Asus Maximus Hero 8 / 6700k – Random Freezes/BSOD /RealBench Crashes

[Xeonnemesis]

System: (Current Settings)
Core I7 6700k
Asus Hero 8 Bios 1102 (currently)
16gb Gskill DDR4 F4-3200C16D-16GVK 2133mhz
Asus Strix 980ti OC 359.06
Samsung 850 Pro SSD
Seasonic 860W PSU
Windows 10 Home 64bit

I’m using HWIN64 v5.10-2700 for my temps/voltage readings

Backstory:
Sytem was built 9/29/15. Everything appeared to work as intended using the latest drivers & bios (0802) at the time . After several days of running on auto settings to confirm stability, I started playing with an OC to see what the setup could do. I wa s able to get 4.6ghz @ 1.285v using the XMP profile/manual voltage mode and the core multiplier set to 46. Temps were never a problem, 68-70c under stress testing. The system ran in this configuration for 5 weeks with no issues. Suddenly and for some unknown to me reason, I now had issues.

Realbench 2.41 would crash or fail to run various tests, failing randomly on any one of the four segments. Witcher 3 would sometimes crash in a loop where I could log in for approximately 1 minute and then crash to the desktop. Windows programs would randomly hang but no blue screens. At this point I thought that maybe my OS was corrupted so I reinstalled Windows 7, problems continued during stability testing. I took this oppurtunity to take the free upgrade to Win 10 to see if that makes any different, however the issues I’m having do not appear to be specific to either OS. I was now getting occasional BSOD’s in Win10 along with some random freezing. The more I attempted to tweek things, the more freezing I would experience. At one point the system would hang anytime I opened a browser window regardless of flavor (Chrome/FF/Edge). I ended up reloading the OS and setting all bios settings to their defaults.

Note that while I had removed my OC to troubleshoot this issue, I was still using manual voltage to prevent high spikes in vcore. From day one the mobo appeared to provide too much voltage even on stock defaults for my liking and causing unnecessary heat. My goal with this system has been cool & quiet.

Current Situation:
At this point, the only way I can keep the system stabile is for everything in the BIOS to be set to stock defaults. Any changes I make end up crashing RealBench and in some cases causing a BSOD, most commonly for a “page fault in nonpaged area wof.sys” error. If I make any changes to the voltage/multiplier/XMP settings, the system will freeze or blue screen. I contacted Asus to see about RMA’ing my mobo and they recommended rolling back my bios to 1102 as I was running the latest 1202. The bios change does not appear to affect my results, I still can’t change any of the default voltages or use xmp without freezes/crashes. Windows Event Viewer does not appear to have any useful information other than I am seeing some ACPI errors (ACPI device 5) around the time of the BSOD.

As it stands today, with all settings on default and a fresh 10 OS, here are the tests I was able to run in the default settings without failing/crashing:
• HCL – 14.5gb pass for one hour
• Memtest86+ one hour
• Intel Burn In – one hour pass
• Realbench 2.41 – Full stress test / 16bg one hour pass

This would indicate that there is nothing glaringly wrong with the hardware itself though the auto voltages have me concerned since the VID will jump to around to a max of 1.43-1.44v while the vcore will max around 1.44v. This is at the stock 4.2 turbo clock and balanced windows power settings.The VID voltages seem to drop under load during handbrake staying under 1.3v and at times I’m seeing a delta of .05v between the vcore/VID readings. I’m dumbfounded that the chip is getting so much more votlage than when I had my OC in place at 4.6 running under 1.3v.

I have spent much of the last 6 weeks trying to figure this out to no avail. I’m at a loss with nothing to really point at directly since everything appears to work if left on defaults. Kind of defeats the purpose of both a K series cpu and a ROG mobo if I can’t tweek anything.

I have been following these threads as well but there are no solutions as of this posting.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2830772/skylake-build-randomly-freezing-crashing.html

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?77522-Maximus-VIII-Hero-Freezeing-(ACPI-error-)

Does anyone have any idea as to what I should do next? I don’t have any big box stores close to me to try and swap parts so if I do any parts swapping on my own, I’ll have to pay for restocking fees if it does not resolve the issue.

Any info/comments are appreciated and I apologize if I left out any pertinent information.

Thanks,

J

[Nate152]

Hello Xeonnemesis

Intel is fast with their RMA's, you should have your cpu back in a week once you send it off.

[BOLOYOO]

Damn, good to read it! So I will contact with Intel, and send on warranty only CPU, not whole PC. Great, thanks! I hope your new Skylake build will run perfectly untill end of the world. Good luck my friend.

[Xeonnemesis]

I just wanted to post a quick update, I received my replacement CPU from Intel today and it looks like Asus shipped my RMA today, though there are no notes in the tracker or email that would indicate what issues were found with the Mobo, if any. In any case, I hope to have the 6700k/Hero rebuilt next weekend and will post up with a status after I re-assemble and stress test.

J

[Xeonnemesis]

So it looks like this is the final update for me. I received my board back from Asus with no description as to what was done/found with it, I can only presume that they tested it and did not find anything wrong with it. They did repair a broken PCIe latch on one of the sockets, other than that, it's the same board with the same S/N. I installed the replacement CPU from Intel and updated the bios to 1402. The system is running fine, stress tests are good. The only settings I'm running at the moment are Manual voltage at 1.250 and all cores locked to 4200.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the CPU was the issue and intel replaced it fairly quickly with little hassle. Save your CPU box as I ended up having to provide all of the information on the box for my Intel RMA. Fingers are crossed that this issue does not pop back up in the future, this setup will stay at stock clocks going forward as it is now the wifes gaming/video rig and she could care less about what's under the hood.

Thanks again for all of the input, it was greatly appreciated!
J