GA-FXA990-UD5 Rev 1.1 Freezing

[Vezina]

It may be the CPU or the mobo.
You will find out soon.

[Yerfdog]

When I swapped out the CPU, I was a little worried. I unclipped the HSF and gave it a twist left and right to break the thermal paste loose, and a little tug (no more than ordinary). It came out, CPU and all.

I thought all was lost, as that had never happened to me before, but did a little research, and it was more common than I expected. I inspected all pins, and everything appears good.

I installed my old Phenom II, and it has worked without issue now for about 24 hours, but as I said, with the original setup, it went as long as a week without issue on occasion. Just a few days ago it went two days without issue.

This is by far the worst troubleshooting situation I have had (aside from a bootmgr is missing issue I ran into in between (Win 7 disc was not creating the hidden boot partition correctly (or consistently).

I will continue to share information as it happens, if that is ok. Hopefully someone can learn from it...

[Yerfdog]

It may be the CPU or the mobo.
You will find out soon.

I'm on day three with no freeze-ups. It is not the longest it has lasted, but the longest in some time (with the old CPU). I have a pretty strong feeling the issue is related to the CPU. As I learned I had to change settings in the BIOS for the memory, should I have made any changes for the CPU?

[Yerfdog]

The wait was over. I removed my Phenom II 955 Black and reinstalled the FX-8350. Cleared CMOS, optimized defaults, set the memory and booted up. It ran smoothly . . . for about two hours, then it froze up again. The Phenom never missed a beat all week long. Guess I'm off to RMA land.... Wish me luck.

[Yerfdog]

CPU was RMA'd. I dropped it off at FedEx the day before yesterday. They rec'd it this morning, tested it, and approved replacement. I should have a replacement in 1-5 business days!   

It almost seems too easy. We'll see what happens. Systems's been running fine on the Phenom. Guess I can put the SSD back in circulation now.

[MisterEd]

The only way you will know for sure is when you get your replacement CPU and put it in your system.

I had a GA-FXA990-UD3 Rev 1.0 with a AMD Phenom II 955 Black. I was having problems with it but nobody on the forums thought it was the CPU. As a temporary measure I replaced the CPU with a AMD Phenom II 960T from another computer. The computer ran fine then. There was even no problem when I upped the CPU speed from 3.0 to 3.2 GHz. After I did that I noted the RAM was running at its rated 1600MHz instead of the default 1333MHz.

I  did have problems when I finally was able to put in the permanent replacement CPU. It was an AMD FX-8350. I was getting BSODs. I did apply the required patches for Windows 7. For some reason I also started getting crashes related to my TV tuner and Windows Media Center. I finally got that sorted out but still was getting occasional crashes and BSODs.

I was planning to get more RAM (2x2GB to 2x4GB) and reinstall Windows replacing Windows 7 Ultra 32-bit with Windows 7 Ultra 64-bit (note Windows 7 Ultra comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit discs) at a later date. I had no choice now. After I reinstalled Windows 7 my problems went away.

[Yerfdog]

Received the replacement CPU NIB with HSF. It's back in and online. Now we wait.....

[Yerfdog]

Well, folks. the CPU has passed the threshold. I have everything back to normal now with the SSD out front with the OS installed on it. Everything is working as intended, and I thank you for your support.

I am a bit curious as to why there we no additional questions from AMD regarding troubleshooting / how I came to the CPU conclusion, but those questions may well go unanswered.

I do have some questions about good cooling systems for this CPU / MOBO, but I imagine I can find good recommendations in other threads. If you want to recommend something though, I would be glad to hear about it. I do game from time to time, but not regularly by any stretch of the imagination.

The case I have is the Antec Three Hundred. I am not opposed to a change.

Thanks!