Computer Freeze randomly unable to determine faulty part!

[Molesy]

Hi All, 

 

I have an issue with my friends PC and I am unable to understand which part is causing the fault.

 

The issue is the system boot and then without warning it freezes / locks up and pressing the power button etc does nothing. We have to do a hard reset on the system. Sometimes it then freezes / locks up when trying to boot into windows!

There is nothing specific that is causing it as some days the PC last for a long time before freezing. Sometimes it just freezes right away.

 

I have done the following diagnosis and am not sure what part or what to test next.

 

The Samsung SSD was running at 50*C on idle and initially I though that was the issue. I tried the SSD in different slots and add in card but no difference. I then cloned the SSD to a standard 2.5’ SSD as well and the computer still froze and had the same issues.  I updated the SSD firmware and all other drivers as well. Initially I also thought it was a windows issue and undid the latest major windows update from 1903 to 1909 and ran the 20H2 update after going back to 1903. This did not solve the issue.

 

I updated the BIOS to the latest for the board and after the update one of the RAM sticks was not detecting in windows but when you go into BIOS setting it says a RAM is populated but nothing is not detecting in POST. I swapped the RAM around and the issue was still the same. I suspected faulty RAM slot as I did a MEM test, and all passed. I unplugged all the RAM sticks and re plugged them back in and then all RAM was detected correctly.

 

There has been no bluescreens etc. just a total freeze and no response to CTRL+ALT+DEL or reset button. A full power down is required.

I also suspected it could be XMP or the multi core enhancement and disabled all of those as well, but the issue still persists.

I have then looked at the Q-Code on the ASUS Motherboard and noticed when the system locks up or freeze the Qcode changes to shows 04. Based on the Asus manual that means  it is PCH Initialization. I don’t know what that means. Is it a motherboard issue or CPU issue ?

 

The other day the system would not even boot and I got the Qcode error of 00 – which says Not used.

 

Bases on the trouble shotting I can only thing of 3 possible faulty components. Maybe it s a combination of them ?

1.       CPU

2.       Motherboard

3.       Power supply

 

Does any one have any idea what could be the faulty part and what i should do next ?  I have already emailed suppler as well. 

 

The Spec of my friends build:

Cooler: NH-D15

MEM: 64GB corsair CL16 2400MHz ( what was available at the time for good value)

PSU: Corsair AX1500i

SSD: Samsung 970 Pro NVME 500GB --> currently using a intel 480Gb 2.5' SSD as temp

CPU: i9 7900X

MB: Asus Prime X299-Deluxe

GPU: EVGA GTX 1080TI

OS: Win 10 Pro 20H2

 

Thanks in advance !

 

[Malhuxas_Canna]

I have the same thing and dont know what to do . Hoping for a reply too .

[Enzo1001]

Did you change somthing before this happend? Overclock? XMP? How old is the ps?

[ToolMan]

Truly a weird problem, I would try booting the computer with the bare minimum. Just one stick of ram, using onboard graphics. And all bios settings set to default.  If that doesn't work, maybe reseating the CPU is worth a shot. Who knows, maybe windows itself is corrupted, even though you cloned windows to another drive, its the same copy, which could be corrupted. Maybe a simple reset or even a clean install might do something if everything else works.

EDIT: Hope you find a solution

[Molesy]

8 hours ago, Malhuxas_Canna said:

I have the same thing and dont know what to do . Hoping for a reply too .

oh no. let me know if you find out what happens to yours maybe we have the same issue. 

8 hours ago, Enzo1001 said:

Did you change somthing before this happend? Overclock? XMP? How old is the ps?

nope. in fact it was sitting off for about a year as my friend was working overseas. not that they are back they are trying to use the PC and its having this issue. There was no issue before the left. no other hardware changes only  added games and some apps at most!

7 hours ago, ToolMan said:

Truly a weird problem, I would try booting the computer with the bare minimum. Just one stick of ram, using onboard graphics. And all bios settings set to default.  If that doesn't work, maybe reseating the CPU is worth a shot. Who knows, maybe windows itself is corrupted, even though you cloned windows to another drive, its the same copy, which could be corrupted. Maybe a simple reset or even a clean install might do something if everything else works.

EDIT: Hope you find a solution

yes. I did forget to mention i did reseat the CPU and re applied Thermal compound in case that was the issue. but it does not look like that is the casue. I dont think it is a windows issue as the hardware suddenly goes into 04 debug mode and the other day it was not even able to post with error code 00. the last time i saw that issue it was the CPU that has failed. I am thinking this CPU is starting to fail or maybe the board has an issue. I dont think it is PSU but some have suggested it could be.  I did run stress test on the CPU and GPU with range of benchmarks and it never forze but then randomly without doing anything it just forze!

[ToolMan]

Ok, in that case, if an rma is still an option, I would go for that. You can always try getting a new cpu trying that and see if that solves the problem, if it continues, you know its the motherboard. Then maybe you can return the cpu and get something more modern since they are parts from last year. 

Edit: I said earlier to try using onboard graphics, I forgot the 7900x doesn't have any, sorry lol.

[Molesy]

On 11/30/2020 at 3:32 AM, ToolMan said:

Ok, in that case, if an rma is still an option, I would go for that. You can always try getting a new cpu trying that and see if that solves the problem, if it continues, you know its the motherboard. Then maybe you can return the cpu and get something more modern since they are parts from last year. 

Edit: I said earlier to try using onboard graphics, I forgot the 7900x doesn't have any, sorry lol.

yea. trying to do a RMA on the CPU, Ram and Motherboard. hopefully its one of them. i hope its not the power supply. but doesn't look like as i would expect it to freeze like instantly.  

[Molesy]

I finally got the system in for testing. It does appear to be a faulty RAM module as one of the module intermittently detects as well as getting errors randomly on memtest86.  Although sometimes it passes. very odd.  but i am RA on the memory.

[Molesy]

turned out to be the memory after getting new ones via RA it was fixed. also replaced the SSD and the temps are more normal now.