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What do you think of this crash?

Juanlo
Level 9
Hi all, I hope you can give me some ideas. I'm using a Rampage IV Formula with an Intel i7 3930k (C2 stepping) and 16 GB of GSkill RAM in quad channel. I have two Radeon 7970s and 3 monitors in Eyefinity. Power supply is a Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W.

My system freezes completely with some games. Battlefield 3 may crash after 20 minutes or after 6 hours (or not crash at all), but in Serious Sam 3, the crash always happens in less than 10 minutes when starting a new game at Cairo level. I have no idea whether it's an AMD Catalyst problem (I have tried several drivers up to 12.6 beta) or a motherboard/CPU problem. No error message, no BSOD. The computer just freezes, image is frozen, keyboard and mouse stop responding and I must reset the computer.

Everything is at default speed, nothing is overclocked. The crash does NOT happen if I disable Eyefinity. And it does NOT happen if I disable Crossfire. But when using both Eyefinity and Crossfire, bam, system freeze. I have done a new, virgin Windows 7 installation with only motherboards drivers, Catalyst, Steam and the game. Yesterday I also tried the new Windows 8 RC with the new AMD Catalyst drivers, but I get exactly the same freeze.

And here's what puzzles me: normally, when I press the reset button, the system reboots instantly. But when this freeze happens, I press the reset button and nothing happens, the computer keeps frozen. Then, after 8-10 seconds, it completely shuts down and then it powers on again automatically after a couple of seconds.

What do you think?
19,345 Views
21 REPLIES 21

Zka17
Level 16
It sounds like a driver problem... It would be helpful to know what the mobo's debug code is when the crashes happens (just to exclude the mobo problem)... Also, you could check the Windows Event Viewer...

The debug code does not change when it crashes. It reads 'AA' all the time. And there are no messages at Windows Event Viewer, there is just an event saying that the last shutdown was unexpected.

As I said before, I find a bit shocking that the system does not reset instantly, why does it wait for 10 seconds, then it shuts down and powers on again, instead of a simple, instant reset? It must mean something.

Zka17 wrote:
It sounds like a driver problem...


I'd reckon this too. First and foremost display/xfire driver.

Outside possibility is SSD driver.

Necrosan
Level 12
Set your RAM speed and voltage manually.
XMP doesn't seem to work correctly for everyone with this board (me included) and I have a feeling this will help your issue out.
MB: ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (Cooled by Corsair H100i w/ Noctua NF-F12 fans)
RAM: 64GB G.SKILL RipjawsZ 1600 (10-10-10-30)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X Hybrid
TV Tuners: 2 * Hauppauge HVR-1800
Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos 2

chrsplmr
Level 18
Agreed .. something in the memory settings.
I have been tormented for weeks by frozen snowy screens ..
tried some 'cheap' ram ... bam .. problem solved (dif.board).c.

No way, I set memory settings manually, even lowered speed to DDR3800, but I'm getting the same crash. I wanted to remove a couple of memory modules, but I need to remove the CPU cooler... doh.

More ideas?


EDIT: post title is the stupid catcha...

8_Pack
Level 12
Can I ask what GSkill RAM is this?? and what slots are you installing the cards in.

For all G.Skill RAM its not just about setting XMP. Most require Rampage Tweak Mode 1 and Kits of 2133mhz+ also need 1.25 VCCSA and VTT to ensure compatibility.

Also alot of XMP's dont set the DRAM voltage correctly. I would set this manually too,.

Sorry for the late reply, been wanting to throw my entire computer out of the window for the last weeks.

@8 Pack

It's installed in all 4 memory slots, I'm using quad channel. I don't think it's a memory problem because when I disable Eyefinity it works perfectly. Anyway, memory is G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3 2133 PC3-17000, model F3-17000CL11Q-16GBZL.

@Arne

I removed EVERY hard drive on my system (including SSDs) and installed a fresh new Windows in an eSATA Western Digital 2 TB disk. Just installed motherboard drivers, Catalyst driver and the game. I'm getting the same freeze, I'm unable to finish the first map of Serious Sam 3. I have also tried Battlefield 3 a couple of times. The first time it crashed in 10 minutes, the other time it crashed after 2 hours.

If one of my video cards were faulty, I guess it should crash with and without Eyefinty, but disabling Eyefinity makes all problems dissapear.

More ideas?

Myk_SilentShado
Level 15
Then the problem must be with EyeFinity. What Monitors are you running and are they compatible with AMD's list?