4930k P9X79PRO woes

[jrlambs]

I just got in the last of the parts I need for my new build, and it has been going anything but smooth. I have some seriously erratic behavior going on and need some advice on what part/parts might be to blame.

Intel i7 4930K CPU
P9X79PRO Mainboard
16GB Gskill 1866 4x4GB
Cheap GT610-2GD3-CSM video card
XFX PRO750W Core Edition Power Supply
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Fan

I assembled everything and when I first turned on then PC I didn't get a post... the LED's red "00" and the CPU LED was on... so I was aware that I probably needed to flash the BIOS. I downloaded the latest BIOS, and followed the USB flash procedures, everything seemed to go as expected. When I turned on the computer next the fans spun for a second and the computer shut off.. subsequent presses of the Power button did nothing, no fans spinning, no attempt to boot... I tried a few things but what eventually worked was unplugging everything and popping out the cmos battery and putting it back in.. then hooked everything back up... that got the computer to spin up. I was presented with a message that said it was updating the bios which counted to 100% and then the computer shut off, tried to turn back on then shut off again... once again, pressing the power button did nothing. I did the cmos battery trick again and the computer posted.. finally. I went into bios only to select "Normal" in EZ Mode (I have no desire to overclock CPU or RAM) and to check the CPU temp (hanging around 32c) then proceeded to go to the windows installation.. that end fairly normal except it was taking for ever to load.. so I went back to the BIOS and switched the SATA controllers to IDE mode instead of AHCI mode, after that the install went fast!

Windows loaded, things were working fairly well.. I went to run windows update, it downloaded 64 updates, said one failed and promted to reboot, I said ok and walked away.. when I came back the computer was running with no picture on the screen... I went through a bunch of various windows issues then, restoring to a backup point... and a few other things and eventually got back into windows.. told it to install updates again and the whole computer hung. That was the last time I've been in windows, I haven't even tried.. the BIOS behavior has been erratic enough for me to know it's not going to work. Here's what i've seen since then.

Error messages on bootup saying there's an invalid CPU voltage.. when going into bios it reports a 2.046 CPU voltage.. WAY to high for that CPU, occasionally the temp on the CPU reports around 32 c... other times it reports -1 c. (I've not touched ANY of the advanced overclock settings... I did at one point go in and set the memory to 1866.. whcih is what the memory is rated for instead of 1600 that the Mainboard was reporting... but it didn't help so I changed it back) At one point I could watch the CPU voltage jump from 1.something to 2.046 and back again

Error messages on bootup stating "Power Supply surges detected during the previous power on. ASUS Anti-Surge was triggered to protect system from unstable power supply unit" This doesn't happen ALL of the time, I've only seen it once or twice.

I've tried re-flashing the BIOS again... having all the same trouble I had the first time (CMOS battery removal and all).

Sometimes the computer will post, sometimes it won't... very weird.


So at this point I'm thinking maybe power supply.. if it's getting surges it could be supplying to much power to the CPU.

As a side note I've felt the CPU fan/heatsink and even reached down and felt around the area of the CPU. it has NEVER felt hot.
I've removed 3/4 of the ram and am trying with only one ram chip that I've swapped out with other ships.. so I'm pretty certain it's not RAM.


Any thoughts/advice?

Thanks!

[Chino]

Welcome to the ROG forums, jrlambs.

Are you flashing with the latest BIOS? And which method did you use to reflash it?

[jrlambs]

Yes, the latest BIOS, 4302. I'm using the USB flash method. Put the BIOS on the USB drive, plug it into the the USB BIOS port and hold the Bios Flash button on the back of the PC for 3 seconds... it flashes for awhile getting faster and then stops.

The BIOS correctly recognizes the CPU at the top of the EZ Setup screen.

[Chino]

Ok. Try this for me.

1. Load the optimized defaults in the BIOS.
2. Clear your CMOS.
3. Reflash your BIOS again using the USB BIOS Flashback method.
4. Load the optimized defaults in the BIOS again.

[jrlambs]

OK, thanks for the welcome and thanks so much for your help btw..

I unplugged the computer last night before bed and this morning it's suddenly acting pretty normal.... No errors on bootup, CPU voltage reading at 1.1v.

Alas, as it is sure not to last I followed your steps... all went well.

After following your steps i watched BIOS for about 10 minutes.

1) CPU Temp started at about 28c and had risen to about 35-36c by the time I turned off the computer.
2) CPU voltage seemed to jump around a bit with the lowest I saw being 1.096v and the highest being 1.102v.
3) When I went to the "Monitor" portion of the BIOS and looked at the other voltages listed they all seemed to be jumping around a but but all seemed to stay at values between the specified voltage and values < .1 higher than that voltage... so 3.5v showed 3.51 - 3.58v or so... similar with the 12v and others..

Should the voltages jump around like that? shouldn't they be stable?

36c seems a bit high for a cpu just running the BIOS, it seems like it might have kept rising if I kept watching it..


That's all for now... unfortunately the fact that it's acting fairly normal now is more discouraging than if it were acting up... I could at least tell if I had solved the problem if it had been acting up when I started the process 😕

Thanks again

-Jeff

[Chino]

Sometimes during the BIOS flash something gets messed up in the code. It's fairly common. Reflashing and clearing the CMOS usually solves the problem.

The voltages depend on the quality of your PSU. Higher quality PSUs have less deviation while others are a little higher than normal. If you had gotten the Anti Surge warnings, it could mean that the voltages are deviating far beyond the acceptable limit. But that looks like a random occuring in your case. Keep an eye on that.

The temperature looks quite normal for a 6 core, 12 thread CPU. The temperature you get depends a lot on your ambient temperature.

[jrlambs]

Hmm well that didn't take long. I turned the computer off (but left it plugged in) when I wrote the last post and just now went downstairs to turn it back on and let it boot into windows. I pushed the power button and the fans spun up, stopped spinning briefly and then started spinning again, but I never got a post. It seemed to settle with the LED's reading '00' on the mainboard and none of the CPU/Memory etc LED's being on.

I held the power button to shut it off and turned it on again, this time the fans spun up, turned off and didn't attempt to turn back on. Subsequent attempts to press the power button result in no response from the PC, it doesn't even try to turn on. I suspect I'll have to pop out the cmos battery in order to get it to post again.

[Myk_SilentShado]

Power supply surges being detected has me very worried. Do you have all of the connectors plugged into the board. including the 8pin connector? some boards use 2 separate 4pin plugs. Can you test with another power supply?

[jrlambs]

I have all of the connectors plugged in. I'm not 100% certain on the 8 pin connector. mu PSU has an unmarked cable with 2 side-by-side 4-pin connectors (Meant to go together if necessary) that I have plugged into the 8 pin connector... the only reason I'm uncertain is because
A) the cable is unmarked... but then again so is the LARGE 24-pin PSU connector for the mainboard.
B) the PSU also has 2 6+2 pin connectors labeld "PCI-E" and 1 unmarked 6 min connector.

like I said I'm not 100% certain but Im probably 99% certain it's correct. I'm going to run out to best buy or somewhere today and pick up another power supply for testing purposes.... it seems the most likely source of the issue at the moment. I'll report back when I know something.

[jrlambs]

OK, now I'm 100% sure. looked at the manual for the PSU and it lists that one as the CPU 8/4 pin connector.