Perhaps the good people of TBCS can help me figure out what the hell is going on.

[Omega]

Okay. Let's start with my computer specs:

AMD A10-5800K APU
this mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138366
4gb of G.Skill RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231190
A seagate barracuda 1tb HD
a Cooler Master 850W PSU from christmas like six years ago
eVGA GTX550Ti


Both the CPU and the GPU have Arctic Cooling heatsinks on them.

okay, so what's wrong...

The computer crashes randomly. I mean completely randomly. Just browsing the internet, playing games, litecoin mining, sitting there doing nothing. 95% of the time the screen just goes black, and the thing restarts. the other 5% it'll freeze up without restarting.

At first I thought it was overheating, hence the Arctic coolers. Even with way lower temps, it still does it.

A little more backstory: I built this rig a few months ago and promptly stuffed my finger in to the GPU fan while it was running. Smart, I know. That's why I got the aftermarket cooler for that. I figured though, hey, i have a cpu with integrated graphics and a mobo that supports it, so i installed those drivers and tried to run it. It was really messed up, artifacting, crazy colors, etc. so I stuffed my old 7800GT in there in the interim. This is when the crashing started. This was only the first day that I had it, so I don't know if the issue was present before.

So I got the GTX550Ti back in there and yep, still crashed. I figured maybe something was going on about it running two different graphics drivers, so I reformatted and reinstalled windows, without the ATi drivers. No dice, same issue.

Anywho, any ideas? At this point I'm looking at the CPU and motherboard and getting pretty fed up so I'm thinking of just buying an i5 and being done with it.

[OvRiDe]

My first guess from the symptoms would have been exactly what you were thinking with the graphics drivers. Since that has been ruled out, my next guess would be RAM. Try running it with one module.. if it still does it.. try swapping it to the other stick, and see if it still happens. If it still crashes.. Go i5 :) (If it does work.. I would still go i5 :P )

Got my fingers crossed for you :crossed:

[TheMainMan]

Sounds like a "Timeout Detection and Recovery" issue to me. Have a look through this link (https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/413110/the-nvlddmkm-error-what-is-it-an-fyi-for-those-seeing-this-issue/) for more info and see if that sounds like your machine.

Where are you sourcing you're graphics drivers from? 331.93 is the most recent reference driver for Nvidia cards. Windows Update should pull that version automatically if you let it.

[Omega]

My first guess from the symptoms would have been exactly what you were thinking with the graphics drivers. Since that has been ruled out, my next guess would be RAM. Try running it with one module.. if it still does it.. try swapping it to the other stick, and see if it still happens. If it still crashes.. Go i5 :) (If it does work.. I would still go i5 :P )

Got my fingers crossed for you :crossed:

I'm probably just gonna go i5 anyways and say eff it, I can get a decent i5 mobo/cpu combo on newegg for not much more than 200 anyway.



Sounds like a "Timeout Detection and Recovery" issue to me. Have a look through this link (https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/413110/the-nvlddmkm-error-what-is-it-an-fyi-for-those-seeing-this-issue/) for more info and see if that sounds like your machine.

Where are you sourcing you're graphics drivers from? 331.93 is the most recent reference driver for Nvidia cards. Windows Update should pull that version automatically if you let it.


This actually has happened a few times, mainly when starting/stopping bitcoin/litecoin mining. I will double check my driver version when I get home from work but I only re-formatted like a month ago tops so it should be current. Got the drivers from nVidia.

Also unlike that link, the whole computer either locks up or just restarts most of the time.

[Airbozo]

I've seen similar issues with a bad memory stick. Has you tried running memtest?

The only thing that gets me is the graphics corruption, which does not normally indicate a memory problem.

[Omega]

I've seen similar issues with a bad memory stick. Has you tried running memtest?

The only thing that gets me is the graphics corruption, which does not normally indicate a memory problem.

well to be fair when the CPU runs internal graphics, I know it allocates system RAM as graphics memory. So corrupted RAM could certainly cause that, at least I would assume as such.

[TheMainMan]

I can confirm that. I recently had issues with an Asus M4A785-M and an AMD Athlon II X3 where the board would not display video unless the RAM was in a certain order. I RMAed both the CPU and Mobo and had the same issues with the new pair and finally figured it out by numbering the RAM and swapping it around until it worked. All 4 sticks are identical and work fine in the right order. Even putting a dedicated GPU in would not get video output unless the RAM was in the right order.

[Luke122]

I was thinking power issue.. memory was my second thought.

When the system crashes, do you get any info from the bsod? Have you tried opening the dump file to see what is reported as the failing item?

[Omega]

I can confirm that. I recently had issues with an Asus M4A785-M and an AMD Athlon II X3 where the board would not display video unless the RAM was in a certain order. I RMAed both the CPU and Mobo and had the same issues with the new pair and finally figured it out by numbering the RAM and swapping it around until it worked. All 4 sticks are identical and work fine in the right order. Even putting a dedicated GPU in would not get video output unless the RAM was in the right order.

It's totally intermittent though, and I have no graphical display errors on the GTX550ti.




I was thinking power issue.. memory was my second thought.

When the system crashes, do you get any info from the bsod? Have you tried opening the dump file to see what is reported as the failing item?

No BSOD, just straight restarts.

I checked my event log and there were both processor core errors and northbridge errors, but the date/time was several hours off of the crash event.


edit\\

so I'm leaning towards cpu/mobo and am probably gonna say eff it and buy an i5, sell this combo for cheap and let somebody else deal.

[Omega]

Bought an i5-3570K, bigass CPU cooler and motherboard. I have a feeling the A10 overheated as it was hitting like 70-80C before I put the arctic cooler on it. Expect pics next week.