So what to do? Troubles ahoy!

Soldato
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Well, when was having issues with the gigabyte board, I was still having problems with all drives disconnected.

And used two completely different ssds.

The difficulty has been in that I would have major instability, then all would seem fine, then couple days later problems would start again.

The first one, the sabertooth x79 would appear stable, but then would lock up and refuse to power on for some random period.

The gigabyte z97 presented with many different issues, but I do still believe some of it was down to bad bios.

This workstation x79 been more stable, but the random reboot I had makes me think the problem is still there.
 
Soldato
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Have a look in event viewer and see what, if any, warnings were logged prior to your system shutting down. This may help you to narrow down the culprit.
 
Soldato
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Should have thought to look in event viewer yesterday after it happened.

Both sets of memory fine through hours of prime. That was testing with one set, then the other.

Have one set running memtest throughout the day today.

It was just one reset, but does this likely mean that all my problems with the z97 will continue? Possibly just a fluke?

Am just awfully tired of it all now. A month and a half of computer problems since swapping out my 3770k and p8z77.

I have so much stuff that is getting neglected now because I can't rest when I know there is a problem.

And it's starting to cost me a lot. And depress me.

My dilemma now is, I don't know whether I should be returning the z97 or keeping it.

Or keep the workstation and 3960...
 
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Don
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If this was me.

At this stage, I would get a set of cheaper compatible components and swap them all out. Then add in one component at a time until you find the culprit.

Start with the cheaper components..

PSU
Ram

Also, always have a fresh install to test with.


-

So try with a fresh install on your SSD, one drive connected only.

Does eventviewer say anything around the time of the reboot?

I've seen ram sticks that pass all ram tests that I could throw at it, but it was faultyram.
 
Soldato
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Just read your your message, and it kind of echoes what I started tonight.

I had the x79 workstation testing one set of ram all day, which didn't throw any errors after 12 hours and 5 passes.

I have now set it running Memtest against the other set of ram.

In the mean time I have set the z97 and 4790k up on my desk with the passed set of ram, with just on board gpu and single SSD.

First thing I noticed is that even with just one set of ram it will not run at rated 2400. And i thought z97 and rock were supposed to be good for running high ram speeds? Anyway, have it set to stock cpu and the ram to 2200 with tighter timings than the 2400 is supposed to allow. Am just running aida64 memory test against that for a bit.

Was just wondering, these two sets of Kingston beast were bought separately, and seem to have different product codes. You think it's possible they don't like running as a set?

Another thing that occurred to me. The reboot happened not long after I installed my sound blaster z. Though again, this was used with the 3770k
 
Soldato
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Well, th e workstation was testing the ram overnight and showed no faults.

The z97 + 4790 was at stock (including ram at 1333) running aida stability test overnight. No errors or crashes.

Guess my next step is all 32gb ram in z97 with some stressing. Even though stressing isn't when the spontaneous reboots have occurred.

Have left the z97 on today just sitting at desktop with some monitoring programs running. Will see when get home if it has rebooted.
 
Soldato
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Well, the z97 had been sitting on desktop all day, and hadn't rebooted, but given the inconsistencies with this problem, that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

However, I did have a dialog box open saying the Gigabyte app centre had stopped working. I only have the update part of that installed, which I thought was only a manual process, so am surprised it crashed for whatever reason.

So, what to do next? Leave it as is overnight, install the other 16gb of ram?

Should I take app centre crashing as a sign the problem is with something currently installed? Or just that app centre is rubbish?
 
Soldato
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Oh, interesting.

Decided to swap the ram sets over, and this other set has no issues when I set the xmp profile for 2400mhz.

Busy stressing it a bit now with aida.

So, should I consider that other set faulty?
 
Soldato
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No reboots overnight with other set of memory with cpu stock and memory at 2400

Same crash from app centre though.

Have left it sitting at desktop today, but with cpu at 4.7
 
Soldato
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Well, so far so good without that other memory set in.

Have mucked on with pushing clocks more with intention of making it crash, and when doing so has so far not corrupted windows installation as previous.

No random reboots.

Though no tests I could throw at the other memory would make it fail...
 
Soldato
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Though I don't know for certain that the other ram is faulty. All I know at the very least is that it certainly won't run its rated 2400mhz on this board.
 
Soldato
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Oh, how funny.

As ever, the kiss of death is coming on here and saying things going fine.

Had run ccinebench a number of times on existing clocks, but did eventually get a crash. So upped the vcore a bit to compensate.

Restarted, crashed fairly quickly, then can no longer boot. Doesn't even recognise the drive as a boot device.

Then more odd stuff. It won't recognise the USB stick I have windows 8 on for installation. And I used this before with this board.

I noticed it was still listing drives in bios which are not even connected. At first thought it may be reading this stuff from one of the windows partitions, but that wouldn't make sense if it can't even recognise the drive as a boot drive.

So, did CMOS reset, including power unplugged and battery out and jumper on.

Start up and all those drives still listed! Plus, a profile I had saved previously is still listed!

Currently got it all disconnected unplugged and jumpered while I sit in the bath and type this.
 
Soldato
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The USB bit of my problem the other night was me having a blonde moment - was plugging the stick into chassis, when should have been plugging it into the board right in front of me on the desk :D

Anyway, the problem of it not recognising boot drive was 'just' that the boot loader got buggered, which was correctable using windows boot stick. Doesnt seem to have corrupted windows files like it had previously.

In the end, the only way to properly clear the bios was to flash it again...

But yesterday I decided to hell with it and ordered other ram. A corsair vengeance pro 32gb set.

Am now actually able to achieve 4.8 on the CPU! Even 4.7 was feeling a bit touch and go before, and just couldn't manage 4.8. 4.9 looks like it will take over 1.4v so not going there.

Also, couldn't even reach up to 950 score in ccinebench before, and now got up to 980.

Memory rated for 2133 at 11-11-11-31, but was happily running 2133 at 9-10-10-30.

So right now (and hope to god this is the case) it looks like this board maybe just didn't like the Kingston beast 2400 ram.

Currently only got 7770 gpu in, and once have done more stability testing, will throw my 3 290s in and fire up bf4
 
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