Rampage 4 black extreme constant lockups

[Pixels]

Hi crew, long time since I've posted here. As per the title, the mobo in question is the R4 extreme black edition, with Intel CPU
In the main, it has been a terrific mobo with lots of horsepower, Its main duty is to be a HTPC driving my 70" 1080p sxrd display [with fully rebuilt optical block done by yours truly] and secondary functions as a flight simulator machine and DVD rendering via Vegas DVD Architect. It's a truly wonderful experience having your desktop on a behemoth 70" panel, flying on it is a lot of fun as well! 🙂

I have one issue though, at random times, the computer will lock up and the only way to get it back is to either turn the power off, or press and hold the computers power button to make it force quit. The lock up is such that even the computers reset button does nothing.
This lockup is independent of the OS installed, did it on win7 x64, now on win8.1 x64 - no change and is independent of any application that might be running.
I've had it lock up while it's just displaying the desktop and even right after POST.
The installed bios is 0701. [Have 0801 beta on file] But even though I've installed every bios that was ever released, none of them has ever made any difference.
Power supply is a top notch Seasonic gold rated of some kilowatts capacity [can't remember right now]
Both OSes were kept fully updated, as were the mobo drivers.
Hard drive is a Samsung SSD 850 Pro of 256 gigabytes capacity - heaps of free space
Memory is 32g of some highly regarded brand [Can't remember atm]
All bios settings are default - no overclocking
Video card is Nvidia Geforce GTX 980.
I can post up more specs if needed and/or screenshots, but I'll leave it at this for now.
If anyone has any suggestions they would be warmly welcomed. 🙂
Cheers,
Rob

[vennacher]

An blue screens or just system freezes? (blue screens may offer some clues as to the cause). Absent more detail one can only just guess. When I've had freezes on boot up generally my CPU has been undervolted. Suggest booting into bios and double check that CPU voltage is set to Manual and Auto. Also check that your RAM voltage is correct (likely 1.5v or 1.65v - kit dependent). And that the reported voltage for your RAM = the set value. If not then make the necessary small adjustment. For instance I need to set 1.510v to actually achieve 1.5v actual. Are you using XMP settings for your RAM? If yes then check to see if you need a specific Vccsa voltage. For my kit under XMP I need 1.1v. Make that adjustment if needed. Finally check your c-states are set to Auto.

Some drivers can also create issues, I have had trouble with 2 in particular. The RST driver and the Asmedia USB3 driver. If running windows 10 then use the default drivers that come with the OS. If stiil on windows 7 try a v13.xx version of the RST driver and use the last Asmedia driver posted on the ASUS support site for the R4BE or RIVE. Version 30 something or rather.

Hope something here helps.

[Pixels]

Hi vennacher,
Thanks for the help. much appreciated. 🙂
I have some more time now to get more details, but to answer a couple of questions you asked.
No blue screens, just freeze of the pc which is currently running win8.1 x64.
The freeze point is random, anywhere from splash screen [just after POST] though rarely at that point, more likely whilst sitting at idle on the desktop.
I think you right though in that it is something to do with a driver, I have had on a few occasions show me a message [just after POST after a force quit and restart]that says something about watchdog timer. No xmp is set in the bios.
So, I'll get more details and recheck my bios settings as per your suggestions and post back.
Cheers,
Rob