Maximus X Hero WiFi-AC Blue Screens on Wake

[Wonko1]

I received a new PC last week with the Asus Maximus X Hero WiFi -AC motherboard. It seems to be working OK provided I only shut down and start up from a shut down state. If I sleep or hibernate it, I get anywhere from 1 to 3 Blue Screens before it reaches Windows 10 when I wake it. The reasons for the Blue Screens have included MEMORY MANAGEMENT, ATTEMPTED WRITE TO READ ONLY MEMORY, PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGED AREA, KERNEL SECURITY CHECK FAILURE, IRQL_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL, and KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED. MEMORY MANAGEMENT is the most common, but the reason given seems to change almost randomly each time I wake it up. Having XMP enabled or not both yield Blue Screens on wake.

*I used the Samsung Data Migration utility to transfer the OS to my Samsung 960 because it was installed on a slow, freebie M.2 SATA drive instead. I have subsequently updated all drivers and Windows 10 to the Fall Creators Update. The Fall Creators Update wiped out some of my motherboard-related drivers, so I reinstalled those from the motherboard CD. I have run memtest for 8 passes three different times with XMP both enabled and off in BIOS with 0 errors each time. I have tried the most recent NVidia drivers and drivers from August with no change. I have not updated my BIOS to the latest version.

*The system handles Furmark for 1.5 hours and multiple runs of Superposition just fine with very reasonable temperatures of all components. I have not had any Blue Screens while using Windows 10, just while waking up from sleep or hibernate. The longer the PC is sleeping or hibernating, the more likely it will wake with a Blue Screen. If I only leave it asleep or hibernating for a few minutes, it will wake up without a Blue Screen most of the time.

*I am running out of ideas of things to check. I would really appreciate any other suggestions, especially ones to try to rule out faulty hardware. I really do not want to RMA the whole system with a glass case and such vague problems that seem like they could be caused by almost any driver, Windows 10, or a variety of hardware problems. If a clean install of Windows 10 onto the Samsung 960 to begin with seems worthwhile, please let me know. I do not have another system that uses DDR4 RAM, so I do not know what else I can do to test it. Thank you very much for any assistance you can provide.

*My build is: Crystal Series Xtreme (NO MONITOR) *BASE_PRICE: [+2259] BLKFRISALE1: CyberpowerPC Gaming Mouse Pad [+0] BLUETOOTH: None CABLE: None CARE1: Cooler Master Mastergel Maker CPU-Thermal Compound Optimized for Thermal Dissipation [+10] CAS: Corsair Crystal Series 570X RGB ATX Mid-Tower Gaming Case w/ front/Top & Both Side tempered glass (3x RGB Fan Included) CASUPGRADE: CORSAIR Lighting Node PRO individually addressable RGB lighting with software control Kit CC: None CPU: Intel® Core™ Processor i7-8700K 3.70GHZ 12MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1151 (Coffee Lake) CS_FAN: None ENGRAVING: None FAN: Corsair Hydro Series H110i 280mm Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ Copper Cold - Extreme Performance [+64] (2 x Standard 140MM Fans) FLASHMEDIA: None FREEBIE_CU: Free CyberPowerPC Mystery Loot Chest featuring Aporia: Beyond the Valley and More FREEBIE_HD1: Free 250GB WD Blue M.2 SSD with All Mechanical Hard Drive Purchase for Desktops [+0] HD_M2SSD: 1TB SAMSUNG 960 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD - 3500MB/s Read & 2100MB/s Write [+551] (Single Drive) HD_PCIE1X_SSD: None HDD: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [-78] (Single Drive) HDD2: None HEADSET: None KEYBOARD: Corsair K55 + HARPOON RGB Gaming Keyboard and Mouse Combo MEMORY: 32GB (16GBx2) DDR4/3000MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Vengeance) MONITOR: None MOPAD: None MOTHERBOARD: ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero (Wi-Fi AC) ATX w/ RGB, USB 3.1, 2 PCIe x16, 4 PCIe x1, 6 SATA3, 2 M.2 SATA/PCIe [Intel Optane Ready] [+197] MOUSE: None NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network OS: Windows 10 Pro (64-bit Edition) [+31] OVERCLOCK: No Overclocking POWERSUPPLY: 750 Watts - Corsair RMi Series RM750i 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Fully Modular Ultra Quiet Power Supply [+74] PRO_WIRING: None RUSH: Standard processing time: ship within 5 to 10 Business Days SECURITY: None SERVICE: 3 Years FREE Service Plan (INCLUDES LABOR AND LIFETIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT) SLI_BRIDGE: None SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO SPEAKERS: None USBX: None VIDEO: MSI GeForce® GTX 1070 ARMOR 8GB GDDR5 (Pascal) [VR Ready] [-285] (Single Card) VIVE_HEADSET: None WARRANTY: PREMIUM WARRANTY: Standard 1 Year Parts WARRANTY + ONE (1) YEAR SHIPPING [+19] WNC: None WTV: None

[Wonko1]

I have spent a couple of days testing my RAM sticks alone and in the two possible combinations with Windows 10 1709 installed. Either stick alone in the slot specified in the motherboard's manual works great. Sleep and hibernate work properly, and I can enable XMP without any problems.

As soon as I add a second stick to the second slot specified in the motherboard manual for a pair, and it does not matter which one is in which slot, the blue screens start on wake from sleep and hibernate. I have also had a couple of random restarts in Windows 10 with no blue screen with both sticks installed.

So, am I correct to conclude there is an issue with the motherboard's second slot somehow causing memory corruption when waking up from sleep and hibernate? I have read a few reports of bent CPU socket pins causing memory problems in this motherboard, although these typically were much more severe (failure to boot or failure to recognize the RAM stick in the affected slot).

I would appreciate any advice anyone could offer. Should I RMA the motherboard to Asus?

[Menthol]

Bent socket pins can cause this issue, also uneven or over tightened heatsink can cause this, I would remove heatsink and CPU, check for damaged pins and carefully reinstall and test again

[Wonko1]

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I will give those a try.*

[MrAgapiGC]

happend to me also. it was my cooler was tigh i has to take it our since there is 1 way to install that on my 7700k IX HERO. check the pins.

[Wonko1]

Thank you very much for the suggestion. I just checked the H110i thumbscrews, and I could not loosen any of them without a screwdriver. Three of the four were extremely tight and hard to loosen even with a screwdriver. I have backed all of them less than a quarter turn, hopefully not enough to disturb the thermal paste. So far I have woken the system once from hibernation with both memory modules installed. I will test it some more and report my results.

[raveya]

Wonko1 wrote:
Thank you very much for the suggestion. I just checked the H110i thumbscrews, and I could not loosen any of them without a screwdriver. Three of the four were extremely tight and hard to loosen even with a screwdriver. I have backed all of them less than a quarter turn, hopefully not enough to disturb the thermal paste. So far I have woken the system once from hibernation with both memory modules installed. I will test it some more and report my results.

is it fixed?

[Wonko1]

raveya wrote:
is it fixed?

Replacing the motherboard and reinstalling everything did not fix it. I determined Patriot Viper memory (2x16GB) fixed the wake/hibernate issues even though it did not appear on the QVL. It has slightly looser timings than the Corsair memory modules I initially tried that had a model number that matched the new QVL list, but not the correct revision version. With the Patriot memory, I did not enable XMP in the BIOS, but just set the RAM frequency to 3000 MHz with the XMP timings in the BIOS. No problems with blue screens since the memory change.

I did not try any of the BIOS tweaking procedures with the Corsair memory that seems to be necessary for some types of memory with this motherboard that appear in the Maximus X-specific portion of this forum since the Patriot memory has worked without any of that.