By: joejccva71
Subject: New ASRock Z170 Pro4 - Randomly freezing
Date Posted: 11 Jan 2016 at 11:09pm
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Here is my build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YGTJ6h" rel="nofollow - http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YGTJ6h I have tried both Windows 10 and Windows 7. It doesn't matter. It will randomly freeze whether I'm playing a game, watching a video on youtube, or just sitting at the desktop. It's very random and I could be playing a game fine for 3 hours and then it will freeze. Or I could be just looking at a website or a video or anything. Here's what I've done so far:
Like I don't know what else to do. I mean I guess it could be a bad PSU or the motherboard maybe? Could the RAM still be bad after testing it with memtest86 for hours? Anyone have any ideas? It's very frustrating. |
Replies:
Posted By: peroni
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 4:19am
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For as little as it might help, I am running the same board with a similar setup i5 6600 (non k) with a sammy 850 evo as a main drive but without any discrete graphic card. Never experience freezes so far, except when I was pushing too much with overclocking or undervolting. Few things to try if you haven't yet - Reset bios to stock - Remove GTX970 an run off the integrated VGA - Try one RAM stick at the time Can you replicate the crash or is it totally random? |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 4:24am
Thanks for the reply. I've reset the bios to stock. I'll try removing the video card and run off the integrated and will change the ram around to different sockets as well as using only one stick at a time. I can't replicate the crash, it's completely random. Last night I was playing Skyrim for 4 hours on the highest settings possible with mods and everything and was fine. Then after getting out of the game, I started browsing the net and watching a youtube video before bed, and it froze then. It's totally random and I could be doing anything.
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peroni wrote:Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 5:58am
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Joe, guessing from here either the memory is incompatible(1st thought) or the PSU is not doing what it's supposed to. Easy enough to check the PSU if you can check it against a good(not $6.00) PSU Tester. Is it leaving anything in the Event Log, or is it completely shutting down? It it's just shutting down, no BSOD displayed, it's most likely the memory first, then the PSU. |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 6:02am
So I just checked the Event Log and around the time my system froze I see this error: "Driver PCI returned invalid ID for a child device" Then I start to think and I remember installing the latest Realtek Audio drivers off of Asrock's site, but when I went to Nvidia's site to get my graphics drivers, it also installed the HD Audio drivers. I'm not sure why Nvidia does this. So I'm in the process now of removing both sets of drivers, rebooting and just installing the Realtek drivers.
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Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 7:37am
Guessing your video card has DisplayPort and or HDMI out. Both outputs transmit audio, with the nVidia driver that is. |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 7:41am
Ahh yes it does. And I do have 2 monitors setup. One monitor is using the DVI port, and the other is using the HDMI port but I don't need audio from them. Either way, we'll see if that was conflicting or not. Will do more testing. If it was in fact a driver conflicting issue, it does make sense because I remember it freezing mostly when I was either in games or playing Youtube videos where audio was being played. But only time will tell.
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 8:37am
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Just froze while playing MS Flight Simulator X at 7:29pm EST. I had the game running for about 30 minutes or so before the freeze. My cpu temps were at 46 degrees celsius, and my graphics card temps were 27 deg celsius at the time of the crash. Upon booting back into Windows, the Event Viewer showed nothing at the time of the crash. It only showed two entries of: "Driver ACPI returned invalid ID for a child device" after I rebooted but it's always shown that. There are no errors at the particular time of the freeze.
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Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 9:10am
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Is it freezing, or crashing? Two distinct occurances, though a driver conflict or outdated drives can be shared among them. Grab DDU and let it do a complete and through uninstall. Then, immediately after uninstalling reboot and install the/a newest driver. http://www.wagnardmobile.com/" rel="nofollow - http://www.wagnardmobile.com/ If DDU fails and you still have these I'd urge you to borrow some friends memory and test with. |
Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 9:13am
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Joe, also, any chance you may have the 212 EVO too tight? If that's possible with its mounting that is. |
Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 9:21am
Get's me thinking a graphics driver issue. It passes MemTest and Prime, and those are run w/o the OS or related video drivers loaded. |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 9:24am
It's freezing. It's a hard freeze. No BSOD, no crash, just everything stops. I can still see the screen but can't move the mouse, can't type, can't hit ESC, can't Ctrl-Alt-Delete, can't do anything except hold the power button down and shut machine down and then restart it. I'll get DDU and do what you said.
I don't believe I have it on too tight. I've also run prime95 and Aidas 64 testers overnight and had no freezes in the morning. CPU loads were all at 100% during the testing for hours.
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Posted By: Tenkei
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 11:18am
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Sad to hear that your PC is still freezing. I'm just throwing in my two cents: - Use DDU in safe mode. The program should automatically suggest this when you open it on windows. - Try to update your drivers with driver booster 3. This program will scan and update any device from your system to the latest version. Please beware that it could cause system errors when you decide to apply the updates. Personally I don't have any problems with driver booster 3 and I use it quite often to check for new driver updates. - Since the CPU, RAM and probably also the GPU seem to work fine, then maybe check your WLAN card. This sounds rater silly, but my system crashed many times because of my Asus PCE-AC68 WIFI driver. If you really don't know what to do next, then remove your WIFI card and use your Onboard LAN or try other WIFI drivers. Try to install the driver only version, without the including software/bloatware if possible. - Check out Nirsoft Bluescreenview if you get a BSOD. Good luck! |
Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 4:33pm
Thank you Tenkei. I forgot to mention run it Safe Mode. |
Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 4:36pm
Yeah, hold off on the stress test for now. It's not needed at this point. |
Posted By: peroni
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 7:56pm
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Have you tried with taking out the Nvidia card and running off the Intel 530 for a while? by the way, FSX runs pretty well even on the integrated card to my surprise. |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 9:32pm
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Ok so just an update. These are the things I did last night when I got home from work. 1. I checked the event viewer and noticed an error that happened whenever i booted into windows. However, this error did not happen at the moment of freezing, only when I booted. "Driver ACPI returned invalid ID for a child device" So I uninstalled both my audio and graphics drivers using DDU, let it run in safe mode, rebooted and then reinstalled just the motherboard audio, and just the Nvidia graphics and physx drivers. Played a game for about 30 minutes. Freeze. So that didn't work. 2. Opened the case. Pulled the memory out, used canned air and dusted out the memory sockets. Then I put the memory back in different slots. So instead of slots 1 and 3, I used 2 and 4. I have 8 gb (2x4gb sticks). Booted into windows and played a game for 5 hours or so, didn't freeze. But I wasn't convinced. 3. I downloaded the stability tester, OCCT and I let it run all night. Woke up and no freeze. People have said that if you can run the CPU: LINPACK tester with that program even just an hour, then you're machine is 100% stable for overclocking. Well, I ran it all night and no freeze, no crash, nothing. Keep in mind that I'm not overclocking, don't worry...everything is at stock speeds. Still not convinced yet. 4. This morning, I'm letting a Youtube video run all day while I'm work. I've crashed before just playing a Youtube video. Could it be just switching the memory around fixed this?
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Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 9:50pm
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You HAD the memory in A_1 and B_1? No no no. Two sticks belong in A_2 and B_2 ! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and prematurely declare this Solved.  |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 9:56pm
Yea I had them in A1 and B1, but i thought as long as they weren't right next to each other that it didn't matter. Like they could go in A1 and B1 OR A2 and B2 and it would be fine. Like the manual shows: Priority 1: A2 and B2 Priority 2: A1 and B1 Priority 3: A1, A2, B1, B2 But I mean couldn't it work just as well the way I originally had it?
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Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 10:03pm
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Next to each other and you loose "Dual Channel Memory". Hence the A's and B's. Odd that ASRock didn't state A_2 and B_2 in the manual. I just looked at yours and a few others online too, no mention of it. Yea. A2 and B2 are where they belong and why I'm guessing your problems are solved. Though, keep posting if not, but I bet you've now fixed what was ailing there. |
Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 10:08pm
Yes and no. 99% of the time, No. It's gobbeldy gook as to why not and too in-depth for a discussion here as to the specifics. Suffice it that it is that way by design. |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 12 Jan 2016 at 10:17pm
Yea exactly, I mean I didn't have them right next to each other. I had them in A and B but I guess in the wrong A and B slots. :)
Will do. I'm going to see how it does tonight. It's always crashed in MS Flight Simulator X because I have the graphics turned all the way up lol, but last night it was smooth sailing all night. Then I ran that OCCT. I'm having high hopes. Thanks for all your help too.
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 14 Jan 2016 at 10:27pm
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Wow, while reading this thread, I check my mind to be sure I wasn't joejccva71 haha, since I have EXACTLY the same experience. I did the same testing, had the memory in A1-B1, etc. My PC was freezing totally randomly. When I changed to A2-B2, never got a freeze again! Until yesterday... I was playing Dying Light and after 1hour or so, froze. Had to do a hard reboot. But before that, I played a lot of Fallout 4, Rocket League (not the same day, but every day or 2) and didn't get a freeze. My build: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/6rP86h joejccva71: Any news on your side?? Also, I just saw that:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/skylake-prime-number-bug,30979.html |
Posted By: Xaltar
Date Posted: 14 Jan 2016 at 10:38pm
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I doubt it is the prime bug as that occurs only when AVX is forced in prime 95 Not many (if any) apps/games make use of AVX. I am not saying it is impossible, tessellation may be coded to take advantage of AVX for example but I highly doubt it as it would mean systems lacking the feature would be severely disadvantaged. @DowneyTif: When you switched slots to A2/B2 did you clear CMOS? It is always wise to do so when switching memory slots as UEFIs can be funny about keeping settings they shouldn't. Are there any errors in your event logs that could indicate where the problem is coming from? I doubt the hard lock itself would have left one but there may be others that led up to it.
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 14 Jan 2016 at 11:12pm
I remember having cleared the CMOS to default by clicking the button in the BIOS (reset UEFI to default), but I can't remember if I did this before or after changing the RAM slots. While using A1-B1, my build was freezing almost every day (while playing games, looking at videos, at idle, etc.) Since I changed to A2-B2 (on decembre 28th), no freeze at all except for yesterday. I'll try to reset the CMOS again. Did I reset it correctly the first time? For the events, I have exactly the same thing as joejccva71. No events at freeze time, just events after I power-off then on the PC.
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 14 Jan 2016 at 11:13pm
Yea ever since I switch the memory to A2-B2 I haven't had a freeze yet and I've played MS Flight Simulator X on full settings, Skyrim, Witcher 3 ...all on Ultra settings. No problems so far. I didn't clear the CMOS but I did reset the BIOS UEFI to defaults. I was thinking after 2 full days of no freezing that maybe I was ready to overclock again. But you said you've crashed since so I dunno. I don't know about this Skylake prime number bug. Do you have the same board? Z170 Pro4?
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 14 Jan 2016 at 11:25pm
Yep, exactly the same board. But wait... hum I'm kind of new to this building my own PC (but got help). I think I'm mixing up the CMOS and BIOS UEFI, cause I did reset the BIOS UEFI to default. How to I clear the CMOS?
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 14 Jan 2016 at 11:42pm
It's a jumper on the motherboard. With the machine powered down you take one of the little jumpers that came with the board and place it on the two pins on the board for about 5 seconds, then remove it. Power on the machine and the CMOS is reset.
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Posted By: Xaltar
Date Posted: 14 Jan 2016 at 11:45pm
| Check page 22 of your user manual for instructions to clear CMOS. It may not help but it certainly won't hurt. Resetting to factory defaults does not clear CMOS as effectively as the jumper. |
Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 12:17am
Hooray! |
Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 1:53am
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Xaltar & joejccva71: alright! thanks a lot I'll try that tonight for sure :)
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Posted By: peroni
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 3:13am
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When resetting CMOS via the jumper and/or disconnecting the battery you might come across a weirdness like it happened to me on this same exact board, Intel NIC lost its macaddress. Luckily Asrock made available a tool to reset it. I did panic for a few minutes though.  ------------- Z170 PRO4 i5 6600 2x8GB Corsair DDR3000 SSD 950 Pro (OS) 850 Evo (data) GTX 960 4GB 2x LCD |
Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 3:19am
Can you link the tool? just in case...
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Posted By: peroni
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 4:02am
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Sure, this is the page http://www.asrock.com/support/download/mactool.asp ------------- Z170 PRO4 i5 6600 2x8GB Corsair DDR3000 SSD 950 Pro (OS) 850 Evo (data) GTX 960 4GB 2x LCD |
Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 12:53pm
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CMOS is reset. Went into the BIOS at the next startup and saw something different than before in the memory section. Now I see: DDR4_A1: None DDR4_A2: 8GB (DDR4-2133) DDR4_B1: None DDR4_B2: 8GB (DDR4-2133) Profile 1 DDR4-2400 15-15-15-35 1.20V XMP Profile: Auto My DDR4 is 2400MHz, not 2133. What's going on? |
Posted By: Xaltar
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 1:45pm
| You will need to set the RAM to 2400. On all boards the RAM will default to 2133 for DDR4 and 1333 for DDR3, this is a safety feature to ensure the system will boot. |
Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 3:55pm
How to do it. Bear with me, I'm using the online manual which leaves a lot to be desired in terms of clicking what opens what in the BIOS BIOS > OC Tweaker > DRAM Configuration > DRAM Timing Configuration > Load XMP Profile, and here simply choose the XMP Profile as it is read from your memory sticks. That's it. DO NOT change anything else DRAM related at this point. Choose the XMP Profile, Save and Exit. Then re-enter the BIOS on re-booting to check that the changes "stuck" |
Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 15 Jan 2016 at 11:19pm
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@Wardog and Xaltar: thanks a lot, I'll try this tonight when at home and report back. I have the feeling that this will close my problems once and for all :)
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 16 Jan 2016 at 11:00am
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Alright, did it. RAM is configured correctly and validated. Played Diablo 3 for like 1h30, ALT-TAB to Windows to take a small break and bang, froze again. I had HWMonitor started, my temps where 40C for CPU, 60C for GTX970..... I'm about to cry.
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Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 16 Jan 2016 at 11:10am
Meh, I'll remind you this forum has a strict No Crying policy !  You want to work at this and see if it'll run, albeit at a lower MHz on the memory? |
Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2016 at 5:53am
Haha, no worry. I could try that yep.
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Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 18 Jan 2016 at 9:46pm
In the BIOS,XMP Profile, do your sticks show a 2133MHz XMP Profile? If the do, choose that one and retry with testing by playing Diablo 3 . |
Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 19 Jan 2016 at 12:20am
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The only profile that I could chose was XMP 2.0 2400, or Auto. I'll need to manually downclock the RAM I think. EDIT: yesterday, when I came home at night after being away for the day, my PC was frozen at Idle.
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 19 Jan 2016 at 8:28am
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Just froze out of the blue. Hadn't happened for almost an entire week and just happened in a game. A game I had been playing all week long. Temps were fine, nothing out of the ordinary...just...freeze.
I am beyond angry at this point. Clearly there's something going on here if I can play games and be fine for an entire week and then it freezes for no reason? It has to be something with the CPU like these articles are floating around with. I want a BIOS fix. I already have the latest BIOS (3.00 version) for my board, but they need to make a new one with the fix in it. I can't even return the product back where I bought it cause they only have a 7 day return policy on CPU's and Motherboards. What do I do? I've already emailed back "Eric" from ASRock support but I dont know what good it will do. He'll tell me the same stuff of "take it back to your store" or whatever. Not that I'm trying to over-analyze this, but it froze tonight exactly 7 days after it froze last monday and almost the exact time. Like it froze last Monday night at 7:25pm, and it froze tonight at 7:28pm. I'm not even kidding. It went almost exactly 7 days to almost the exact time before it froze.
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 19 Jan 2016 at 11:15pm
I'm also in contact with the support guy. I followed his instruction, made the setup yesterday evening and now the waiting game begins.
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 19 Jan 2016 at 11:36pm
What instruction did he give you?
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2016 at 12:20am
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Basically to connect only the needed stuff: - CPU + cooler - Graphic card - Power + Reset button - 1 RAM - 1 HDD or SSD (with OS) - Keyboard + Mouse To eliminate short-circuit probability, he told me to install the mobo outside of the case (on the mobo box for example). Before doing that, you should open a support ticket with ASROCK and let them tell you those steps though.
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2016 at 12:45am
Ok so the problem I have is, it took a week for my system to freeze and then it didn't happen again the rest of the night. So they want me to have all my parts all outside of the case for 1-2 weeks or even longer waiting for my machine to freeze? That's ridiculous. I might take everything out, box it up and get a new motherboard, ram, cpu and PSU again. I might switch cases too just in case. It's the NZXT S340 Blue/Black case. I'm pretty irritated with this freezing problem because I have absolutely NO idea why it would work great FOR A WHOLE 7 DAYS then freeze just randomly. And I literally am on my computer every day gaming. Like, nothing has changed during this 7 day period. I didn't install anything, I didn't play anything different, I'm always monitoring temps. Sigh, I'm so frustrated I don't even know what to do at this point other than return everything.
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2016 at 2:41am
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Interesting: https://communities.intel.com/thread/97358" rel="nofollow - https://communities.intel.com/thread/97358 |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2016 at 2:57am
Where is the option in the BIOS for our motherboard to turn CSTATES off?
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Posted By: peroni
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2016 at 5:53am
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Advanced \ CPU Configuration ------------- Z170 PRO4 i5 6600 2x8GB Corsair DDR3000 SSD 950 Pro (OS) 850 Evo (data) GTX 960 4GB 2x LCD |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2016 at 5:58am
| Ok CSTATES is currently disabled now. We'll see how it goes. |
Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2016 at 8:04am
Any freezes for you yet since you took those parts out of the case?
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2016 at 10:18am
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So just an update. I haven't froze since the CSTATES change in the BIOS but last week I didn't freeze for an entire week. I mean I "could" potentially just leave this as is, and if I freeze once a week I "could" be ok with that? I guess? But I already called Micro Center here in Cambridge, MA and I'm going to bring back everything on Saturday and replace it with not only new parts, but new brand names also. I'm going to get a better motherboard (probably going with ASUS this time), ram, video card, and psu. It's going to cost me an additional $326 ..(already did the math) but I think it's worth it. I want a STABLE rig. That's not too much to ask for is it? After all this headache that I've (and others) have been through. I mean, ASRock support has been ok i guess? Not bad, but not amazing either. It's tough to get in contact with them via emails because they don't answer but once every 3-4 days which is very frustrating. Just wanted to update you guys as you've been more help than support has, and for that I thank you.
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Posted By: wardog
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2016 at 11:04am
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Understandable. Here's wishing you the sincerest tidings with whatever you're getting next. |
Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2016 at 12:02pm
Yes, it froze today with only the basic. I'm really starting to think that the problem is Skylake, not the board. Too many people using different boards have this over the internet. All related to Skylake, with all the same symptoms. Anyway, I'm speaking with Eric (support guy) everyday, so I'll see my options. I can RMA the board or wait to see what Intel has to say about it.
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Posted By: joejccva71
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2016 at 12:30pm
Eric just gave me the usual, "RMA the board or return it where you got it". But not everyone is having issues with the Skylake processors and there are ALOT of people that have them. I think it's more or less finding the right board that has the BIOS update that FIXES the Skylake problem from Intel. It's one of the reasons why I'm going ASUS, tried and true.
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 22 Jan 2016 at 11:01pm
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New BIOS available :)
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Posted By: Xaltar
Date Posted: 22 Jan 2016 at 11:10pm
Yup, ASRock have been rolling out BIOS updates all day  Not all products are covered yet but they have been working fast so it won't be long
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Posted By: DownyTif
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2016 at 9:51am
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For the record, since I unsloted my RAM and put it back, no freeze. After a while, I also updated the BIOS to the new version. I haven't experienced a freeze in a long time now. My guess: my RAM must have been barely slotted correctly because my MB is smaller than the posts in the case. When I reinstalled my RAM, my MB was on a table, so I was able to really push it in while holding the back of the MB. So far so good !
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