enright

Tried and true Cooler Master 212 Evo. Never noticed any high temps. BSoD frequency kept increasing - even when I backed off to default timing / clock settings. I just started the RMA process with Intel - anyone have any experience with this? Wonder how long the turn around time is. Have yet to get response on on-line ticket that I filled out over the weekend - maybe they are off for the holiday today. They won't have an issue with overclocking, as far as the warranty is concerned right? This is the skylake 6700k - built for overclocking. I didn't do anything ridiculous either just a very modest 10% or so overclock via the BIOS. Had no issues for months until the BSoDs started. John

Looks like that bug shows up under certain loads - could have been related... I'd get weird 1 - 2 second freezes under heavy load - even with default / non-overclocked settings. However, the article doesn't mention a deteriorating effect - or that the bug could brick the CPU. Still not 100% sure it IS the CPU... Anyone smart enough to derive anything from the dump files I posted in the link in the original post above? Thanks! John

Just got around to changing the PSU this morning (side note - man I hate cabling... Can't bring myself to be sloppy about it - even when just swapping a PSU for a few minutes). Unfortunately, same result: no post, no video. I did another swap of the RAM sticks - tried each one individually - no dice. So now I'm down to just a few unlikely scenarios (must be one of these though): - CPU Failure - BOTH RAM sticks failed - The originally MOBO failed, and the replacement was faulty out of the box My current guess is CPU - as unlikely as that is. Is there any way to tell CPU vs. RAM other than what I've already done? Would hate to go through the CPU RMA process only to have that not be the fault. Can anyone tell from the dump files I linked to in the original post? Thanks!! John

Good lord. In my 30+ years of PC building / tinkering - this ranks as the most frustrating failure yet. My undying gratitude for any tips / guidance as to which component is borking my system. Here are the details: Relatively new build - system ran fine for 90 days or so - no issues Problem started as the occasional (once per week?) hard crash - no BSOD at first Sometimes crash would result in max volume garbled audio noise Evolved into occasional BSOD (increasing frequency over time): WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT Then no post / no video on boot. Can't even get to BIOS. MOBO / GPU have power - LEDs on both are on. No LED diag codes on the mobo, but does have basic single LEDs next to each function on the board. Sometimes hangs on CPU status LED, most often on RAM. Did these things: - Removed / swapped RAM modules (have two sticks, tried each individually in different slots) - Connected monitor to onboard output vs. GPU (no change) - Swapped GPU with older card - Tried no GPU and just onboard output - Verified that GPU works in other machine The motherboard (Asus z170-a) has a "memok" button that is supposed to bypass bad RAM and allow you to get to BIOS - tried that, no luck. So at this point I thought - weird audio, can't even post.. odds that BOTH RAM sticks would fail are slim... probably bad MOBO, right? Swapped the MOBO out with a new one - no luck! Same deal, can't POST, no video, can't get to BIOS. ARGH!!! So now I'm stumped. I figure these are the only remaining possibilities: - BOTH RAM sticks failed (at the same time?! and they worked fine for 90 days?) - CPU Failure (this is my current best guess - it would be my first in 30 years!) - I am the unluckiest guy ever, and the new replacement MOBO was also borked - Some weird power supply problem where it supplies power but the voltage is off? Does that even happen? Don't want to RMA the CPU or RAM only to have that not be the problem. Don't have spares to test either one... Is there any way to tell which one is the issue? Fortunately, my BSODs did result in dump files. I've zipped them and uploaded them here your reading pleasure: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1aypzy6gi362ug7/Minidump.zip?dl=0 Full system specs: Mobo: ASUS z170-A CPU: Intel Skylake i7 6700k (was moderately overclocked, reverted to stock after initial crashes. never had temp problems) GPU: Gigabyte G1 970 RAM: Crucial Balistix Elite 8GB x2 DDR4 2666 PS: Corsair CX750M SSD: Samsug EVO 850 500GB Thanks in advance, I miss my relatively new baby - any help / guidance appreciated!!! John