Solid Screen Lock Up Issues on New Build

[Brutaka]

Hi there,

I'm new here so I apologize for maybe not posting this topic in the right discussion. This is also not my first PC build. I'm hoping I can get this issue resolved quickly. So here's my problem. After using my PC for a couple of hours, maybe 4-6 hours my monitors will change to a solid color, depending on what was in the background. I just installed my new PC components 3 days ago and from those three days I've been trying to fix errors left and right. Here is some info about my PC and the software I've been using.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AI Suite 3:

CPU Core voltage: 1.312v
+12v: 12.288v
+5v: 5.040v
+3.3v: 3.344v
CPU System Agent Voltage: 1.152v
DRAM Voltage: 1.344v
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROG Ramcache:
Samsung 850 Pro / DRAM Cache Allocation: 2048
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So my voltage's are fine. My CPU temp is staying between 90F - 95F with only this window and the AI Suite 3 open. The CPU isn't OC. I was overclocking it to 4.3 and just recently made it stay at 4.0. I was assuming the OC was causing the issue for the longest time. All of the fans that are on the case are running the lowest speed, not water cooled. The CPU fan is running between 380 rpm - 388 rpm. AI Suite 3 is currently on performance mode.

Here is my PC specs:

Case: NZXT Phantom 820 (4x200mm + 4x140mm fans)
OS: Windows 10 Pro
MoBo: Asus Rog Maximus VIII Hero
Processor: Intel i7 6700k
CPU Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 612 Ver.2
PSU: Corsair RM850w 80+ Gold Certified
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz (PC4-25600)
SSD (OS): Samsung 850 Pro 256 GB
HDD (Games): WD Blue 320 GB (Still waiting for my 1 TB to take its place & use the 320 as a backup drive)
Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti SC 2GB (Handy down till I get my Asus 980 TI Matrix)
Optical Drive: LG Wh16ns40 Internal Blu-ray/DVD

I hope this info is enough to help you all out. If I've missed something please let me know. I'd like to get this issue resolved. For the longest time I've been having surge issues but I believe that was caused due to restarting my PC when the AI suite was "continuing" it's stress test. The monitors were black for minutes during the test and assuming it crashed again. Hopefully that's one less problem.

[brkkab123]

I have the same case & motherboard. Are you using the case's fans hooked up to the case like it came or did you plug them into the motherboard ? Either way try setting them to medium or high and see what happens.
Also were the new parts added after the original Windows install ? If so, a clean install may help.
Is your ram on the mobo's QVL ? http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS-VIII-HERO/HelpDesk_QVL/
Also Nvidia put out new video card drivers yesterday. http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us They're now version 365.10

[Brutaka]

brkkab123 wrote:
I have the same case & motherboard. Are you using the case's fans hooked up to the case like it came or did you plug them into the motherboard ? Either way try setting them to medium or high and see what happens.
Also were the new parts added after the original Windows install ? If so, a clean install may help.
Is your ram on the mobo's QVL ? http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS-VIII-HERO/HelpDesk_QVL/
Also Nvidia put out new video card drivers yesterday. http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us They're now version 365.10

The RAM I have installed is supported by the motherboard and is also listed in the manual.

The fans are connected to the case. The only fan connected to the motherboard is the CPU fan.

I've had problems when I installed the OS the first time, which was 3 days ago.

[Code_Frenzy]

I have the Maximus VIII Hero Alpha board and have also experienced the surge warning whereby the PC immediately shuts-down as if losing power and on restart mentions that a surge was detected.
After resetting the BIOS back to factory defaults my problem appears to have been fixed. I suspect that the problem was caused by my RAM which I had set to 3000MHz as per its rating, but in actual fact his is seen as being an over-clock with Skylake which only supports a default of 2400MHz as I understand.

[Eric_F]

A few thoughts:

Be sure you're running the latest BIOS -- It's version 1601 currently for your board. If you need to update it, remember to clear the CMOS after flashing with the "Clear CMOS" button on the mobo, then when you first go into the BIOS, use the "Load Optimized Defaults" option and then start making settings.

Fans - Try at least medium speed on your case fans if you wnat to leave them connected to the control in the case. I personally prefer to use the mobo controller. If you plag them into the mobo. use the Q-Fan control settings in BIOS to set the baseline performance. Then fine-tune in Fan Xpert. (Using Fan Xpert, I like to set the fan curves to come on a little more aggressively than what the auto-tuning sets, and I disable auto-off for any fans so they always run, but stay quiet most of the time.

Sometimes timing issues cause odd things with Skylake processors and Windows 10; it can be trickier when overclocked, but there are also plenty of reports of issues on stock speed and high-performance systems. A lot of folks have good results with locking the timer source to the HPET output (High Precision Event Timer). Open a command prompt with "Run as Administrator" option and type this: "bcdedit /set useplatformclock true" (Without quotes) To un-do it if you want, open the command prompt the same way and type "bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock" (Without quotes again). Having HPET explicitly enabled as the primary timer source seems to reduce some of the wake/sleep/shutdown problems on a lot of Skylake platforms -- but it isn't the cure-all.

The monitors' color change + lockup behavior could also be related to the video card and drivers. What version of the Nvidia driver are you using? Windows loads an old driver, which may not be optimal. There's been some problems reported with the 364.xx series, so if you updated it in the past few days, you may have 364.72. Lots of people say that staying slightly behind on 362.00 has been the most stable. (Nvidia just released 365.10 yesterday, but I haven't had time to gather info on it yet to tell if it's worth updating.)

The anti-surge protection on the mobo can be oversensitive and cause reboots, especially when overclocking the CPU and/or memory. Try turning it off. (Invest in a high-quality surge protector for your whole system instead.)

I see you're using OC'd memory. First try running the RAM at stock DDR4 speeds (1600 MHZ / BIOS default). Then see if the system is stable. If it is, then try bringing the speed up. Maintaining 3200 MHz takes more than stock voltage to RAM and the System Agent. Try setting the default XMP profile for your memory first. Turn OFF the "ASUS Multicore Enhancement" for the CPU, and turn ON "Maximus Tweak 1" in your memory settings. Increase "DRAM Current Capability" to 120% or 130%. Put Core/Cache voltage in "Adaptive" mode. If you still have stability issues, try carefully increasing DRAM voltage and System Agent voltage. (1.35 is typical DRAM voltage for 3000 MHZ and above.) System agent voltage might have to be raised between 1.25 and 1.3 for memory stability, but you shouldn't need to go above that. High speed memory puts more load on the memory controller -- so you might have to compensate a little bit.

In general, it's best to use stock memory speed (underclock the RAM you have) until you know the CPU configuration is stable, and then OC the CPU first. After that, bring up the DRAM speed with the XMP profile as the basis.

The Maximus boards might be a little intimidating with all the fine-tuning involved, but keep with it. It's worth it! :cool:

[Brutaka]

Eric_F wrote:
A few thoughts:

Be sure you're running the latest BIOS -- It's version 1601 currently for your board. If you need to update it, remember to clear the CMOS after flashing with the "Clear CMOS" button on the mobo, then when you first go into the BIOS, use the "Load Optimized Defaults" option and then start making settings.

Fans - Try at least medium speed on your case fans if you want to leave them connected to the control in the case. I personally prefer to use the mobo controller. If you plug them into the mobo. use the Q-Fan control settings in BIOS to set the baseline performance. Then fine-tune in Fan Xpert. (Using Fan Xpert, I like to set the fan curves to come on a little more aggressively than what the auto-tuning sets, and I disable auto-off for any fans so they always run, but stay quiet most of the time.

Sometimes timing issues cause odd things with Skylake processors and Windows 10; it can be trickier when overclocked, but there are also plenty of reports of issues on stock speed and high-performance systems. A lot of folks have good results with locking the timer source to the HPET output (High Precision Event Timer). Open a command prompt with "Run as Administrator" option and type this: "bcdedit /set useplatformclock true" (Without quotes) To un-do it if you want, open the command prompt the same way and type "bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock" (Without quotes again). Having HPET explicitly enabled as the primary timer source seems to reduce some of the wake/sleep/shutdown problems on a lot of Skylake platforms -- but it isn't the cure-all.

The monitors' color change + lockup behavior could also be related to the video card and drivers. What version of the Nvidia driver are you using? Windows loads an old driver, which may not be optimal. There's been some problems reported with the 364.xx series, so if you updated it in the past few days, you may have 364.72. Lots of people say that staying slightly behind on 362.00 has been the most stable. (Nvidia just released 365.10 yesterday, but I haven't had time to gather info on it yet to tell if it's worth updating.)

The anti-surge protection on the mobo can be oversensitive and cause reboots, especially when overclocking the CPU and/or memory. Try turning it off. (Invest in a high-quality surge protector for your whole system instead.)

I see you're using OC'd memory. First try running the RAM at stock DDR4 speeds (1600 MHZ / BIOS default). Then see if the system is stable. If it is, then try bringing the speed up. Maintaining 3200 MHz takes more than stock voltage to RAM and the System Agent. Try setting the default XMP profile for your memory first. Turn OFF the "ASUS Multicore Enhancement" for the CPU, and turn ON "Maximus Tweak 1" in your memory settings. Increase "DRAM Current Capability" to 120% or 130%. Put Core/Cache voltage in "Adaptive" mode. If you still have stability issues, try carefully increasing DRAM voltage and System Agent voltage. (1.35 is typical DRAM voltage for 3000 MHZ and above.) System agent voltage might have to be raised between 1.25 and 1.3 for memory stability, but you shouldn't need to go above that. High speed memory puts more load on the memory controller -- so you might have to compensate a little bit.

In general, it's best to use stock memory speed (underclock the RAM you have) until you know the CPU configuration is stable, and then OC the CPU first. After that, bring up the DRAM speed with the XMP profile as the basis.

The Maximus boards might be a little intimidating with all the fine-tuning involved, but keep with it. It's worth it! :cool:

The BIOS is the latest version.

I've noticed my loading time to the OS is a lot slower than my previous PC, and I have disabled a lot of servies, apps, disabled the asmedia USB ports, and running an SSD with only 35 gigs or so on it.

I plan on putting back in my NZXT LX fan controller. I am currently waiting to return it for another one due to the cabling being almost stripped. Brand new too.

The current video card driver I'm on now is 364.72 released on 3-28-2016.

You will NOT believe how many times I had to restart my PC from seeing just a black screen. When I restart it I get an error stating my PC was shutdown due to a power surge. Now people will tell me to use another PSU, which I have, but that that means I would have to reroute all of the cabling out to try that one out. I believe it's a 750 watt. But what's weird is that I've never had these power surges when I was using it at my friends house two days ago to install a bunch of games. His house is much older than mine and I was plugged in through a two wall outlet. In my room, I am connected to a power strip with 4 monitors, an asus switch, and my corsair speaker system. Now, I did try connecting it straight to the wall, which the power strip, my detolf lighting, and my asus ac3200 router is connected too. I've attached two pics of my power strip and the wall outlet the my pc is connected too. Also, one of the monitors is not in use, due to the graphics card only having three visual ports.

The ram that I've stated that was 3200 isn't at that speed. That was how it was listed on the amazon website. My DRAM frequency is running at 2128.0 MHz.

As of right now I'm currently running my PC on the "Gamer OC Profile" within the BIOS. So far it hasn't had any problems and my CPU speed is up by 20%, as apposed to 7% - 15% from before.

If you have any more questions or suggestions please let me know.

Quick question that's off topic, why does the tag above the photos say "Miniatura de Adjuntos?" I'm assuming that's Spanish. Why is it not English?

[Chino]

Does the problem occur with your system at stock speed?

[Brutaka]

Chino wrote:
Does the problem occur with your system at stock speed?

It happened to me twice. I'm now using the gamers profile and so far no errors. I'm not entirely certain what is going on. If I have any more issues I'll definitely post them. Though I'm not certain as to why if I were to use AI Suite 3 to automatically manage my PC speed, it'll cripple it and give me errors. As for the solid screen color, I have yet to see that. Hopefully it's gone but if not, maybe it has something to do with the graphics card. I wonder if the latest driver will permanently fix that.

[Eric_F]

Latest 365.10 Nvidia driver is getting a lot of positive feedback now. I upgraded and have had no problems with it. The "Gamer" OC profile is a good start toward a stable OC for everyday use. It will push the settings in the direction of what I already described (Which are ones I learned from reading these forums :)) plus others geared toward good support for overclocking the CPU. Once you're sure the system is stable, you may want to try the XMP setting that corresponds to your memory and continue tweaking from there.

Personally, I get the best results by making all settings in the BIOS, rather than using AISuite. I mostly use AISuite for the advanced fan control in FanXpert -- it lets me adjust the fan response curve as well as add a delay in the response particularly for stepping down (It holds higher speed for longer to ensure good cooling). It also offers variable speed for my compatible water pump, which the BIOS QFan control doesn't seem to offer.

[Brutaka]

Eric_F wrote:
Latest 365.10 Nvidia driver is getting a lot of positive feedback now. I upgraded and have had no problems with it. The "Gamer" OC profile is a good start toward a stable OC for everyday use. It will push the settings in the direction of what I already described (Which are ones I learned from reading these forums :)) plus others geared toward good support for overclocking the CPU. Once you're sure the system is stable, you may want to try the XMP setting that corresponds to your memory and continue tweaking from there.

Personally, I get the best results by making all settings in the BIOS, rather than using AISuite. I mostly use AISuite for the advanced fan control in FanXpert -- it lets me adjust the fan response curve as well as add a delay in the response particularly for stepping down (It holds higher speed for longer to ensure good cooling). It also offers variable speed for my compatible water pump, which the BIOS QFan control doesn't seem to offer.

I'm not certain where Qfan control is located in the BIOS.

As for the nvidia driver, I installed it and haven't seen any solid screen colors yet. I have received two solid colors before the update, which was about 4 hours ago.

I just got rid of AI suite III and gonna stick to using the BIOS.

I'm still uncertain how to use the "curve" feature for fans. To be honest I'm not sure where to begin so I would have to do some reading about that.

I am still getting a black screen when I modify the BIOS. By modify I mean changing the settings to auto on a majority of things, like RAM frequency, CPU OC, and so on. The PC then restarts after modifying the BIOS and every screen turns black. I let it sit for a couple of minutes and nothing. I then have to hard power off the pc, turn it on and receive an error stating there was a power surge and such.

I'm now running xmp mode at ddr4-3200. I haven't messed or touch the settings and so far it's booting up fine. No issues. The only problem I see is that it's SOOO much slower than my old PC. There's even less programs running on my new PC than my old one and it takes about 20 seconds to get to the OS. My old PC would take between 7-13 seconds. Not sure why. I'm even running in rapid mode on my ssd.