Beautiful streaming beast PC is awfully unstable

[RomHeu]

Hi from France!

 

I work as a freelance IT manager for an event service provider. The technical director has handed me one of their computers/workstations that serve as "vMix stations" (vMix being en equivalent to OBS for mixing and live streaming events).

 

The problem is that these computers are unstable. As soon as I activate the Multi Core Enhancement, they crash after only 1 or 2 minutes of Counter-Strike Global Offensive (CSGO), sometimes as soon as the game menu is displayed, they cause BSODs during a Cinebench test, sometimes even at rest.
So I turned off Multi Core Enhancement, even though I feel like it's a waste.
Unfortunately, although I have never reproduced this behavior, I have been told that they sometimes crash during events, even without Multi Core Enhancement.

 

So far they were using BIOS version 1.30, with the default settings, except I enabled the XMP profile, with a fresh Windows 10 22H2 install, Intel drivers from the ASRock website (the ones from the Intel site don't work!), Nvidia drivers from Nvidia.

 

Config:

• 4U SilverStone RM44 case
• 1500W Corsair HX1500i power supply
• ASRock X299 Creator motherboard
• Intel Core i9-10940X or Core i9-10980X processor
• 360mm Corsair watercooling
• 3 additional Noctua NF-A12x25 fans attached to the radiator (push-pull)
• 2 Noctua NF-A8 fans at the rear
• 4 x 16 GB DDR4 3000MHz Hyper-X RAM (Memtest86+ OK)
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card (as far as I know, barely used)
• one or two Blackmagic Design DeckLink Duo 2 or Quad 2 SDI acquisition cards

Any idea what's wrong with it?

 

[WereCat]

Multi Core Enhancement is basically auto-overclocking feature set by the Motherboard BIOS and was never recommended and reliable.

How many passed have you done with Memtest?

[Fasauceome]

11 minutes ago, RomHeu said:

So I turned off Multi Core Enhancement, even though I feel like it's a waste.

MCE is mostly a gimmick. On consumer boards, it's more useful to force a small overclock on something like an i5-7400 (back when that was relevant) but in an i9, you're really not getting much difference vs a plain old overclock.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Fasauceome

[191x7]

Latest bios?

[RomHeu]

7 hours ago, 191x7 said:

Latest bios?

Until I got to diagnose one of those PCs, it was running BIOS version 1.30. Updating the BIOS is one of the first things I tried, it's now running latest version 1.50, but it still hangs or BSODs after a few minutes of CSGO.

 

7 hours ago, WereCat said:

How many passed have you done with Memtest?

A few overnight unlimited tests, I don't remember the number of tests, but I do remember 100% PASS.

 

Regarding MCE, at least in the sense of letting the CPU run at higher wattage for longer period of times (PL1?), it seems that enabling it is the "default" for most youtubers like LTT, GamersNexus, etc., isn't it? A bit like XMP.

 

Anyway I do have BSODs with Cinebench even with MCE disabled. What else should I check?

 

Thank you for your inputs!

[191x7]

34 minutes ago, RomHeu said:

Until I got to diagnose one of those PCs, it was running BIOS version 1.30. Updating the BIOS is one of the first things I tried, it's now running latest version 1.50, but it still hangs or BSODs after a few minutes of CSGO.

 

A few overnight unlimited tests, I don't remember the number of tests, but I do remember 100% PASS.

 

Regarding MCE, at least in the sense of letting the CPU run at higher wattage for longer period of times (PL1?), it seems that enabling it is the "default" for most youtubers like LTT, GamersNexus, etc., isn't it? A bit like XMP.

 

Anyway I do have BSODs with Cinebench even with MCE disabled. What else should I check?

 

Thank you for your inputs!

Check the drives using Hard Disk Sentinel.

Check for malware using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Check for driver updates using Iobit driver booster.

[RomHeu]

For my tests, I used a brand new Samsung 980 SSD, but I'll try Hard Disk Sentinel just in case.

 

My tests were done with two successive fresh installations of Windows 11 and then Windows 10, so malwares are excluded.

 

I thought driver update softwares did more harm than good, but these are temporary Windows installations so I can try!

 

Any other suggestions?

[Harmsway1283]

I’ve read about people having success with stabilizing these X299 systems by enabling Adaptive Voltage and setting the offset to .025, might be worth a shot.