Weird Startup Overheating with the 970A-DS3P Rev 1.0 and Fx 8320

[Vinomadd]

This is going to be a long post so I will break it into three sections: The Problem, Current Solution I Need Help With, and Specs for all the relevant info anyone may need for my system which will be updated with anything I didn't include on request.


The Problem

I got a new computer in later 2014 which worked flawlessly for about 3ish months. Then I began having an overheating problem with the processor that occurred exclusively during start up. It will overheat to its 90 degree shut off temp usually during the bios, but sometimes I make it into windows for a minute or maybe two before it happens. The trick is, if I make it into windows cool, it never happens. I can leave it on for days and it never once has overheated int he middle of a session, not even a prolonged gaming session. Furthermore, there's no obvious rhyme or reason to it. It happens 3 and 4 times consecutively and then maybe the 5th time it starts up like there was never a problem and the problem may not happen again for months!

After much investigation I thought I found the problem where the case fan on the liquid cooler had been mounted so tightly that the housing was actually pinching the fan blade in place sometimes. I loosened the blade, continuously checked to make sure it was spinning, and reaped a 10' cooler processor for a year! No problems with temperature whatsoever for a year.

Flash forward to 2 weeks ago and out of the blue it shuts off on startup again. Same deal: if I get into windows hot, it's usually at 83ish before my core temperature program is up and displaying data and maybe the computer stays on another minute until it his 90. If it gets into Windows at normal temp, like 30-40 during start up it ALWAYS runs fine and goes down to a 20-30 idle temp and I haven't had a heat spike about 44 in days. I'm afraid to turn it off!


Current Solution I Need Help With

So I contact a tech savy friend of mine who is trying to help me trouble shoot this. She wants me to check to see if my MB bios are up to date. I'm having all kinds of trouble with this as Gigabyte's windows updater is pretty janky and I basically have to rely on it because, as I said, it overheats on startup. I cannot be certain I will get a stable session. I have a Gigabyte 970A-DS3P REV 1. The bios that are loaded are American Megatrends Inc.F2g GA, Date 2/21/2014.

The problem I'm having is that the windows @bios updater says to chose the specific model from the list, and it shows that model number ABOVE the list but what it shows in the list itself is titled something different AND it's the only choice. Here is a screen shot of what it shows me. When I go to manually download the file I'm presented with this: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4591#bios

Note the bios I have aren't even listed, the F1 model is several years earlier AND the slightly more recent model claims to be a beta I think? and it says "Update CPU AGESA code" for which there is no explanation. That may mean something to you but it's Martian to me.

I have no idea if I even have the correct bios loaded at this point, the correct page for my MB's model, or what because at every step of this process Gigabyte's pages and program seem to disagree with each other. It's what came from the seller but I don't know where they got the F2g GA bios or if they'r eeven correct.

Please, can anybody advise? Gigabyte doesn't appear to respond to tickets at this point and I'm desperate.


Specs

Operating System Windows 10 Home 64-bit

CPU AMD FX-8320 20 °C Vishera 32nm Technology NOTE: THis is the 3.5 Ghz 8320, and not the 3.2 Ghz 8320E

RAM 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 803MHz (11-11-11-28)

Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. 970A-DS3P (CPU 1) 27 °C

Graphics E420AR (1920x1080@60Hz) 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 (EVGA) 32 °C

Storage 931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 ATA Device (SATA) 31 °C

Optical Drives HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NSC0 ATA Device

Audio NVIDIA High Definition Audio

EDIT: A screen shot of what Speccy says about my motherboard under its specific heading: http://imgur.com/0CzMQVU

[rinkol]

This is going to be a long post so I will break it into three sections: The Problem, Current Solution I Need Help With, and Specs for all the relevant info anyone may need for my system which will be updated with anything I didn't include on request.


The Problem

I got a new computer in later 2014 which worked flawlessly for about 3ish months. Then I began having an overheating problem with the processor that occurred exclusively during start up. It will overheat to its 90 degree shut off temp usually during the bios, but sometimes I make it into windows for a minute or maybe two before it happens. The trick is, if I make it into windows cool, it never happens. I can leave it on for days and it never once has overheated int he middle of a session, not even a prolonged gaming session. Furthermore, there's no obvious rhyme or reason to it. It happens 3 and 4 times consecutively and then maybe the 5th time it starts up like there was never a problem and the problem may not happen again for months!

Please, can anybody advise? Gigabyte doesn't appear to respond to tickets at this point and I'm desperate.

The F2g bios would have preceded the most recent F2j bios. Presumably Gigabyte considers that there is no reason to offer the F2g bios when a newer version is available. They are continuing to offer the F1 bios, but I suspect that this is basically available for testing use as a sanity check.

 If the CPU is actually getting to 90 degree temperatures, there are several possible scenarios:
1. The cooler is not in proper contact with the CPU.
2. The liquid coolant is not circulating.
3. The cooling fan(s) blowing air through the the liquid cooler radiator assembly are running too slowly.
4. The CPU is being overvolted.
5. The CPU is failing.

If 1 or 2 is occurring, then you should notice that the heat sink remains much cooler than the CPU (you can probably judge this by touch). In the event of 3, 4, or 5, I would expect that the heat sink gets too hot to touch. There are probably settings in the bios for the cooling fan speed that can be adjusted to run the fan(s) on the cooler faster. There have been some Gigabyte bios versions that do not set the fan speed high enough under certain conditions (such as resume from standby). In your case it may be that the power management features in Windows are sufficiently effective to avoid overheating when the operating system is successfully loaded.  The last 2 scenarios are unlikely in my opinion; you can check the CPU voltage in the bios.

You can flash the bios to the F2j version, but I wouldn't try this until sufficient progress had been made to ensure stable operation while in the bios.

Robert

[Vinomadd]

Well the thing is I have a hard time accepting this as a straight cooling problem. I went and entire year between events and didn't have so much as above average temperatures. Is it likely to b paste or a pump failure if it runs perfectly that long, every day, except for randomly on start up? That sounds fishy is all I'm saying, not that I know much about it.

As for the bios, they don't even appear to offer the F2g bios on their site for my model board and the F1 bios, as I said, are several years earlier than what's being reported to me by speccy. Speccy claims my bios were made in 2/21/2014, where as the F1 is 08. So I'm back to square one with conflicting info here.