Z68XP-UD3P hanging/crashing

[sjmorrison]

Hello all.

I've just upgraded my system.  I have a Z68XP-UD3P, Inet i5 2500K, 16Gb Corsair Vengeance memory.  I also started using the Intel RST caching feature, using a 1Tb Seagate and an OCZ Agility 3 SSD.
The PC built fine to begn with, Windows 7 Ulitmate installed without a hitch.  I usually leave my PC switched on overnight, and next day it had bluescreened  to a blue screen, general stop error.
I had XMP switched on at first, a misunderstanding of how that technology worked, and thats now turned off.  No overclocking in place at the moment at all, everything in BIOS is set to default.

I'm now getting random hangs and re-boots.  On several occasions after the reboot or hang, the BIOS tells me that overclocking or voltage changes have caused a problem, but I dont see anything in BIOS which is not default.  The main symptom at the moment is the system just freezes, image on screen, no mouse or keyboard active.  I've removed my older Creative X-fi and several USB devices to troubleshoot, with no luck so far.

I see no errors in event log, other than the usual, 'your system has shutdown unexpectedly'.  I'm now tearing out what hair I have left trying to stabilise this damn machine.

Can anyone help me solve this problem please?  I'm an IT engineer, pretty good at both hardware and software, and so far I have no idea at all about what's causing these problems.
Grateful for any help anyone can give.

Thanks

Scott

[absic]

Hi Scott,

Couple of things that I can think of:
Are you running the latest BIOS? If not then it might be a good idea to update to it using QFlash NOT @BIOS
Is the firmware on the OCZ drives the latest version? Again, worth checking as this could be an issue.
Have you run MemTest to check that the RAM is OK?

[sjmorrison]

absic,

Thanks for your response.  The motherboard BIOS is set at F6, the latest I see on the Gigabyte website.
As for the OCZ drive, I forgot aout trying a BIOS update for that, thanks for the suggestion.  I've updated it now from 2.13 to 2.15.

I had ran memtes for a few hours with no errors reported, and also had run Prime95 again for a few hours.

I also saw in another post that some of the power saving configurations on the motherboard may cause problems.  I've disable the C1E enhanced stop, and the C6/7 power states for the moment.

Crossing fingers that some of that works.

Thanks again for helping.

Scott

[teknology9]

Hi Scott,

Just out of interest what is the wattage of your PSU?


Teknology9

[sjmorrison]

Teknology9

PSU is an XFX BLack edition 850W.  It's a couple of years old max.

Cheers

Scott.

[teknology9]

Hi Scott,

Plenty of watts there then.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/57410/

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/306310-10-hangs-reboots-constantly

Have a trawl through the links above and see if you can find a solution

Teknology9

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

I just went back to your original post and on reading through it again I have a question. Have you set up the timings and voltage for the memory manually or is it still set to auto in the BIOS ? If so that is probably your problem. Also you mention about BSODs but not what the all important STOP codes were ?

[sjmorrison]

Apologies for not answering earlier, I had to work yesterday

First good news is that the machine has now been stable since absic suggested the OCZ firmware, along with the changes I made to the C1E enhanced stop and C3/6 power state options.  Those i read about in anoher forum post.  I've run Heaven benchamark for about 8 or 10 hours now, and the machine has not been powered off since Saturday afternoon.  No stops hangs or anything else has happened

Dark Mantis,  I've lost the paper I wrote the stop error down on, and Event log isnt giving me a lot either.  I'm fairly certain the Stop error was along the lines of 000000001 etc, with event log giving me a very generic your system has stopped message.
I've not set the RAM timings manually, they are still on SPD, showing as set to 1333MHz, 9,9,9,24 timings which is what its rated at.  Is this something I should be looking at?

I'm not sure what has stopped the problems, but so far they seem to have gone.  Appreciate everyones help on this one, its good to finally be able to use the machine

Best Regards

Scott.

[spurst]

I am having this exact problem but with a Z68x-UD3H-B3. OP, what did you change to solve the issue?

[sjmorrison]

spurst,

I did a couple of things at once.  First, in the CPU options turned off CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E), and C3/C6 State Support (I read in another forum post these may cause problems).
I then disabled SSD acceleration, flashed the OCZ agility to the latest firmware (2.15), and re-enabled acceleration.
I had switched off CPU EIST (Speed step), but thats back on again now.

The PC has now been stable since Saturday afternoon, and run 7 or 8 hours of benchmarks, and a couple of hours of games (Civilization V).
I hope this helps, I know how much hassle its caused me so far.

Cheers

Scott

[Dark Mantis]

Dark Mantis,  I've lost the paper I wrote the stop error down on, and Event log isnt giving me a lot either.  I'm fairly certain the Stop error was along the lines of 000000001 etc, with event log giving me a very generic your system has stopped message.
I've not set the RAM timings manually, they are still on SPD, showing as set to 1333MHz, 9,9,9,24 timings which is what its rated at.  Is this something I should be looking at?

If everything is running OK now Scott I would just leave well alone. If you have any problems recurring then we can look into manually setting your timings and voltage in the BIOS.

[sjmorrison]

Quick update to this thread and problem.  I had actually changed another BIOS setting which I had forgotten about.  
In the memory settings in BIOS, there is a setting for performanice, set by default to TURBO.  I changed this to normal at the weekend at the same time as the other BIOS settings.  On Monday evening I changed it back to Turbo, and last night (Tuesday), got my first hang in 3 days.
Setting is now back to normal, and all stable again.  No idea what this setting actually does, the desription is very ambigous, but I believe this to be the setting which has caused me problems.
Anyone know what this actually does?  And spurst, perhaps look at this one for you own problem?

Thanks again for the help.

Scott

[teknology9]

Hi,

It might be worthwhile documenting your BIOS settings if your system is stable......just for future reference.


Teknology9