I have an issue that I believe is my i7 6700k

EEric2 · ‎12-21-2016

Long-story-short, when I built my PC, I ran into the Skylake Microcode bug that evidenced itself in the form of random entire PC lockups, where only a press-and-hold of the power button would allow me to do anything.

I also discovered that I was sent a faulty stick of RAM.

I was able to RMA the faulty stick of RAM, and I was able to update my BIOS to a Microcode that was post-Skylake bug fix, and for a couple months my PC ran fine.

Recently, I added an additional 16gb of RAM and am now running 4x 8gb sticks (32gb total), on an MSI Z170-A Pro Motherboard.

In addition to the RAM, I upgraded to an EVGA GTX 1070 FTW

After installing the new RAM and new GPU, I ran into the freezing again. I assumed it was the RAM or the GPU (the only things to have changed since the freezing began again), but have since thoroughly tested everything (including the CPU) and have returned with 0 errors on any hardware component.

I have a 750w PSU that also tests fine, so that leads me to believe that it's not a power issue, either.

With my initial issue, I RMA'd every component until I finally found out that the CPU's Microcode was the culprit, but never RMA'd the CPU. So, of the initial build that I had many issues with, only the CPU remains the original part.

So, my curiosity now lies in suspicion of the CPU, as it's the only part that wasn't replaced. Yet, it, along with everything else, returns no errors when tested.

Since my recent crashes, the only thing that has kept me relatively crash-free (only once so far in the past two days) was using MSI's OCGenie and XMP to overclock the CPU to 4.4ghz and underclock my 3200mhz RAM down to 2400mhz.

I thought that solved the issue, but it's apparently only aided in reducing the occurrence of the full system lockup/freeze.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

idata · ‎12-22-2016

Hello hathawayericw,

Thank you for contacting the Intel community.

At this point, if you have replaced every component in your system except the processor and the problem persists then the last thing to do is to replace the processor unless you can try the processor in a working system.

I have sent you a private message for warranty information.

Regards,

Ivan.

idata · ‎01-05-2017

Hello ,

I'm following on this post to ask you if your issue has been resolved or if you need further assistance.

Regards,

Ivan.