P8Z68 V PRO frequent restarts/reboots the system

[pristine]

Hi everybody.

I have some problems with my p8z68 v pro motherboard. (I suppose the mobo is the cause!)

My system:
i7-2600k (NO Overclocking)
P8Z68 V PRO (because of the critical errors, I updated to 0501 version, but still no luck)
GSKILL RIPJAWS F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL ;they are 2x2GB sitting in DIMM A2,B2 as per mobo instruction
stock air cooler
Sapphire HD4690 1GB
WD Black, Sata, 500GB
PSU 1000W

now the problem is i get reboots in widnows 7 and even in the bios environment.

I windows 7, it just happens occasionaly but in bios, it is more likey to happen.

As per GSKIL support forum thread I enabled XMP and put the dram voltage to 1.5V (The voltage fluctuates between 1.518~1.523V, I do not know if this is normal!)

Also, in the win environment, everytime the system reboots, it logs CRITICAL ERROR as following :

Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
EventID 41

I did MEMTEST and MEMTEST86 with no errors. I did some other test, no problem.

I wanted to be sure of my cpu, so I did some cpu benchamrks to put it under perssure.
So, I ran prime95, I noticed very high temperatures at 90C (82C in the evening actually) when running its most cpu intensive torture test.
other than that, the system is usually 38C in idle and 40~45C when doing most daily stuff.
My room temperature is around 27C.

Somewhere i read that cpu might not get the required voltage, so I picked up some sensor info from asus probe:

The voltages are:
in IDLE mode:
V Core: 0.832V, +12:12.384V, +5V:5.22V, +3.3V: 3.376V
Also the ASUS TuboV EVO says;
BCLK freq: 100.3MHZ, CPU Voltage:1.6V, DDR Voltage:1.5V, VCCIO: 1.05V, CPU PLL: 1.80V, PCH:1.05V, all the others are 0.5V

In Prime 95 torture test mode:
V Core: 1.248V, +12:12.384V, +5V:5.22V, +3.3V: 3.36V
Also the ASUS TuboV EVO says;
BCLK freq: 100.3MHZ, CPU Voltage:1.65V, DDR Voltage:1.5V, VCCIO: 1.05V, CPU PLL: 1.80V, PCH:1.05V, all the others are 0.5V

I once set windows to SLEEP mode. But when I wanted to wake it up I did several reboots to be able to wakeup the system.

Please help.

Thank you.

 

[Raja@ASUS]

Hi,


Please flash to BIOS 0651, use one DIMM if need be. Let me know if that helps.

-Raja

 

[Nemesis 1]

XMP @ 1.5 V . Put voltage on auto than check the voltage than find the V that works . Your V is to low at 1.5v forXMP .

 

[e-drood]

in addition to all above - bios update + ram voltage check - also:

your selection of system components is good / performance oriented / requires good airflow through your case / 1kw psu should draw "cool" air from outside case & exhaust heated air outside case --- is case exhaust fan working correctly --- you may need different i72600k air cooler --- your caviar black runs quite warm, make certain hdd has directed air flow...

thermal environment inside case is not uniform, rather distinct, naturally occuring, thermal zones requiring reasonable air flow to prevent localized overheating/out-of-spec temp spikes...

 

[pristine]

Hi,


Please flash to BIOS 0651, use one DIMM if need be. Let me know if that helps.

-Raja

Hi again.

I updated the bios to 0651.

Removed one of my GSKILL RIPJAWS F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL modules.
I noticed that in windows while I run prime95, the system becomes much less responsive than when it had 4GB. I suppose this is logical!

* I noticed that when i run prime95 torture test, cpu temp goes as high as 75C. When I had 4GB Ram, it used to go 85C! Is this logical? (I have just stock cooler)

With just 1 ram module, I have had 1 reboot while in bios.
(bios is my test environment, since I have had many roboots while in there, even when I was doing nothing)

I again ran memtest86 on this confing; No errors. (just like before)

Is the ram the problem?

 

[pristine]

XMP @ 1.5 V . Put voltage on auto than check the voltage than find the V that works . Your V is to low at 1.5v forXMP .

DRam voltages are around 1.62V when in AUTO mode.

Actually I asked from Gskill support forum they advised to set the profile to XMP and manually eneter the voltage to 1.5V

I think they are designed for this voltage. the website says "1.5V TESTED"

Even in Auto mode, I have had reboots. Otherwise i would not change it.

Do you mean I have to play with dram Voltage setting to find out a stable solution?
This may take days! because reboots sometimes happen 1 in minute after restart, sometimes after 2 hours!

 

[pristine]

in addition to all above - bios update + ram voltage check - also:

your selection of system components is good / performance oriented / requires good airflow through your case / 1kw psu should draw "cool" air from outside case & exhaust heated air outside case --- is case exhaust fan working correctly --- you may need different i72600k air cooler --- your caviar black runs quite warm, make certain hdd has directed air flow...

thermal environment inside case is not uniform, rather distinct, naturally occuring, thermal zones requiring reasonable air flow to prevent localized overheating/out-of-spec temp spikes...

Hi and with many thanks.

my case is HAF932, which I suppose has very good ventilation.

Also, I have touched the hdds several times. They run surprisingly cool (not warm).

Furthermore, I think my overall system has less than 400W power consumption. I have put 1kw psu for future and wanted the psu to run cool.

for the stock cooler, I don't think the reboots are because of the cpu cooler! I mean I have had reboots even in windows idle mode when the asus probe reports 38C for cpu!

 

[Raja@ASUS]

Can you place a fan near the CPU VRM heatsink to cool it and see if you still get system resets please?

You can insert two DIMMs - I only suggested one DIMM to flash BIOS; in case the system was severely unstable.

Check all components are properly seated (GPU especially).

What USB devices do you have plugged into the board?

-Raja

 

[e-drood]

i agree w/ raja. the vrm's/mb power supply area is sensitive to overheating if there is inadequate airflow onto the 1-2 heatsink assemblies at edges of cpu socket OR if heatsink assembly has loosened from smt vrm's (check spring pins/or screws on heatsink(s) - the thermal pads may have slipped to (1) side of heatsink face...

the cpu aircooler/fan assembly also directs air onto vrm area(s)...

also possibly loose heatsink on mb chipset

 

[pristine]

Can you place a fan near the CPU VRM heatsink to cool it and see if you still get system resets please?

You can insert two DIMMs - I only suggested one DIMM to flash BIOS; in case the system was severely unstable.

Check all components are properly seated (GPU especially).

What USB devices do you have plugged into the board?

-Raja

Dear Raja, Dear All,
Thank you for your posts.

Unfortunately, i do not have a fan/cooler here.
Actually when I touch the stock cooler aluminum fins, they are not that hot. Just as much as my drams (my gskill drams are metal shielded i.e passive cooling)

I notice that the motherboard onboard heatsink (next to the back ports) has much higher temeperatures than CPU.

my system is not very unstable. the reboots happen out of no where. Maybe 1 time in a day or may be 5 times during a day.

I checked the graphics card. It is correctly and fully seated as far as I can see. I do not know about cpu. because I am scared of touching it.
There is nothing else, expet the 1 dram module in A2 and 2 sata hdds connected to SATA2 ports (one in port numbered SATA3 and the other in SATA5)
my dvd is also connected to SAT6 port.

USB devices :
I have connected back panel usb2.0 port to my monitor which has a built in usb hub.
microsoft usb mouse is connected to apple usb keyboard and the keyboard to my monitor
there is also my kingston 2GB old flash drived connected to my monitor.

I also have noticed the BOOT_DEVICE_LED is red while i go to bios. but when i continue to windows it turns off. (is it because of my two hard disks or something else?)

 

[pristine]

There is one more thing,

The RESET button on the mobo works, but the RESET button on my chasis does not work!
I unpluged the cable and tried to do a short on the jumpers on the mobo. It did not work either.

Is this ok?

 

[pristine]

Sorry for multiple posts,
I wanted to add, I laid aside the case, disconnected the power supply, disconnected all the usb/sata cables from the mobo and disconnected the usb hub and plugged my keboard and mice into the back ports.

When I turned the system on, I have reboots again.

 

[pristine]

i agree w/ raja. the vrm's/mb power supply area is sensitive to overheating if there is inadequate airflow onto the 1-2 heatsink assemblies at edges of cpu socket OR if heatsink assembly has loosened from smt vrm's (check spring pins/or screws on heatsink(s) - the thermal pads may have slipped to (1) side of heatsink face...

the cpu aircooler/fan assembly also directs air onto vrm area(s)...

also possibly loose heatsink on mb chipset

Hi.

I had to read your post several times and check the mobo to understand what you mean. I am not that much techie after all.

Now there is a question. If cpu cooler serves a purpose as cooling the vrm
area (those big heat sinks at sides of the cpu), what happens then to the water cooling systems like Corsair H70 which has no fan at all?
Then those heat sinks are on their own. The chasis fans are the only blessing to them.
Personally I suppose the system should work out of the box (while no OC) perfectly.

Is this correct?

Now back to the heat sinks:

at the cpu sides (left side and up side) there are two big blue color heat sinks.

Are these two heat sinks removable?
I checked the big left side heat sink. It seemed secure as far as I could check. I mean it did not go down anymore while I pushed it.
Besides, this heat sink gets very hot (while I touched the base -lower side - of it with my finger)
The other heat sink -the up side- is smaller.It is not as much secured as the big one and when i push it from the upper side, it bends a little.
This heat sink gets hot when the system is up, but not as much as the bigger (left) heat sink.

The mainboard chipset (does not have fan/cooler) gets hot as well. maybe as much as the bigger cpu heat sink.

Is this ok?

 

[e-drood]

i began water cooling in 2001. if cpu is water cooled, fan directed airflow onto vrm AND chipset (north/south bridge or ns chip) is definitely required, as the "passive" heatsinks on mb will rapidly overheat w/o air currents sometimes created by case intake + exhaust fans or sometimes additional special mb fan over cpu water block area (vrm's & northbridge chip)

more later

 

[e-drood]

re: mb heatsinks

we eliminate possibilities --- your power supply is v good - have you plugged in all power connectors on motherboard? there should be 2-main connectors + 1-extra near pci-e slot connectors (yellow/2-black/red wires)

next your computer case is designed to properly cool when closed up --- if you have side panel removed, there will be no air flow thru case - install side panel(s) & make certain case fan(s) are operating

also check that your power supply fan(s) are moving air thru power supply

now if motherboard bios is set "default" values & only normal idle of cpu, the heatsinks on vrm's & ns bridge should only be moderately warm, not hot to touch

also your graphics card should exhaust warm air out back of case

i think you may need a better cpu heatsink/fan assembly

re: case mounted switch, connected to mb, not working --- pls disconnect at motherboard to see if switch has internal short (when disconnected, does vrm heatsink still become hot?

more later

 

[Mem]

pristine any luck?...btw try setting BCLK freq: to 100.0 rather then 100.3 if possible.


Also read through the z68 thread here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1609704 ,there is an Asus rep that has some solutions there,he should be able to help.

 

[pristine]

re: mb heatsinks

we eliminate possibilities --- your power supply is v good - have you plugged in all power connectors on motherboard? there should be 2-main connectors + 1-extra near pci-e slot connectors (yellow/2-black/red wires)

next your computer case is designed to properly cool when closed up --- if you have side panel removed, there will be no air flow thru case - install side panel(s) & make certain case fan(s) are operating

also check that your power supply fan(s) are moving air thru power supply

now if motherboard bios is set "default" values & only normal idle of cpu, the heatsinks on vrm's & ns bridge should only be moderately warm, not hot to touch

also your graphics card should exhaust warm air out back of case

i think you may need a better cpu heatsink/fan assembly

re: case mounted switch, connected to mb, not working --- pls disconnect at motherboard to see if switch has internal short (when disconnected, does vrm heatsink still become hot?

more later

Hi e-drood, every one,

I am sorry for the late reply.
I searched the web a lot for almost everything I thought would be helpful and they actually added to my confusion more. These test, considering the fact that the pc is for office and free just in the evenings, took a lot of time.

I reached to web posts from short-circuit problem to problems related to HAF932 front panel problems and so on.

All of this forced me to took the mobo out of the case and do a test.

Even then I had reboot problems.
Out of the case where there is no assisted air flow except the cpu cooler, i noticed that vrm and chipset heatsinks get rather hot while in bios.
is this natural?

Now, answering your questions: (the case is fully set up)

I checked the mobo, there are two power connectors. One almost on top of the cpu, the other on the right edge
of the board. They are fully connected.

The case is being very well ventilated with 3x24mm fans on the front, top and side panels and one smaller fan
on the back side. As far as I see they remove quite a lot of air. PSU fan is working as well. The side panel
has alway been closed but one time.

There is no OC and just the DRAMS are set to XMP 1.5 V.
I noticed that in windows idle mode the vrm and cheapsets are warm but not as much I what I experienced while the system was taken out of the case with no assisted air flow (except the cpu cooler). Then, the heatsinks were actually rather hot (in bios mode).

I do not think vga heat be a problem because I tested even without vga and with igpu.

As for the RESET button problem, I checked the RESET cable with ohm-meter. everytime that i push the chasis
reset, the ohm-meter moves.

I did not notice any temp difference wth reset cable plugged or unplugged from the mobo.

With many thanks.

*Actually I replied to this post 3 times! everytime when I posted the reply, the forum software showed a message and then nothing. All what I had typed had gone!

 

[pristine]

pristine any luck?...btw try setting BCLK freq: to 100.0 rather then 100.3 if possible.


Also read through the z68 thread here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1609704 ,there is an Asus rep that has some solutions there,he should be able to help.

Hi,

Actually I checked it in windows "asus turbo v" utility rright now. It already says:
BCLK freq. 100.0 MHZ
CPU Voltage: 1.65V
DRAM voltage 1.5V
The CPU ratio is 38

*I restarted win7 and BCLK is 100.0MHZ in bios as well.

* Note: almost a week ago I reset the mobo with CLRTC jumper because of my problem, If this helps!

Thank you for the link as well. I will try.

 

[e-drood]

pristine, my apologizes for this delay, it's about 8:30pm tuesday here & i'll write again at midnight

 

[pristine]

pristine, my apologizes for this delay, it's about 8:30pm tuesday here & i'll write again at midnight

Nah!
I really have to thank every one ,especially you, who spend your time to help other people that they even do not know!

I have to apologize for my 4 days delay, not you.

Regards.

 

[e-drood]

please test g.skill modules separately using only mem slot B2, one module at a time & see whether your pc remains stable - will run slow, but ok. do not use A2 for test.

if your pc is stable w/ one g.skill, but unstable with other g.skill, rma both g.skill.

if your pc is unstable w/both g.skills, first reload ALL drivers & update bios, if still random rebooting, rma asus m.b. --- you will have to update ALL intel drivers & may have to clear cmos bios first...

as related suggestion, separate power supply output cables so you do not concentrate all device connections onto i-2 power cable (especially sata power) - also check hd4690 auxiliary power connectors & supply this power using separate power supply output power cable (no sata's on this cable)

i hope things work out...

 

[pristine]

please test g.skill modules separately using only mem slot B2, one module at a time & see whether your pc remains stable - will run slow, but ok. do not use A2 for test.

if your pc is stable w/ one g.skill, but unstable with other g.skill, rma both g.skill.

if your pc is unstable w/both g.skills, first reload ALL drivers & update bios, if still random rebooting, rma asus m.b. --- you will have to update ALL intel drivers & may have to clear cmos bios first...

as related suggestion, separate power supply output cables so you do not concentrate all device connections onto i-2 power cable (especially sata power) - also check hd4690 auxiliary power connectors & supply this power using separate power supply output power cable (no sata's on this cable)

i hope things work out...

Hi

The bios was already updated to 0651. So I did not re-load that .ROM file again.
I suppose by your word 'reload all drivers' you meant in Windows. Is it right? (How can i update the Intel drivers?)
Or, did you mean in bios? Is it anything other than bios .ROM file.

IN BIOS MODE:
I actually disconnected all the SATA devices and even took out the vga card, then tested with each dram module. no luck!

*Note: my hd4690 does not have any power cable!

I did not test in windows at all. since i think my primary test environment should be bios.

It might be interesting that sometimes when the computer does not reboot (I am talking about the bios mode) I turn the system off, wait 5-10 minutes for it to cool down and power cable unplugged. then I turn the system on. This time it will certainly reboot.

I mean, if it was a overheat problem, why doesn't it reboot for a long time running Prime95 Torture Test, but the other time it will reboot as soon as it enters windows in the early morning?

I will test another time tomorrow. I am going to put a strong fan in front of the mobo to cool VRM and Chipset areas. However, I think these board must be designed to operate in normal room tems without any problem.
Thanks.

 

[pectin]

Hi,


Please flash to BIOS 0651, use one DIMM if need be. Let me know if that helps.

-Raja

what is BIOS 0651?? I used f5 BIOS from Gigabyte...

 

[e-drood]

pristine, the memory controller is part of the cpu and connects with your g.skill ram memory modules through the cpu socket (s1155) contacts...

i think, as you are continuing to experience rebooting issues, you should consider removing cpu heatsink/fan, carefully releasing cpu socket clamping lever and lifting out cpu from motherboard. please use magnifying glass to examine the small wire contacts of the mobo cpu socket assembly - this will take about 20 minutes (using torch/flashlight) - NO contact should touch another contact - if any contact appear bent or pushed to one side, pls rma motherboard.

also, I would clean heat spreader of cpu and reapply tim (whichever brand you are using) and remount cpu heatsink fan to cpu/motherboard.

i have assumed that when you assembled motherboard to case, correct stand-offs where used and m.b. mounting screws/nuts/knurled screws were not overtighened possible resulting in random dc electrical short?!?

i have also assumed that the placement of cpu into m.b. cpu socket/frame was correct/first attempt and all cpu socket pins are in v. good condition w/o any damage...

regarding the o.s. - have you downloaded all patches / service packs ? also if you loaded 32bit os - than all apps 32bit or if you loaded 64bit - than all apps 64bit AND NO software conflicts... hopefully yes...

 

[e-drood]

forum thread response time-out is one of life's small dividends...