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Noel

Bizarre: dying CPU or Power Supply or other?

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Fair enough Noel, you make valid points. It's just that CPU failure [if not abused] is so rare that I find myself somewhat dubious.

 

A power surge from a dying PSU, or mains power spike can damage a CPU of course.

 

Have you ruled out motherboard or not? CPU failing and motherboard issues are often similar. Sorry if I missed something re that.

 

Boot failure can be a RAM issue of course, or RAM slot issue. I even had an issue where bad RAM prevented the installation of Windows. Great in the BIOS, no issues, and then at the same point every time installing windows it failed.

 

Try one stick at a time, and different slots, just in case, you never know.

 

Any blue screens or anything in the event viewer?

 

Good luck, it's a bloody nuisance. Hope you get it sorted out.

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Fair enough Noel, you make valid points. It's just that CPU failure [if not abused] is so rare that I find myself somewhat dubious.

 

A power surge from a dying PSU, or mains power spike can damage a CPU of course.

 

Have you ruled out motherboard or not? CPU failing and motherboard issues are often similar. Sorry if I missed something re that.

 

Boot failure can be a RAM issue of course, or RAM slot issue. I even had an issue where bad RAM prevented the installation of Windows. Great in the BIOS, no issues, and then at the same point every time installing windows it failed.

 

Try one stick at a time, and different slots, just in case, you never know.

 

Any blue screens or anything in the event viewer?

 

Good luck, it's a bloody nuisance. Hope you get it sorted out.

As mentioned above all memory tested perfect with the very detailed UEFI memtest86 routine.

 

There are a million potential problems and any testing beyond swapping in whole components, like a new motherboard, new PSU etc becomes tricky to interpret it would seem.  So really it's impossible to conclude much of anything without swapping the CPU into another board--this is the real acid test.  I just don't have one to try this with unfortunately.  This is how people end up building entire new machines especially when you factor in trial and error trouble shooting w/ multiple components.   I'm waiting to see if Intel will come thru.   I had a Q9650X fail on me--bought a non X form and up she started and continues to function 7y later in a 2nd desktop that was never overclocked after the Q9650X failed--it was overclocked but kept cool.  Hard to say what constitutes cpu 'abuse'.  Intel basically says if you run within absolute MAX/MIN voltage ratings, but outside the cpu's functional operational limits you can expect decreased service life which fits w/ my Q9650X story.


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Given that the CPU has to be operating for Memtest86+ and BIOS screens, I am not inclined to think this a CPU issue.  Usually CPU failures will result in blue screen issues, or complete failure to start anyway.  My guess, from what I've read here, is something like a problem with the ICH controller on the mobo chipset.  Excessive overclocking voltages can cause this kind of problem just the same as the CPU.  Have you tried running with stock voltages and speeds on the whole mobo chipset as well as on the CPU?

 

If the mobo has one or more secondary SATA controller chips (many do), you could try putting just the boot drive on a port served by that secondary controller.  That might narrow things down to the ICH bridge.

 

Regardless, on a 4 year old machine, I would look at CPU and mobo as an integrated combo...if I need to replace one of them, I replace both with something newer.

 

Cheers


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If the mobo has one or more secondary SATA controller chips (many do), you could try putting just the boot drive on a port served by that secondary controller.  That might narrow things down to the ICH bridge.

 

Regardless, on a 4 year old machine, I would look at CPU and mobo as an integrated combo...if I need to replace one of them, I replace both with something newer.

 

Cheers

 

Thanks for that.   The Marvell PCIe 9128 Serial Controller appears to be a secondary SATA controller on my ASUS P9X79 WS so I can give that a try.  There is however a sticker on the socket for the Marvell that suggests this is used for SSD cache function.   Can it also be used to boot thru i wonder?

 

This utility might be helpful:  Hot CPU Tester Pro is a system health and stability tester. It tests CPU, chipset and virtually all parts of motherboard for errors/bugs, defective parts and components.


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Not well explained is why the Intel Desktop Proc Tool indicates a failed CPU fairly quickly in its routine.  I tried what I thought would be a low impact routine, temperature, and it fails there as well.  Here's the interface for it running in a UEFI Fedora desktop.   Have no idea what parts of the motherboard are needed for this to run, and whether or not a failed motherboard component would generate a false failed CPU report.  Of note, I stated w/ the innocuous appearing Temperature Test and it failed there as well as all others tested.

 

Screen%20Shot%202016-02-22%20at%209.40.3


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Just trying to cover all possibilities, and sorry if you've already covered this, but... as it's an Asus board, with diagnostic LED's, are any of them continuously lit?  Should be one next to the CPU, RAM and hard drive and graphics card.

 

You may have the Q-Code display too, so any code displayed?

 

57, 58, 59, 5A, are the CPU fault codes I believe.

 

I'm sure you've checked this, but just in case.

 

Even though your RAM checks out with Memtest, I would still try one stick at a time and in different slots, it's so easy to do, you may as well.

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I had a similar situation with a customer a few years ago, turned out to be the heatsink had come loose from the CPU.


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Just trying to cover all possibilities, and sorry if you've already covered this, but... as it's an Asus board, with diagnostic LED's, are any of them continuously lit?  Should be one next to the CPU, RAM and hard drive and graphics card.

 

You may have the Q-Code display too, so any code displayed?

 

57, 58, 59, 5A, are the CPU fault codes I believe.

 

I'm sure you've checked this, but just in case.

 

Even though your RAM checks out with Memtest, I would still try one stick at a time and in different slots, it's so easy to do, you may as well.

 

Thank you Martin--I believe they all turned off and no I did not know about the Q-Code display which I think was partly obscured behind the graphics card--I believe I saw a number there so again, thank you I will check it out and see.   The Q-codes must be mentioned in the manual so will check that out as well.  I tried to learn what the limitations of the IDPT are but couldn't find anything worthwhile to see under what other conditions beyond a failed CPU the failed CPU report displays.  Once the report came back failed I removed the CPU and will reinstall it tonight and see what is there.

 

I'm actually hoping for a failed CPU as that would be the quickest way to restore functionality, but at this point too early to tell.  If it's a main board I think I'm hosed unless I can find a used one.   Besides the failed test report the other clue hard to ignore is that it was only a few days prior to the failed windows initialization that I had moved vCore up from 1.32 to 1.355 in order to get to a stable 4.553Ghz so this again hints a little more towards a failing CPU it seems to me.  Memory was never overvolted and runs w/in spec for frequency so that really seems unlikely especially with a 30 min routine that came back w/ zero errors.  The box has always run cool.

 

Thanks!

 

Addendum:  wow, there's a whole diagnostics feature in those codes!  Many thanks again I hope it points to the culprit  :smile:

I had a similar situation with a customer a few years ago, turned out to be the heatsink had come loose from the CPU.

No problems there but thanks for the thought. 


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Yes the Q Codes are a great feature. I went for the Z170-A for my Skylake build, which doesn't have the Q Code feature. It was a feature I would have liked to be honest. But couldn't justify a more feature packed board as I wouldn't make use of those features.

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If there are any lessons learned so far it's that one can't draw too many conclusions (which am always prone to do) from limited information.

 

1st Place:  goes to Johnman & Gary--the Samsung 840 SSD appears to be the culprit as it is the one drive of actually three bootable drives that when connected for some reason prevents any drive from booting to Win 7, at exactly the same place for any drive.  Kudo's Johnman & Gary!

 

2nd Place:  goes to Martin-W for his persistence and education which had me removing my CPU then reinstalling again in order to check out Q-codes.  Bonus points for up front noting it was likely not my CPU.  This was hard to have faith in because A, I had just overvolted my CPU to 1.355v, a new high for me, but also considerably lower than what others claim to get away with, and B, it kept failing the IDPT evaluation of the CPU.

 

3rd Place:  to Bob & others who surmised it wasn't the CPU and offered various tests to try to narrow down troubles.

 

Honorable Mention:  goes to Mike Collins--removing and reinstalling the CPU, for reasons I still can't guess on, allowed the IDPT to run in Fedora UEFI, and shockingly indicated a PASS which never happened before R&Ring the CPU.  Those familiar w/ the Noctua would know it  essentially can't come loose from the CPU, and moreover, I've always had good thermal management so who knows what happened there.

 

Hopefully I can now reconnect the bum SSD, boot to an HDD, and run something beyond SMART on it because that is one of the first things I looked at early on when I got the weird boot time chkdsk run not requested by me.  I have to think maybe it's a hardware fault in the SSD now.  I do have another desktop in the house that has 3GB SATA connector, not 6GB, but maybe can run some drive tests on it. 

 

The final conclusion ( :fool:  ) will be posted when we get there!


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Thanks - Glad You got it Straightened Out - Johnman B)

Not quite, but cautiously optimistic that neither main board nor CPU is at issue, or so I still hope.  Still too many oddities to be certain.   From the HDD boot I again ran SMART on the SSD:  perfect.  Next, I ran AIDA64 Drive Read Suite:  perfect.  Could be a bad boot sector, and I can reformat it and see what happens.   I will try a different socket for the SSD and disconnect all other drives and see if anything is gleaned there.


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Samsung 840 250Gb

 

Tried different SATA sockets no joy.  No joy only booting to this SSD as the only connected drive.  So it's current been wiped and reinstall of Win 7.  This is the first reinstall since I assembled the box June 2013.  What might be the cause of a boot sector corruption in an SSD?  It's only 1/2 full or less.  Something weird happened I don't know what.   I'm going to post a question re whether folks buying P3D V3 found it definitely worth the cost and hassle.  If so, and only if a 64 bit version is promised to V3 purchases, I might go for it.


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Hassle you must be talking about fsx - and 64 bit is coming and I doubt it will be free


Rich Sennett

               

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