Something Killed My CPU, Twice. :) Any Ideas What It Could Have Been?

[Arestephes]

So this one is a doozy, buckle up kiddos.

 

A little background information about my system for everyone, it helps with the story. First the specs:

FX 9590 < Dark Rock Pro 3 Cooler
EVGA 1060 6GB

ASrock Fatal1ty 970 Performance 3.1

1KW Corsair PSU (Overkill, I know)

 

* Please note: When I originally built this system, I had bought the CPU second hand, which lead to me (after 2 years or so) having some rather unfavourable experiences with it, requiring me to replace it with another, brand new mind you, FX 9590. The system was very prone to crashing before I replaced the CPU, usually without any tell, and it mostly desensitized me from PC crashes... Before replacing the CPU I did notice that underclocking the CPU helped prevent system crashes, so I assumed after that that the old owner of the CPU had had some bad overclocking experiences.

 

One night I was playing Runescape and watching youtube in the background, as one does, and suddenly my PC crashed. Hard. Like, no blue screen or anything, just off.

I didn't think anything of it, as I've had problems with the system before* and shrugged it off as if it was just in a mood, and took it as a sign that I should stop for the night and go to sleep, nbd. The following night I go to turn on my PC and nothing happens. I had pressed the power button, and there was no reaction whatsoever. I then toggled the switch on my power supply from on to off, and then back on again. Having pressed the power button on my chassis after toggling the switch on my power supply resulted in the PC lighting up! However the monitors were never sent a signal to wake up, and then I started smelling something burning. BURNING. Panicking, I hard shut off my PC, shut the power supply off, unplug it and immediately open the PC to see what could possibly have burn marks on it lol. Once inside I took everything apart and inspected it, nothing seemed off at all. Even after having removed my CPU cooler and cleaning the thermal paste off of my CPU, it too appeared to be fine physically.

 

After much contemplation I decided to plug everything back in, give everything a good cleaning and start the machine back up. To my surprise, nothing happened. My PC lit up, fans ran, and again no signal was sent to the monitors to wake up. Fortunately there was no burning smell this time. Fed up, I decided to dig out my old problematic 9590* and throw it into the PC to see if that worked (may as well try replacing something, and the CPU was the only spare part I could try). Cleaning off all the thermal paste and whatnot was the biggest pain of the process, which I was dreading since I had already just reapplied thermal paste to my CPU after having cleaned it off to check it out. OR SO I THOUGHT. MY DUMBASS DROPS THE CPU AND BENDS 2 PINS. The one going into the mobo to test to see if the newer one was borked, yeah that one. LUCKILY I WATCH LTT and have seen Linus bend pins back into place otherwise I would have been so screwed. I wouldn't even have thought about bent pins and probably would have thought "Oh you know this CPU in this socket is kinda tight" as I tried to cram the thing in the socket. Anyways I finally got all that figured out and booted it up. To my surprise, it worked!

 

It's already been such a long path here already and I'm just so excited to be back on my desktop, I immediately start moving any files I want to keep into a safe backup drive. And then halfway through the copying the damn thing crashes*. Not to worry though, I'm quite desensitized to the situation after all! Just booted her back up, went into the BIOS, underclocked the system to a stable speed (3.0GHz down from stock 4.7GHz) and went off to back everything up, which was a success. After securing all my files and disconnecting anything that wasn't absolutely necessary to the system (HDDs, unnecessary PCIe cards, ODD, wireless dongles, secondary monitor even), I accepted the system for what it was: A ticking time bomb.

 

Fast forward to tonight (which is roughly 4 days later), I've reinstalled steam due to some programmatic issues, installed Dark Souls 3 because it was the only slightly demanding game that I wanted to play and test the PC with, and I was ready to roll. Went about testing its stability with normal multitasking, multiple windows, multiple chrome tabs, and Dark Souls 3. Everything went great! Remembered where I had left off, killed some mans, killed a boss, even ran into a pair of very nice invaders that didn't attack me and left me alone simply because I didn't attack them first. And then the damned thing crashed. No blue screen, just off. Luckily, I wasn't wearing my headphones when it happened so I caught something very special that is now engraved into my soul: The sound of something sizzling, and then a POP and then, that same burning smell as last time (I did panic this time, only to get myself out of my chair fast enough to turn the lights on and see if there was smoke. There was no smoke). The same smell that I'm trying still trying to air out, hours after my PC (officially and very unfortunately) passed on.

 

After having 2 of the same SKU CPU die in the same fashion, I can safely say that it is no longer safe to replace the CPU in my PC and I am retiring the core components of the rig. Except my GPU, she did nothing wrong. My only theory is that it's either the motherboard or the PSU, but how do you check either without either A) Sacrificing more CPUs to CPU Satan to try and diagnose which part is killing CPUs, or B) having previous knowledge in this specific experience to already know the answer? I do hope somebody on this forum has any advice or an idea for what happened. Basically looking for a virtual autopsy on my dead machine lol.

For those of you wondering, this is my only system, and the only alternate part I had was that CPU* so no, I don't have any additional parts to swap out and test, and like I said by the looks of it I wouldn't be able to swap parts without risking another CPU (which I now have 0 of) anyways.

Thanks in advance, and happy new year to you all! May 2021 bring you the best of tech luck!
 - Arestephes

[Skiiwee29]

likely not the cpu, but motherboard. 970 boards were known to have inadequate VRMs and/or VRM cooling for the 9590 chip. This would explain why underclocking/undervolting worked and provided success compared to even stock settings. 

[glenalz81]

Do a full strip down, take the board out and have a close look front and back, use your nose as well because that smell lingers. Same with the PSU, shine a torch in, have a good look and a good sniff to.

 

As @Skiiwee29 It's likely the motherboard.

[Arestephes]

Do you think the 970 was the cause of death to the CPUs?

[Skiiwee29]

1 minute ago, Arestephes said:

Do you think the 970 was the cause of death to the CPUs?

it probably didnt kill it, just not supplying enough power to run it at stock settings. 

[Arestephes]

1 minute ago, Skiiwee29 said:

it probably didnt kill it, just not supplying enough power to run it at stock settings. 

My CPUs are 100% dead though

[Skiiwee29]

Just now, Arestephes said:

My CPUs are 100% dead though

I don't think your CPUs are dead, I think the motherboard is dead from the demand of a 9590 CPU. 

[Arestephes]

2 hours ago, Skiiwee29 said:

I don't think your CPUs are dead, I think the motherboard is dead from the demand of a 9590 CPU. 

Why is it that when one CPU "died" that the other CPU worked just fine in the same motherboard then? Well until the second one died that is lol.

 

I will definitely take a closer look at all the components though.

 

2 hours ago, Skiiwee29 said:

likely not the cpu, but motherboard. 970 boards were known to have inadequate VRMs and/or VRM cooling for the 9590 chip. This would explain why underclocking/undervolting worked and provided success compared to even stock settings. 

I really hope you two are right about it being the motherboard, and I really hope it is too. if I can at least identify what component was the issue, that would be awesome!

[Skiiwee29]

Just now, Arestephes said:

I really hope you two are right about it being the motherboard, and I really hope it is too. if I can at least identify what component was the issue, that would be awesome!

if it is, make sure you get a proper 990 board this time if you can find one at a decent price if you wish to continue using this old platform. 

[Arestephes]

2 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

if it is, make sure you get a proper 990 board this time if you can find one at a decent price if you wish to continue using this old platform. 

Honestly, I don't think it's worth being legacy anymore. It's definitely time for an upgrade, but I'd like to see if I can at least take my PSU

[Amias]

1 hour ago, Arestephes said:

Honestly, I don't think it's worth being legacy anymore. It's definitely time for an upgrade, but I'd like to see if I can at least take my PSU

The question you want to ask now is 'how do you test the integrity of your PSU'?

[Arestephes]

Just now, Amias said:

The question you want to ask now is 'how do you test the integrity of your PSU'?

Yes, that is correct thank you.

AHEM, how do you test the integrity of your PSU?

[Skiiwee29]

11 minutes ago, Arestephes said:

Yes, that is correct thank you.

AHEM, how do you test the integrity of your PSU?

which exact model do you have, when did you buy it? Basically the rule of thumb of PSUs is its generally safe to use them for the extent of the warranty. Once its out of warranty, it should be promptly replaced unless its a dumpster fire of a unit, which being a corsair 1000w unit, it likely isnt. 

[Arestephes]

9 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

which exact model do you have, when did you buy it? Basically the rule of thumb of PSUs is its generally safe to use them for the extent of the warranty. Once its out of warranty, it should be promptly replaced unless its a dumpster fire of a unit, which being a corsair 1000w unit, it likely isnt. 

https://www.newegg.ca/corsair-rm-series-rm1000-1000w/p/N82E16817139057?Item=N82E16817139057

This exact item, was purchased on September 22, 2015. So there's that. Not sure if it's still under warranty, I might still have the paperwork and everything somewhere...

EDIT: The Corsair website says 7 year warranty.

[kelvinhall05]

Related video:

 

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Troubleshooting

[Arestephes]

7 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

-> Moved to Troubleshooting

Thanks Mod, new here.

[Arestephes]

For anyone that is interested, I have pics of the problem. I did find it, it was the motherboard. Still doesn't explain why one CPU still worked, and one didn't though.

[CommanderAlex]

2 minutes ago, Arestephes said:

For anyone that is interested, I have pics of the problem. I did find it, it was the motherboard. Still doesn't explain why one CPU still worked, and one didn't though.

~Snipped Photos~

 

 

That is why your motherboard is not happy with FX 9590s. The VRMS are blown on this board and needs to be replaced if willing to search for a new 990 motherboard or upgrade your system. 

[Arestephes]

9 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

That is why your motherboard is not happy with FX 9590s. The VRMS are blown on this board and needs to be replaced if willing to search for a new 990 motherboard or upgrade your system. 

Well to be fair, this board was running these CPUs for like 5 years

[CommanderAlex]

Just now, Arestephes said:

Well to be fair, this board was running these CPUs for like 5 years

That was a decent lifetime with that board though. Surprised it even held up. 

[Arestephes]

45 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

That was a decent lifetime with that board though. Surprised it even held up. 

Yeah, me too actually. I had no idea that it would have even had the problem at all, if it hadn't blown up on me.

[Guest]

Aw man bummer! Toasted VRMs. Yeah, FX-9590 can do that.

Had two of those processors. Most boards didn't even list it as compatible because of this very reason.

In fact, the FX-9590 was so voltage hungry, it was a known issue that even the CrossHair V would low volt hang from v-droop.

Mine had P-State listing for the 5ghz turbo at 1.520v. Thing was a beast and a half, worlds first 5ghz chip, just lacking the ipc to make it special it guess....

 

Good read!

 

[Skiiwee29]

OOOOF, so my original suspicion was correct then of it being the motherboard. Lucky it didn't start on fire like the in the video that @kelvinhall05 linked. 970 boards were notorious for burning out with 9590s in them. The fact you got 5 years out of it is pretty damn good honestly.