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Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, Ryzen 5800X, RX6900XT hard lockups

skrybe
Level 9
My current build is mostly new, CPU (Ryzen 7 5800x), RAM (Kingston 64Gb DDR4 3200), Mobo (Asus Crosshair VIII Dark Hero), Video Card (Asrock Phantom Gaming RX6900XT) and NVMe drive (2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus) are all less than 12 months old, and some are less than 6 months. The only "old" parts of the system are the PSU (Corsair AX760i that still seems ok), the case (Corsair 900D supertower) and the SSDs and HDD. I'm running a Noctua NH-D15 Cooler and not overclocking. Though I am running the RAM with with DOCP settings (3200Mhz instead of 2000Mhz).

The PC was running stably with no crashes for several months until the end of last year. Sometime in early January I installed new audio drivers from the Asus site and around the same time I switched my old Samsung 28" 4k monitor for an MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD on Displayport. The new monitor supports 48-144Hz VRR and I've got it set to 120Hz refresh in Windows (10 Pro 64bit). I also have a second monitor (Dell S3221QS) running on HDMI at 60Hz. I should also say that I updated Radeon drivers at some point in January too. Though I'm not sure whether that was before or after the crashes started.

Since then I've had numerous, random hard lockups (only) while gaming (World of Warcraft). The PC completely locks up with repeating audio playing over headphones or the Dell speakers (depending on which I'm routing audio through). When I say complete lock up I mean nothing responds, mouse won't move, can't alt-tab or bring up task manager, have to power off the PC to reboot.

All the temps and voltages appear to be fine, I've had Corsair iCUE running in the second monitor and nothing appears out of the ordinary in that regard. CPU temps around 56-60, ditto video card. PSU temps in the mid 30s and power draw around 300W on a 760W PSU. NVMe drive temps are high 40s or low 50s. The only temperature that seems a bit iffy is the southbridge on the mobo. The heatsink on it feels quite warm. Though I can't say exactly what temperature it is running at.

My initial thought was that something weird was happening with the audio drivers. Something I thought was backed up when I saw they'd been pulled from the Dark Hero support site. So I rolled back to the previous drivers but still got random lockups. Including one that was so bad Windows was corrupted enough I had to format the NVMe and reinstall from scratch.

So now I have a completely clean install of Windows 10 Pro 64bit with latest AMD drivers, the "good" realtek audio drivers and all windows updates done - and I'm still getting the random crashes. I've literally just pulled the PC apart and tried reseating everything on the off chance that something was "loose" but I'm not holding my breath.

One thing I've noticed during a couple of the crashes is that the screen may flicker black and come back a few seconds before the lockup. I checked the event logs and I can't see anything like a "driver stopped responding" error before the crash. Basically the only error showing in the logs is "windows restarted after an unexpected shutdown".

So, any thoughts? Could it be related to running two monitors with vastly different refresh rates?

While it is summer here it's not super hot and the temps I'm monitoring in the PC don't seem that bad either. Just in windows typing this the CPU is sitting at 34.8c and the video card at 39c (though it has yet to crash in Windows). So temp problems seem unlikely.

I can run a Memtest but I'd be surprised if the RAM which was good for six months spontaneously decided to go bad.

Is there anything else I should be installing that I've overlooked? I'm pretty sure Ryzen Master was installed alongside the Radeon drivers.

I can try either stress testing the system with 3dMark or play another game for hours on end. But it's a bit difficult because the crashes appear to be random. The longest I've gone since the start of the year without a crash is probably 4 or 5 days but other times I've had two on the same day a few hours apart.

edit: I have crash dumps turned on but I can't find any. So it looks like they're not working?

Running UEFI not in compatibility mode in case that makes a difference.
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12 REPLIES 12

STARRAIN_ROG
Customer Service Agent
Hi skrybe,
Does it also occurs on bios 3904 with bios all default settings?
If you have formatted SSD and only install World of Warcraft, but the issue still occurs, please try other M.2 slot and try another SSD if you have.
Thank you.

skrybe
Level 9
It happened initially on 3801 and after a couple weeks of crashes I noticed 3904 and put that on, and it crashes under that as well. I thought I might have resolved the issue as it's run since I posted without crashing - only to crash twice tonight in about an hour while gaming.

Why would the M.2 slot make a difference ONLY since January? It has been in the same slot since I put it in halfway thru last year. Samsung Magician shows nothing wrong with the SSD and the SMART information looks fine too. In theory I can switch it to the other slot but in practice that means I need to remove my video card which means I need to remove my CPU... so it's a pain.

Looking at dates component-wise:
MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD 23 December 2021
Asus Crosshair VIII Dark Hero on 24 August 2021 * I actually ran the setup on my Asus Crosshair VII Hero Wifi until then with no crashes
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB on 20 July 2021
RX 6900XT in 4 June 2021
Ryzen 7 5800x 24 May 2021
Kingston 64GB (2x32) HX432C16FB3k2/64 on 27 November 2020 (that's older than I realised)

Everything ran stable (on both motherboards boards) until early January 2022 (I'm not sure the exact date of the first crash). I'm honestly starting to lean towards some problem with the monitor since it's the most recent addition, and considering I didn't really use it much the first week I had it (yay Christmas commitments) it's starting to make me suspicious.

edit: Forgot to ask what do you mean by default settings in the bios. Do you just mean RAM and overclocking type settings? Because I haven't touched OC settings. RAM settings were perfectly stable up until January and I haven't changed them since at literally the DOCP setting the RAM is rated for (I guess I can try it at default but pretty sure it won't help). But I've changed from legacy mode to UEFI only and changing that back is obviously problematic (it's crashed multiple times under both legacy and UEFI only).

STARRAIN_ROG
Customer Service Agent
Hi skrybe,
The cause of crashing is various.
I'm not sure if there is any components unstable and cause the issue. especially when any bios setting is not default.
Therefore, I suggest try bios all default settings, other M.2 slot and other SSD.
Thank you.

This happens to me as well. Dark Hero, 5950x, 3090. Random hard lockups. Started out of the blue, usually once a week, could be editing, could be gaming, could be browsing. This weekend it happened every 5 minutes or less playing Pathfinder. Then running 3dMark. I could run Prime 95 with no issues, Realbench as well.
I disabled DOCP and set to auto and haven't crashed yet. I don't know if my RAM is to blame (it's not on the QVL list - https://www.crucial.com/memory/ddr4/bl2k32g36c16u4b) - so I ordered new RAM that is on the list today.

My update as well - I went almost a month with DOCP set to AUTO with no crashes. I'm trying DOCP at 3200 now (it's PC3600 RAM)

skrybe
Level 9
Just thought I'd post an update in case others are having similar issues. Doesn't appear to be related to DOCP, where my SSD is located, my (mostly standard) bios settings, my drivers (audio or video) my monitor (it's refresh rate or using Freesync) or PSU or any of the dozen other things I tried.

From what I can tell it's to do with the Asus TPM module. I've disabled that in the bios and I no longer have random hard lockups. Roughly one month now crash free. Running LatencyMon showed weird high latency spikes before. Since disabling TPM I haven't seen spikes in LatencyMon anywhere near as high. Not saying the TPM module is definitely the problem, but it certainly looks like it.

Yep, it means no TPM on my PC but for the sake of a stable PC it's more than worth it. And something for the engineers to have a closer look at on future mobos.

edit: And while we're on the subject of engineers maybe have a look at where M2 slots are located. It's awful from a users' perspective having the main slot located under a massive heat generating video card. For two reasons, the first being obviously the heat. The second being just how much of a pain it is having to remove the video card, and in my case the CPU as well just in order to access the M2 slot.

skrybe
Level 9
Just noticed the 4201 beta bios is on the support site: https://rog.asus.com/au/motherboards/rog-crosshair/rog-crosshair-viii-dark-hero-model/helpdesk_bios

Doing some googling the rumour is that it's got agesa fixes that relate to the fTPM stutters and freezes. Would be very curious to see if this is in fact true. Just torn now between having a stable board with no TPM and going through the frustration of random lockups again if I test it and it fails.

skrybe wrote:
Just noticed the 4201 beta bios is on the support site: https://rog.asus.com/au/motherboards/rog-crosshair/rog-crosshair-viii-dark-hero-model/helpdesk_bios

Doing some googling the rumour is that it's got agesa fixes that relate to the fTPM stutters and freezes. Would be very curious to see if this is in fact true. Just torn now between having a stable board with no TPM and going through the frustration of random lockups again if I test it and it fails.


If you're not in a hurry I would just wait a few weeks to let others shake it down. It *is* labeled as a beta version so if you aren't having issues it might be worth waiting for the final release.
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skrybe
Level 9
Well technically I am having issues - I can't run TPM without random lockups and audio stuttering. The current solution is to turn off a feature the board is supposed to have.