Crashes with NVIDIA cards

[Dablue]

two things,

in the bios, make sure you have enabled X M P (extreme memory profile)

http://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/e ... e-xmp.html

the setting might be enabled when you first access the bios, but as you got a maximus vii (mine asus Z87 pro) there will be some differences, so first off, access the bios, and set everything to defaults, then enable the XMP profile, it will be either on the first page (as the bios is a GUI interface) or in advance menory settings. (but I'm doing this from the top of my head) (as I not accessed my bios for a while, and there will be differances.

if that doesn't help, what is your power supply? is it a bronze or above rated? then I think anything above 750 wat (you are running a single gcard right?) (by the looks of if you are) so that should be more then enough, if its a bronze or above, (and a decent make) overwise, it could be a power issue.

Thnx alot for the information you posted above this =). I have a Corsair RM Series 850W power supply. One would say that is enough isnt it?

[matthewfarmery]

there was another issue I forgot about, the 4 gen intel CPUs, have a lower sleep mode, this makes a lot of power supplies incompatible, with 4 gen CPUs, due to the voltage changes,

however, from this list

http://www.corsair.com/en-gb/blog/2013/ ... r-supplies

your PSU is fully compatible, so that isn't the issue, but posting in case anyone else has a 4 gen cpu and not aware of this.

so anyway, as for the wattage, should be fine, so that isn't an issue either.

but try the XMP mode, as it changes the DDR3 ram and voltage timings, and should also enable the MB to see past the 4gig limit, but that shopuld be enabled anyway, but worth double checking, if windows can see the full amount of ram, then fine, but enabling XMP is a good idea.

if that doesn't sort it, then, I'm not really sure what else it could be, unless its either a faulty ram stick / or MB,

[matthewfarmery]

hi, Dablue, did you get this fixed? any update?

[Dablue]

hi, Dablue, did you get this fixed? any update?

Hey man... very coincidently I just got home after ive been to the workshop of the store i bought it from. Ran several tests.. everything was ok... Then swapped the videocard from a gigabyte to an MSI .. and lo and behold.. the 3rd videocard of this system runs error free.. I am too scared to say its solved... but.. i got good hopes for now.. (I was able to play world of warcraft for 15 mins without crashing.. which.. is an absolute record for me.

[matthewfarmery]

well, that is indeed odd, but I guess these things happen, so fingers crossed it now marked as solved

[Dablue]

well, that is indeed odd, but I guess these things happen, so fingers crossed it now marked as solved

.... and... it didnt work... 30 mins without a crash.. and boom.,,, were back into crashtown.

[matthewfarmery]

then logic would dictate that the problem isn't with the gcard, there is one other factor that I forget about, the CPU itself, if the die is cracked or not correctly seated, this too could lead to crashes.

so logically I would say the causes of the crashes are the following

CPU
CPU overheating???? (is the CPU at the correct temp?) you could install a CPU temp monitor, also going to the bios should give you an idea on temp, but check your bios for all temps, the CPU can go to around 60C maybe higher, the 4 gen CPUs do run a fair bit hotter then previous gen CPUs, so making sure you got a good heat sink (are you using the stock cooler? if you are, I suggest replacing it, my own CPU runs around 30c (idle) and probably in the 40C or a bit higher when playing games, I think my cooler is an arctic cooler, so that is another thing,

on the subject of heat, what is your case? and how many fans does it have? I suggest you have at least 2 fans at the front, (blow air in) then 2 at the rear, and make sure you got decent air flow at the rear, if the system is over heating, its possible the stock fans might not be blowing heat out, another factor is the gcard, if the cooling fans blow the heat to the sides of the card, (not through the rear to the back of the case) then heat from the gcard will still be in the case, not outside. so having maybe 2 side fans might be useful, depending on the card and the cooling fan system it uses)

I think we can discount the gcard, and probably the PSU,

the only other thing it could be would be a faulty motherboard, if the ram checks out fine and is fully compatible with the MB, fine,

but to me, I think its more logical it could be either the CPU is damaged, or the system is overheating

[FuzzyTiger]

Outright crashes?

CPU. Memory. Mobo.

If it's the graphics card that's cooked you'd have seen artifacting long before the card would have given out on you.

So you're looking at one of three culprits.

Alright. Options. Have you done a thorough scrub of the RAM? If not, now's the time to do it.

http://www.memtest.org/ - Go here, grab memtest+ , and set up a USB bootable that can get you in so you can scrub the memory, soap test it (that means run it overnight using the most thorough testing protocol you can wring out of the software).

If the tester hangs, well, you know what you're looking at, you'll need to test each chip individually until you find the dud. That's a slow boring process, but at least it's not going to be a horror of a repair bill.

If all the memory comes back good, or worse, the tester randomly hangs but not consistently so on a single chip, then we're down to CPU and mobo.

If they're inside Warranty, I'd recommend RMA'ing them and having the supplier run diagnostics, if you've run all the usual tests, there's oft little more you can do at that point. Only suggestions I can readily come up with would involve stress testing the CPU by whacking it with Prime95. Again, soap test protocol (in this case make it calculate a nice meaty prime number and then duck under the desk), if it survives the night unmolested, then we can safely rule out the processor.

Memory first though. Prime95 tends to deck memory so if the memory isn't stable it's no good testing it with flaky RAM.

If both CPU -and- RAM come back green, the only logical recourse is the motherboard, and then you're into Can'o'worms territory. Figuring out what's gone wrong on current motherboards can be time consuming and horrifically complex to say the least. You might as well perform voodoo magic rituals, unless you're blessed with a repeatable failstate from POST and a board that has one of those funky little LED post descriptor thingies you're best off just ordering in a new mobo and going "fsck it".

[matthewfarmery]

I also think the same, the gcard has been replaced several times, so its not the gcard that is at fault, but I do also like your ideas, and I also think its one of the listed culprits, but no harm suggesting other options like over heating.

but yeah, I think your suggestions are probably spot on.

updated Dablue?

[Dablue]

I also think the same, the gcard has been replaced several times, so its not the gcard that is at fault, but I do also like your ideas, and I also think its one of the listed culprits, but no harm suggesting other options like over heating.

but yeah, I think your suggestions are probably spot on.

updated Dablue?

Thnx for all the suggestions guys, i just got home from a vacation in greece (love you KOS!) early this week, so I havent had chances to check on you guys other suggestions, but memory is the next check. I must say since they replced the GFX from a GIGBYTE (booo!) to an MSI card, games are running alot more stable. I do get crashes.. but once an hour / 45 mins. Not ideal.. but not as bad as crashes once per 5 minute.