Intel i5 6600K random lockup Freeze or BSOD...

[satas]

Hi to all!

firstly here is my configuration:

Intel i5 6600k at stock speeds

Asus Z170 ROG VIII Gene (latest bios 1504)

Corsair DDR4 16GB (2x8GB) 2400MHz (CMK16GX4M2A2400C14)

EVGA GTX980 SC (at stock speed)

I am experiencing random system freezes and BSODs. The screen locks up and the sound is stuck or it is just BSOD.

I already started a thread over at Tenforums and did a lot of troubleshooting but nothing really helped.

most of the time the issue happens while just browsing the internet, playing some flashgame in the browser etc.

it can randomly happen with listening to music with wmp or aimp or just while starting a portable application from usb drive.

it's really very random and unpredictable, that makes it very difficult to analyze - but the issue is there in the background all the time.

I'm running Windows 10 Pro and have the all the latest bios and drivers installed.

there is no manual overclock except the ram running on XMP profile at 2400MHz (instead of 2133Mhz).

how is it possible that Intel's Skylake can not handle ram at 2400MHz while Z170 chipset advertises speeds at >3000MHz.

Thank you in advance for the help and advices,

Sahin

[DKoto]

Yes, my card is gtx 1070 (with gtx 770 freezes as well).

timings 15-15-15-36.

[CCris2]

Those are the normal timings of DDR 4 2100 so that should be ok.

If the CPU temperature is under 80 degrees under load, then the problem is your memory or mainboard. One of them if not both have problems.

I hope you have a good PSU.

You can test with igpu and with the latest drivers from intel, just to eliminate the video card driver problem.

Also you can check what is the voltage of the CPU under load with GPU-Z or HwInfo64, it should be about 1.2-1.25V.

[DKoto]

Thank you Ronin. Well the temps are ok. My PSU is ok as well. I'm sure of it because it worked in my nehalem system for 5 years.

My CPU voltage under load (Cinebench test) is 1.088 as CPU-Z shows.

By the way my current settings in bios are:

adaptive vcore + with no offset;

memory freq. 2133 Mhz (manualy set);

memory voltage at 1.25v.

[CCris2]

The CPU voltage under load seems low.

Lets do some CPU settings.

ASUS MultiCore Enhancement : Disable

CPU Core Ratio :Sync All Cores.

1 Core Ratio Limit: 42

EPU power saving mode: Disabled

CPU Load-line Calibration:Auto

CPU Core/Cache Voltage: Adaptive

Offset Mode Sign: +

Aditional turbo mode CPU Voltage: 1.25 --- this voltage you can increase till 1.275 if it is not stable or if it is stable you can decrease it till you find the limit of maintaining stability.

Offset Voltage: Auto

If this doesn't work then it is a problem with the mainboard.

Normally it should work with everything on auto.

On Asrock mainboards it works when you set everything on auto, I don't understand why Asus made it so hard ...

[DKoto]

Well, Ronin, I set everything according to your recommendations. But it did not help! Also I found out an interesting thing about incompatibility problem with ASUS mobo and Crucial RAM. I found it here: http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=20714&page=53 768k Skylake Problem/Bug - Page 53 - mersenneforum.org.

Pegnose says:

"As one of really many people with the same thing (ASUS mobo with Crucial RAM) I would blindly attest that this is "your" issue (RAM incompatibility). Test this hypothesis with HCI memtest desktop version under Windows:

- run 8 (# of your threads) instances in parallel

- assign ~3500 MB of RAM to each (i.e. >85% of your RAM in total; leave at least ~2 GB for Windows 10)

- let this run AT LEAST until you reach a coverage of 1000%"

I tried it! My PC froze at 1500% (It took ~ 10 hours to freeze). What do you think about it? Maybe I should buy another RAM. Kingston, Samsung?

[EAkar1]

I changed my Load Line Calibration to "high" and the problem is gone. I believe my PSU is old and does not work well, LLC setting in BIOS helps to give enough power to CPU.