Random system restarts

QuantumSingularity · April 25

Okay guys, i have a strange problem with a system i've built a bit less than a year ago. First here are the specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 420 72.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 CARBON MAX WIFI II ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6800 CL34 Memory
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte GAMING OC GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card
Case: Phanteks ECLIPSE G500A DRGB ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic PRIME TX-1600 ATX 3.0 1600 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

The issue is that recently the system started rebooting on itself during gaming. The guy brought it to me i spent like half a day running any game i could think of w/o a hitch and then all of a sudden while in ACC, it rebooted out of the blue. No error messages, temperature well within limits. Then i tried running another game and as soon as i launched it, the system rebooted. First thought was PSU, changed it, with my Focus GX 1000, but the problem persisted. Went on and reseated every component - memory, CPU, GPU - the same. Decided to do clean install of Windows, with fresh and latest drivers for everything, the first game i launched worked for about 5 minutes and rebooted again. Loaded BIOS default settings - the same. Did a memtest - all is ok, FurMark runs flawlessly, but i found something i haven't experienced before - when i stress the CPU with Prime95 and at the same time the GPU with FurMark the sound starts to crackle, like in the old days when we would get a freeze/lag in a game and for a second the sound lags. Haven't seen that one before and not sure if it's another clue or just a side effect of the CPU and GPU both loaded at 100%. As mentioned all of the drivers are the latest there are, BIOS is up to date, all the usual suspects are checked and the only thing i can't actually test is the motherboard, because i don't have another Z790 mobo. I've built this Intel system only because the guy i built if for denies the existence of anything but Intel, a top tier fanboy, otherwise everything else in the last year and a half is AMD and that's why i don't have another motherboard. So any ideas where to look next?

BoomerDutch · April 25

Man I'm reading a book here, Jokes aside.

Windows rebooting must happen for some reason have you checked your event manager if it rebooted then surely it should leave note in event manager?

About stresstest.

It does sound like motherboard isn't holding up with such load maybe that's the issue?

Do you have another motherboard you could swap and try?

QuantumSingularity · April 25

Currently no other modern Intel mobo. And i kinda don't wanna order one just for the sake of testing, so any way of testing the mobo would really help.

QuantumSingularity · April 26

I think i've found the culprit. Decided to do another 4 passes with MemTest and while the first 4 passes found no issues, the 2nd round showed 4 Errors in Test 8 - memory address; 3 in pass 2 and 1 in pass 3. Decided to do another 4 passes - again 4 errors in test 8; 2 in pass 2 and 2 in pass 3. Another 4 runs ran w/o a fail, but the next batch again revealed 4 errors in test 8 and again divided in pass 2 and 3 and so on. So i guess that's why the instability is so unpredictable and random. Issued an RMA ticket for the memory and waiting for their response now. So i guess you guys keep that in mind the next time you encounter random instability issues.

P.S

And before you ask - yes i did 2 more rounds or 8 passes with XMP disabled at default setting and still got 4 errors in test 8.