- Jun 30, 2004
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I've posted a thread recently in "Power Supplies" about the possibility that a bad UPS was the cause of a critical stop that would occur about once every two weeks.
My sig system has been refitted with a Kaby Lake 7700K, and I swapped out four TridentZ 3200 RAM sticks for two (2x16) which "seemed" to have the same specs: DDR4-3200, 14-14-14 and 1.35V.
Perhaps a couple months after installing and testing, I had this critical stop on June 27, 2021. I had gone through a makeover after damaging the motherboard with a static charge to a USB-charging vaping pen. (Stupid -- I know). In July, I made the mistake of leaving a non-bootable install CD in the optical drive, and the system wouldn't boot because it would halt at the drive enumeration phase, trying to figure out what was going on with the optical disc. I put the problem on hold for a few months, then recognized the issue with the CD, took it out, and everything was fine. I'd also replaced the PSU just days before resolving the CD problem. Critical stops continued, and it was not too long before I realized the first had happened -- as I said -- in June.
So eliminating the PSU, I began to suspect the UPS and swapped it out. Things seemed as though this had rectified the problem, but no -- the critical stop occurred again after two weeks, and a few days ago.
I ran the INtel diagnostics on the processor, and everything is good. The motherboard was replaced at the time of the vaping-pen accident. Further, I can't imagine how the motherboard would cause these intermittent crashes. I conclude that it could be the RAM, possibly the video card (but not as likely), or a driver or software misconfiguration or conflict. The BIOS is up to date. All the other drivers are up to date. I'm running the latest feature upgrade to Windows 10.
Some web forums and threads indicate RAM as a source of the problem. In my case, the crashes seem more serious than what others describe as blue screens. The system shuts down. I cannot cold-boot by hitting the switch. I have to unplug the PSU after switching it off, wait a minute, then plug it back in and switch on. NOte that all the overclock settings have been set back to the ASUS "optimal defaults", but the problem persisted.
THE RAM
I looked carefully to replace my 4x8 set of TridentZ with a 2x16. Never mind my profligate and unnecessary spending. I just wanted to do it. The original modules were 3200 14-14-14 GTZ kits. The replacement 2x16's were 3200 14-14-14 GTZR. There was no reliable information about compatibility with my Z170 board from the G.SKILL configurator page. I sent an e-mail to G.SKILL: their techs are always quick to respond and very helpful. But this time, their tech said "Oh! It will PROBABLY work. You may have to loosen the timings and run them at a lower speed. . . " At first, everything seemed fine at the spec settings, but I remembered the e-mail response. Checking the web again, there was never any mention that the GTZR's were compatible with the Z170 boards. They seemed to be made for the Z270 or later.
So I think I should swap the original GTZ RAM sticks back in, perhaps even just one pair (2x8).
Anyone with comments or insight? An error that occurs every couple weeks takes patience to monitor and cure. So far, no hard disk corruption or other problems.
One more thought. For years I've been using Romex Primo-Cache to speed up SATA storage, and I therefore inclined to 32GB of RAM or more to use in L1 caching. There's also a 256GB Sammy 960 EVO NVME drive as L2 cache, and I haven't attended much to keeping it trimmed. So I've deleted my caches for the time being until I get this resolved. Could the caching drive have something to do with this? I don't know. Could it be the graphics card? It seems tip-top, but I can't be sure until I test that component as well.
As for the motherboard. It would seem to me that a problem with the board would show itself in more frequent and consistent crashes. No matter but for the potential inconvenience: I have a spare returned by ASUS under warranty RMA. Of course, I'll have to go through reactivations with software. I don't think I lack any in the way of spare hardware to fix this, PROVIDED that it's a hardware problem. It will be a pain-in-the-*** to swap out the motherboard. Just because . . . . it will be a P-I-T-A, that's all . . . .
My sig system has been refitted with a Kaby Lake 7700K, and I swapped out four TridentZ 3200 RAM sticks for two (2x16) which "seemed" to have the same specs: DDR4-3200, 14-14-14 and 1.35V.
Perhaps a couple months after installing and testing, I had this critical stop on June 27, 2021. I had gone through a makeover after damaging the motherboard with a static charge to a USB-charging vaping pen. (Stupid -- I know). In July, I made the mistake of leaving a non-bootable install CD in the optical drive, and the system wouldn't boot because it would halt at the drive enumeration phase, trying to figure out what was going on with the optical disc. I put the problem on hold for a few months, then recognized the issue with the CD, took it out, and everything was fine. I'd also replaced the PSU just days before resolving the CD problem. Critical stops continued, and it was not too long before I realized the first had happened -- as I said -- in June.
So eliminating the PSU, I began to suspect the UPS and swapped it out. Things seemed as though this had rectified the problem, but no -- the critical stop occurred again after two weeks, and a few days ago.
I ran the INtel diagnostics on the processor, and everything is good. The motherboard was replaced at the time of the vaping-pen accident. Further, I can't imagine how the motherboard would cause these intermittent crashes. I conclude that it could be the RAM, possibly the video card (but not as likely), or a driver or software misconfiguration or conflict. The BIOS is up to date. All the other drivers are up to date. I'm running the latest feature upgrade to Windows 10.
Some web forums and threads indicate RAM as a source of the problem. In my case, the crashes seem more serious than what others describe as blue screens. The system shuts down. I cannot cold-boot by hitting the switch. I have to unplug the PSU after switching it off, wait a minute, then plug it back in and switch on. NOte that all the overclock settings have been set back to the ASUS "optimal defaults", but the problem persisted.
THE RAM
I looked carefully to replace my 4x8 set of TridentZ with a 2x16. Never mind my profligate and unnecessary spending. I just wanted to do it. The original modules were 3200 14-14-14 GTZ kits. The replacement 2x16's were 3200 14-14-14 GTZR. There was no reliable information about compatibility with my Z170 board from the G.SKILL configurator page. I sent an e-mail to G.SKILL: their techs are always quick to respond and very helpful. But this time, their tech said "Oh! It will PROBABLY work. You may have to loosen the timings and run them at a lower speed. . . " At first, everything seemed fine at the spec settings, but I remembered the e-mail response. Checking the web again, there was never any mention that the GTZR's were compatible with the Z170 boards. They seemed to be made for the Z270 or later.
So I think I should swap the original GTZ RAM sticks back in, perhaps even just one pair (2x8).
Anyone with comments or insight? An error that occurs every couple weeks takes patience to monitor and cure. So far, no hard disk corruption or other problems.
One more thought. For years I've been using Romex Primo-Cache to speed up SATA storage, and I therefore inclined to 32GB of RAM or more to use in L1 caching. There's also a 256GB Sammy 960 EVO NVME drive as L2 cache, and I haven't attended much to keeping it trimmed. So I've deleted my caches for the time being until I get this resolved. Could the caching drive have something to do with this? I don't know. Could it be the graphics card? It seems tip-top, but I can't be sure until I test that component as well.
As for the motherboard. It would seem to me that a problem with the board would show itself in more frequent and consistent crashes. No matter but for the potential inconvenience: I have a spare returned by ASUS under warranty RMA. Of course, I'll have to go through reactivations with software. I don't think I lack any in the way of spare hardware to fix this, PROVIDED that it's a hardware problem. It will be a pain-in-the-*** to swap out the motherboard. Just because . . . . it will be a P-I-T-A, that's all . . . .
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