Long story short, My pc started not posting smetimes requiring more than one attempt to boot. Took my 4 months old GPU to RMA and found was the culplrit. But issues persisted. Changed RAM sticks, motherboard, and got a new 960. Now my screen will freeze on random times. When idle, when compressing, whenever... I decided to install Ubuntu 15.04 went pretty well for a while.. Until, again, freeze..
I'm thinking maybe the HDD is to blame. Is the only part I havent swaped asppart from my FX8350
My current specs: -Gigabyte 970A-ud3p -FX8350 -Corsair H80i (Noctua fans) -Kingston Fury 2x4Gb (already tried different) -WD Caviar Blue 1Tb (was using Win 7 no probs before this) -EVGA 960 SSC -Corsair RM 750 -NZXT Switch 810
Any suggestions? I'm gonna try a drifferent hard drive, but I'd love to avoid more money spending :/
Trying to swap out the hard drive would be an easiest thing to try that you haven't yet. There are a lot of cheap or extra drives laying around. Obviously if that doesn't work you'll have to try swapping out the CPU, which would be unfortunate.
You only have a couple options left for troubleshooting, so you just have to go through the process. Good luck!
I wouldn't say that it is 100% reliable, but it definitely decreases the likelihood that your HDD is the issue.
One thing that I just noticed is that you're using a motherboard that may require a BIOS update to be compatible with the FX-8350 CPU. A lot of people (myself included) recommend using a 990 chipset with that processor, but realistically it isn't totally necessary. This leads me to two questions:
1) Which BIOS version are you using? 2) Do you currently have the CPU overclocked, or did you at any other time?
I was just looking through some more stuff about that motherboard and I realized I misread about the CPU. The FX-8350 SHOULD be compatible with any BIOS version for that MB. I'm still curious about which version you have and whether it is/was overclocked.
There are some good diag tools here - I imagine a HDD test built into Linux is a shorter one, a more thorough test may uncover some things. There's also a couple of CPU tests further down that page as well you may try....
I owned an MSI 970-g46a and had OCGenie Enabled.. Since day one I had installed the H80i I updated the BIOS from the Gigabyte mobo a couple of days ago to the "FB" version. Haven't tried that update with windows as I'm currently on Ubuntu.. Not currently OC though
I was wondering if maybe an unstable overclock might cause some intermittent instability, but since you've changed motherboards, that possibility is ruled out.
The easiest way to test the CPU would be to find a CPU that is compatible with your motherboard, install it, and see if the problem is resolved. Unfortunately, you'd have to borrow or buy a CPU, or you would have to do an RMA (if it is still under warranty and you can convince them to do it) and wait for a new one.
Another option would be to download some CPU stress testing programs and see if you can introduce instability and cause crashes. I don't know any of the tools that @Concu55i0n22 linked, but maybe there is a tool in there that actually analyzes the integrity of the processor. A stress test will just see if it can cause the processor to fail. Good information either way I guess.
CPU Moutherboard RAM GFX card. Drives Power Supply
A few are easy like booting to a USB flash drive instead of the normal drive. Run a memory test program. The others need you to have swap out parts which is a pain in the ass for a normal user.
Well I tried the stress thing with mprime on ubuntu and nothing came up... But last night I left a couple of gigs uploading to GDrive and this morning the login screen was unresponsive. I'm thinking voodoo magic or some crap like that... I'm really out of money and no one I know has FX cpu so... Maybe sell parts separately, buy Intel platform and however complains , had the faulty part. Just kiddin.
I'm thinking Windows triggered the error more often that linux. Is it possible that Windows calls for a set of instructions more often so that the cpu would fail? I'm no electronic engineer.. Just wondered
I don't think you need to start selling off parts quite yet, hahaha
How long did you stress test for?
When you say you uploaded to GDrive, do you mean you were transferring files from your computer to Google Drive, a drive on your computer labeled "G:", or something else?
As for Windows vs Linux, I guess anything is possible...
Sorry, I didn't realize how unclear I was.. Yes, from my HDD to Google Drive.. I testes for a couple of hours.. Something like 300 passes.. I'm gonna get everything off the drive, wipe it, install Win 8.1 and see if the error persists. Could be a conjunction between HDD failure and nvidia drivers issue.. I also tried at one point underclocking the EVGA SSC 960, but had no possitive results whatsoever..
Yeah, it really seems like you've got it down to the processor or drive. Do you have any old hard drives around? A 2.5" laptop drive? Maybe a drive you could borrow from another system or person?
Just throwing in a couple cents. I've had problems in the past where I had to manually set everything for my computer to work right. I had a set of RAM that unless I set all the timings, speed and voltage manually, it would randomly freeze up. The defaults weren't stable. Computers are a pain in the ass sometimes. I had a similar issue with a Pentium 4 that I installed and I didn't do a clean install. Would randomly restart for no reason. I reinstalled Windows XP and it was fine.
You could try running a version of Linux that boots off a flash drive and that could help rule out the HDD. I still have this feeling its something to do with the BIOS settings.
did you allready try to lay the motherboard on its box, and then fire it up outside the case? Maybe there is a shortcirquit somewhere, double check your case usb ports for bended pins or demage and what not.